Nominations please, for the all asshole scale

[Gob]

Wampanoag has, too.

By Andrew's definition too!

The Wampanoag originally spoke a dialect of the Massachusett-Wampanoag language, which belongs to the Algonquian language family. The first Bible published in the colonies was a translation into Wampanoag by the missionary John Eliot in 1663. He created an orthography, which he taught the Wampanoag. Many became literate, using Wampanoag for letters, deeds and other historic documents that form the largest corpus in a written Native American language.

The rapid decline of speakers of the Wampanoag language began after the American Revolution. The historians Neal Salisbury and Colin G. Calloway note that at this time, New England Native American communities suffered from huge gender imbalances due to premature male deaths, especially due to warfare and maritime activity. Many Wampanoag women were forced to marry outside their linguistic groups, making it extremely difficult for them to maintain the various Wampanoag dialects.

Currently English speaking, since 1993 the Wampanoag have been working on a language revival led by the Wôpanâak (Wampanoag) Language Reclamation Project, a collaboration of several tribes and bands led by co-founder and director Jessie Little Doe Baird. A few children have become the first native speakers of Wôpanâak in more than 100 years. The project is training adult teachers to reach more children and to develop a curriculum for a Wôpanâak-based school. Baird has compiled a 10,000-word dictionary from university collections of colonial documents in Wôpanâak, as well as writing a grammar, collections of stories, and other books

[Andrew D]

"On this version ...."

So what supports that version?

Ken?

I'll take dictionaries and linguists over Ken, thanks.

[Andrew D]

Here's the quoted (but not cited here) Wikipedia version:

A few children have become the first native speakers of Wôpanâak in more than 100 years.[11]

11.^ a b c d Jeffrey Mifflin, "Saving a Language: A rare book in MIT's archives helps linguists revive a long-unused Native American language", Technology Review, May/June 2008, accessed 18 November 2011

Here is the cited source.

Anyone care to show us where that cited source says that "a few children have become the first native speakers of Wopanaak in more than 100 years"?

What the cited source actually says -- and so many people hate being confronted with what a cited source actually says -- is

And Baird is raising her three-year-old daughter, Mae Alice, to be bilingual, making her the first native speaker of Wôpanâak for seven generations.

But "bilingual" and "native speaker" are not synonymous. (Unless you believe that with some schooling, I could become a "native speaker" of, say, Spanish.)

Just more gullible people accepting what Wikipedia claims that a source says without bothering to find out what the source actually says ....

[Andrew D]

I have shown that Cornish is a living language, one which died out, and was then resurrected.

You have shown that Cornish died out and that it may someday be resurrected.

Good luck to it. I hope that it is someday resurrected.

[Gob]

If it is used by 2000 people, and is being learned by far more, it cannot in any way be considered "dead."

[Andrew D]

But what else should we expect from someone who lives a lie every day?

What lie?

Lord Jim's claim to be a conservative.

[Gob]

Cornwall Music Festival

Entries are being sought to the Cornish language categories at Cornwall Music Festival next year.

The festival will be held at Truro Methodist Church and the Cornish language competitions will be around late morning/early afternoon on Saturday 17th March 2012.

In previous years there have been two competitions: one for a piece of prose, verse or a Bible reading in Cornish by students up to Grade 4; and the other for prose, verse or Bible readings in Cornish by speakers beyond Grade 4. This year, in consultation with MAGA, the festival is adding a third competition aimed at giving students of the Cornish language an opportunity to practice for their exams by performing dialogues between two people, which can either be scripted or improvised.

If you would like to enter any of the Cornish categories, please contact Michael Edwards for a copy of the syllabus and entry form at Chy Menestrouthy, 1 The Cedars, Truro, TR1 2FD, tel. 01872 270474 or e-mail michael.edwards49@btinternet.com. The closing date for entries is 14th January 2012.

[Gob]

The Council of Europe's Charter for Regional or Minority Languages

In November 2002, after a seven-year campaign by Cornish organisations and local authorities, the United Kingdom government specified Cornish under Part II of the Council of Europe's Charter for Regional or Minority Languages.

