Comments on: You say Tlingit, I say Hlingit

You say Tlingit, I say Hlingit

msalt — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 12:36:17 -0800

After years of work, New Zealand scholar Sally-Ann Lambert just released volume 2 of her 9-volume linguistics series. "Hlingit Word Encyclopedia: The Origin of Copper" is a 630-page encyclopedia of the SE Alaskan native language Tlingit. She traveled to Sitka for a mid-January book release and found one little problem: none of the Tlingit native speakers or scholars there recognized the language in it.

Lambert published the encyclopedia through her imprint WE International, "the innovator in indigenous language resources." Their web page says: For the Hlingit language learner, the book offers a much easier way to learn the grammar. Observe the grammar in the story, see the breakdown of complex word parts made clear and sensible according to a native perspective. I am an outsider, but I have the wisdom to know this. Partly because I'm coming at it from a more ancient viewpoint than anyone else. That's my mode of operation. Lambert told KCAW radio: "I think often I'm led spiritually, and I don't make my decisions with the full knowledge of the situation. ... To some degree I think I was trying to bring my mother and father back together through my Celtic heritage. My father had a little French, and my mother had a little Scottish. And I thought that when they lost their culture, they lost their reason for being together. And I think that deep in my heart I was looking for that family togetherness, and I wanted to find that through language."

By: KokuRyu

KokuRyu — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 12:38:43 -0800

This is hilarious. We need to summon Rumple.

By: jonp72

jonp72 — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 12:40:00 -0800

So it's like a real life version of Monty Python's Hungarian phrasebook sketch? I wonder what "My nipples explode with delight" is in Tlingit.

By: Sidhedevil

Sidhedevil — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 12:42:08 -0800

If there was a Dunning-Kruger Olympics, I think this lady would be a strong contender. I wonder how accurate her Maori work is? I can just picture her lecturing her Maori neighbors about how they're speaking their own language wrong.

By: goethean

goethean — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 12:45:11 -0800

As someone whose attempts to speak Hindi are invariably met with hysterical laughter from native speakers, I sympathize.

By: msalt

msalt — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 12:47:02 -0800

Goethean: no offense, but perhaps you should put your Hindi encyclopedia project on the back burner.

By: Forktine

Forktine — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 12:50:53 -0800

Wow. Just wow.

By: roger ackroyd

roger ackroyd — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 12:52:29 -0800

Sniglet speakers have a word for this type: gaffedemics.

By: msalt

msalt — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 12:53:41 -0800

Sidhedevil -- I went to kindergarten in Mexico, where my parents were then living. People were very sweet to this very blond, high-energy 5 year old and let me join in the folkloric dance performance. Only problem is, in the middle of the show I stopped my classmates to tell them they were doing it wrong. That's when I learned you can be right and very wrong at the same time.

By: OmieWise

OmieWise — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 12:57:11 -0800

Wow. I wish they'd gotten some reaction from her, unless she's locked in a psych ward now.

By: 2N2222

2N2222 — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 12:58:00 -0800

WTF? Outsider art? Outsider lingusitics? I admire her ballsyness.

By: maryr

maryr — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 13:01:25 -0800

msalt - you are blessedly lucky to have learned that lesson at 5 years old. Some people go a lifetime without learning it.

By: rory

rory — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 13:02:26 -0800

This is terribly sad. Lambert, who has no advanced degrees and no university position, admits that she produced the book outside the worlds of Tlingit culture and traditional academia. It would surely be possible to produce something useful from either of those domains, but you need to start from at least one of them. The next time I'm tempted to rail against the strictures of academic research, I'll try to remember this.

By: steef

steef — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 13:02:31 -0800

It's got a preview on Google Books. Am I reading this right? She's suggesting that Tlingit has its origins in Scottish Gaelic (p. xvii).

By: Floydd

Floydd — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 13:03:40 -0800

I'm sure there's a word for that level of cluelessness. In Tlingit.

By: likeso

likeso — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 13:05:22 -0800

I, not having full knowledge of the situation, feel a spiritual calling to compile a - much-needed and sorely lacking - dictionary and grammar of the Spanish language. I am uniquely qualified to do so by reason of my unrelated ethnicity. I believe it will help my sister and brother-in-law to remain married.