Under the terms of the Charter, the government is committed to 'base its policies, legislation and practice' on a list of nine objectives and principles which, for example, express recognition of Cornish as an expression of cultural wealth and support resolute action to promote the language. The existence of Cornish as an emblem of regional distinctiveness was an important factor in Cornwall being awarded Objective 1 status.

So in the fields of the arts and tourism promotion of the language may be used to give added economic and cultural value.

These could include signage or closer links between tourism and the language to encourage the sense of Cornwall being 'different'.

[Gob]

On 12 May 2005, Andrew George became the first MP to swear his oath of allegiance to the Queen in Cornish. Before joining the Liberal Democrats he was a member of Mebyon Kernow, and was one of the founder members of the Cornish Constitutional Convention, campaigning for a Cornish Assembly. He has been married to Jill Elizabeth Marshall, a nurse, since 1987 and they have a son (Davy) and a daughter (Morvah, born 1987) and live in Hayle

[Gob]

Lord Jim's claim to be a conservative.

Oh, that's all? I'm sure he can live with that.

[Andrew D]

And still no evidence that people are learning Cornish as a first language.

[Andrew D]

Lord Jim's claim to be a conservative.

Oh, that's all? I'm sure he can live with that.

Live with it?

He lives on it.

[Andrew D]

Or off of it, depending on one's idomatic preference.

[quaddriver]

Then you shouldn't have any problems walking into a Cornish bar and telling the locals that theirs is a "novelty language" should you Quad?

.

Why not? apparently they would not understand a word I said should I use the cornish language.

Again, you are posting confused, A few people (out of how many?) playing around with the cornish language 100+ years after it died it eerily similar to a few people (out of how many) playing around with tube radios.

Lettuce count:

1) used to be in vogue? check
2) died out when something better came along? check
3) complete understanding of the intricacies possible without any of the original architects being around? check
4) Modern people showing an interest? check
5) possible to educate others about it? check
6) small, yet countable portion of the population participating? check
7) the topic is still not mainstream or re-adopted. check.
8) for the hell of it, modern people incorporate the topic in a limited way, for no other reason than they can? check

[Andrew D]

People learning it as a first -- i.e., native -- language -- uncheck.

[quaddriver]

Which sole single source Quaddy?

at the time or writing, and until a post was changed, the source that the language was being taught as claimed was someone from some school on saturday or whatever. Andrew dug a little deeper in his rebuttal post.

I still have yet to see Andrews findings rebutted outside of insulting him. Like I said, you all can just CALL The guy and get clarification. But I suspect what you might be told is not what you want to hear.

[quaddriver]

On this version of the ‘corpus picture’ then, Cornish counts as going extinct and then being resurrected because there is a group of people who identify as a distinctive Cornish group, and there is mutual intelligibility among the members of the group. They all understand the Cornish utterances. In particular, I take it as a necessary condition on the success of the resurrection project that if an 18th Century native speaker of Cornish were somehow transported to the present day, they could converse without difficulty with people who claim to speak Cornish now. The per force hypothetical intelligibility to one of the earlier speakers of Cornish is what allows us to say that it is the same Cornish the modern group is speaking.

Oddly, change a few words around and we find tube radios are also ressurected. Just dont touch the chassis.

[quaddriver]

People learning it as a first -- i.e., native -- language -- uncheck.

People getting their first radio from best buy having tubes......

exactly.

[Andrew D]

If it is used by 2000 people, and is being learned by far more, it cannot in any way be considered "dead."

So Sanskrit is not dead either. It is used by far more people than is Cornish, and it is being learned by far more people than is Cornish. And Sanskrit is used by people who are the descendants of those who learned Sanskrit as a first language. And Sanskrit is used by those descendants who are (and whose ancestors uninterruptedly have been) living where those who learned Sanskrit as a first language used to live.

I've said repeatedly that if you want to take that position and define the relevant terms accordingly, you can do that. But you have not.

And I don't see why.

So, a straightforward question:

Is Sanskrit a dead language or a living language?

[Gob]

Which sole single source Quaddy?

at the time or writing, and until a post was changed, the source that the language was being taught as claimed was someone from some school on saturday or whatever. Andrew dug a little deeper in his rebuttal post.

No one claimed that of course, you have to lie do you not?

It was posted without comment.