By: msalt

msalt — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 13:05:35 -0800

msalt - you are blessedly lucky to have learned that lesson -- that you can be right and very wrong at the same time -- at 5 years old. Some people go a lifetime without learning it. Thanks, but to be honest, I kind of forgot this lesson during my first marriage.

By: Think_Long

Think_Long — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 13:06:55 -0800

This is pure outsider art and I am convinced that it's worthy of my library - but I can't figure out how to order it for the life of me. hope me?

By: KokuRyu

KokuRyu — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 13:08:19 -0800

It's got a preview on Google Books. The book looks like it was self-published using Microsoft Word. The "Serendipity" and "Foreward" sections contain looniness in each and every sentence. Just unbelievable.

By: yoink

yoink — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 13:09:45 -0800

This just seems really sad to me. I mean, it would be hilarious if it were some money-rich institution that had hired a fast-talking grifter to put together a definitive dictionary and the whole thing had blown up in their faces. But this is just a sad deluded woman who did a huge labor of love and self-published it, only to make herself a laughing stock.

By: vorfeed

vorfeed — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 13:10:19 -0800

Swanton is indeed a classic, early ethnography of Tlingit, and a good starting point for the study of Tlingit culture, from a western perspective. "The Origin of Copper" is one of the stories he recorded, and Lambert uses it as a basis to parse the grammar and culture of the Tlingit. This probably wasn't the best strategy. Holy shit. She "based" the entire 600 page "encyclopedia" on one story in one book written by a non-native speaker in 1909. That's not linguistics, not even as much as the study of Klingon is. In fact, I'd say it's much less like linguistics than Frithaes is... and that was one guy making mp3 files of the way rabbits might talk, if they could talk, based on a one-page list of words in Watership Down.

By: KokuRyu

KokuRyu — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 13:10:53 -0800

"The mouth in French speech is essentially Neandertal." God, this book full of quotable non-sequitors.

By: Sidhedevil

Sidhedevil — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 13:11:08 -0800

It was indeed self-published. I love the courtesy of the actual Tlingit speakers in that piece. Instead of pointing and laughing, they're very soberly discussing the problems with the book. I am sure that after the reporter went away, they just sat around giggling uncontrollably. Because I would!

By: mumimor

mumimor — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 13:11:28 -0800

Ouch. sometimes I read the comments before the the post because there are some sorts of embarrassment I can't live with. This seems to be a prime example. Please someone who has read the post convince me otherwise.

By: msalt

msalt — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 13:12:35 -0800

Am I reading this right? She's suggesting that Tlingit has its origins in Scottish Gaelic. Yes, good catch. That's the "whole new word history that I found." Based on Neandertal pronunciation, no less.

By: Faint of Butt

Faint of Butt — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 13:12:49 -0800

This almost sounds like a successor to English As She Is Spoke.

By: Nelson

Nelson — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 13:13:53 -0800

I hear the Eskimo have hundreds of words for "ignorant outsider who presumes to describe our culture".

By: theodolite

theodolite — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 13:15:56 -0800

Not that all self-published books by cranks are necessarily worthless -- I have one about Texas outsider artist Charles A. A. Dellschau, who is obscure enough that it's pretty hard to track down any information about him and his work. Dellschau created hundreds of watercolor paintings of invented airships from 1900 to about 1920, tying them into an intricate narrative about the fictional "Sonora Aero Club," who was supposedly flying them in secret. The first half of the book is an excellent and well-cited overview of his life and work. The second half discusses how the Sonora Aero Club actually existed and was using UFO technology.

By: yoink

yoink — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 13:18:03 -0800

I hear the Eskimo have hundreds of words for "ignorant outsider who presumes to describe our culture". Yeah. They probably have words for "sad deluded person" too. Those would seem to be the relevant ones here. This really isn't a "ethnocentric, arrogant Westerner fails to understand indigenous culture" story, no matter how many of those elements are actually included in it.

By: IvoShandor

IvoShandor — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 13:21:17 -0800

Yeah. They probably have words for "sad deluded person" too. Those would seem to be the relevant ones here. This really isn't a "ethnocentric, arrogant Westerner fails to understand indigenous culture" story, no matter how many of those elements are actually included in it. I don't know what it is. The links don't really help parse it either. We can say she is sad and deluded or ethnocentric and arrogant, I am certain either could apply, depending on the exact circumstance. Personally, I am not going to pick one over the other based on a throw-away press release quote meant to promote the book. Either way you cut it, shit's fucked up.

By: Nelson

Nelson — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 13:21:44 -0800

BTW, MeFi's own languagehat blogged this story a few days ago; the comments are interesting. And here's some 2008 commentary on her Maori book.

By: tommasz

tommasz — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 13:23:46 -0800

Is it Tlingit or Hlingit?

By: rory

rory — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 13:24:41 -0800

This really isn't a "ethnocentric, arrogant Westerner fails to understand indigenous culture" story, no matter how many of those elements are actually included in it. Yes - visit her website and you'll see that one of the nine books she's planning is on English.

By: Bwithh

Bwithh — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 13:28:49 -0800

Sally wishes to offer her service as traditional druidh to selected persons who will act as financial patron. This is a service as a kind of modern druidh buddy to assist you in your life during the period of patronage... Sally offers counseling, including her own special form of Celtic numerology based on your childhood memories, yoga and postural advice, diagnosis of your health by her hand energy, cultural and language assistance, sounding-board and history / news as a druidh, guardian angel wisdom, astrology, herbal and dietary advice, minerals as well as healthy food preparation, and other skills or knowledge.

By: Ideefixe

Ideefixe — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 13:29:04 -0800

I'm more impressed that she's a druidh for hire.

By: KokuRyu

KokuRyu — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 13:30:13 -0800

I hear the Eskimo have hundreds of words for "ignorant outsider who presumes to describe our culture". This is a cruel thing to say (although probably no more cruel than my previous comments in this thread). And, just to be irritating, it's just not true that "Eskimos" have hundreds of words for x.

By: Sidhedevil

Sidhedevil — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 13:34:27 -0800

Is it Tlingit or Hlingit? It's spelled Tlingit (while writing in English) by the folks within that community (including elders of the Tlingit Nation) who are involved in language preservation initiatives. This is one of the things I find bizarrely arrogant about Ms. Lambert's project. To hear pronunciations by a Tlingit Elder and linguist, check out the audio links at the bottom of this page.

By: No-sword

No-sword — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 13:38:17 -0800

That's not linguistics, not even as much as the study of Klingon is. Hey! Klingon is a perfectly valid subject of linguistic inquiry. Tommasz: Apparently the "Hlingit" orthography is also from Swanton.

By: BrotherCaine

BrotherCaine — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 13:38:57 -0800

Not so cunning Hlingit.

By: Theta States

Theta States — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 13:44:36 -0800

I hear the ~~Eskimo~~ Inuit have hundreds of words for "ignorant outsider who presumes to describe our culture". I hear they have 50.

By: nonmerci

nonmerci — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 13:45:06 -0800

The French section of the book, as linked in the Google preview, is full of grammatical errors anyone with even a moderate grasp on the written language would avoid. So much wow right now.

By: RogerB

RogerB — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 13:46:49 -0800

Someone get this woman in touch with David Wilson and have her put together a "Hlingit for Beginners" exhibition at the Museum of Jurassic Technology. It'd fit perfectly next to the Cone of Obliscence.

By: Sidhedevil

Sidhedevil — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 13:47:52 -0800

it's just not true that "Eskimos" have hundreds of words for x Well, it depends what "x" is. The languages spoken by people who self-identify as "Eskimo"* do, as a group, tend to have more different words expressing variations of meaning than English. Yup'ik has a very complex taxonomy of cooking words that broke my head as an English-speaking student trying to understand it. Also, like most agglutinative languages, meaning is conveyed with suffixing and infixing and prefixing in ways that English speakers find hard to distinguish, so different forms of the same word sound different to us. Hence, I think, the root of some of the "hundreds of words for whatever" claims. I think it's strange when people seem to use another culture's greater lexical specificity as an alienating or distancing thing, or as an assertion of cultural superiority to the more lexically specific culture. To me, having more words for things seems superior if anything. *In the US, there are many Alaska Natives who prefer "Eskimo" to "Inuit" as a self-identification.

By: EmpressCallipygos

EmpressCallipygos — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 13:49:51 -0800

I keep on wanting to somehow parse this as an episode of Northern Exposure. Seriously -- you've got the opportunity for Joel and Maggie to get into a whole fight over her methodology (Joel argues about the importance of factual accuracy, Maggie argues about how alternative methods of research can be just as good and Joel is yet again blinded by his insistence upon canonical methods); Shelly and Ed could get into some spaced-out conversation about it at The Brick where Shelly doesn't really get what's going on and Ed relates it all to a Fellini film; Marilyn has a one-liner that provides a wealth of insight; and Chris Stevens sums it all up with a philosophical rambly monologue about how fighting over what's the right way to say something is all a matter of opinion anyway before playing "Let's Call The Whole Thing Off" at KHBR and we cut to commercial.

By: jhandey

jhandey — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 13:50:47 -0800

On the one hand, I can't help but feel bad for Ms. Lambert. I can only imagine how absolutely humiliating this must be for her, especially after pouring so much time and energy into what was, obviously, a labor of love for her. On the other hand, to paraphrase Robin Williams in "Good Morning Vietnam", under "condescending outsider" in the dictionary, I think it'll have to be revised to say "see Sally-Ann Lambert". I can't say much more than the (often Tlingit) commenters on the KCRW link, but I wonder if Ms. Lambert has heard of the Cherohonkee, and if there's an equivalent in New Zealand.

By: Sidhedevil

Sidhedevil — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 13:51:01 -0800

or as an assertion of cultural superiority to the more lexically specific culture In other words, "Language X has more words for thing y than English does" leads me to the conclusion that English's word-hoard is understocked on this one, not that the speakers of Language X are some kind of mythical creatures like fairies or gnomes. But I know the "a million words for snow" meme is generally used to suggest the latter.

By: clarknova

clarknova — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 13:54:36 -0800

If there was a Dunning-Kruger Olympics, I think this lady would be a strong contender. Fremdscham! I've been looking for this word for years! I knew German had to have one!

By: Nelson

Nelson — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 14:00:00 -0800

And, just to be irritating, it's just not true that "Eskimos" have hundreds of words for x. Wow, really, I had no idea! I wonder how I ever turned that hoary old expression into a joke about a fake linguist? I guess I will feel bad for Ms. Lambert if she is truly mentally ill and incapacitated. But we don't really know. So I prefer to mock her here as an extreme example of soft-headed new ageism, the same garbage that opposes energy-saving power meters and allows kids to die of vaccinatable diseases. Everyone's "wisdom" is not equally true.

By: yoink

yoink — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 14:04:38 -0800

I can only imagine how absolutely humiliating this must be for her Well, she's probably saved from that to an extent by the very fact that she's completely deluded. I mean, she obviously has no idea what actual language scholarship would look like. "Outsider art" is probably the best category to put this in. I still find the notion that this exercise was done "arrogantly" bizarre when you see the absolute heart-on-sleeve naivete of her writing. It's like hearing some loon on the sidewalk ranting about how the Martians are controlling the Fed and denouncing their "arrogance" for thinking they know more than real astronomers or economists.

By: clarknova

clarknova — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 14:08:05 -0800

Holy shit this woman is a total space case. I've met some pretty far-gone new agers but she is fucking out there.

By: JaredSeth

JaredSeth — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 14:08:26 -0800

Amusingly enough, I'm seeing this at the top of her webpage:

%@LANGUAGE="JAVASCRIPT" CODEPAGE="936"%

By: Sidhedevil

Sidhedevil — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 14:09:27 -0800

It's like hearing some loon on the sidewalk ranting about how the Martians are controlling the Fed and denouncing their "arrogance" for thinking they know more than real astronomers or economists. Be sure to skip my Lyndon LaRouche threads, then.

By: Sidhedevil

Sidhedevil — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 14:09:59 -0800

Amusingly enough, I'm seeing this at the top of her webpage: %@LANGUAGE="JAVASCRIPT" CODEPAGE="936"% It's her gift of ancient wisdom to the computer people.

By: RogerB

RogerB — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 14:11:07 -0800

If JavaScript is your language, you can save it by understanding it well. Let it heal your heart.

By: FatherDagon

FatherDagon — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 14:19:57 -0800

Fremdscham! I've been looking for this word for years! I knew German had to have one! The usual American term for that same feeling is 'douche chills'.

By: His thoughts were red thoughts

His thoughts were red thoughts — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 14:20:08 -0800

From the article: Lambert... admits that she produced the book outside the worlds of Tlingit culture and traditional academia. I think often I'm led spiritually, and I don't make my decisions with the full knowledge of the situation. So. Much. Fail. Eyes. Rolling. Uncontrollably [gasp] [death rattle].

By: Edgewise

Edgewise — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 14:21:56 -0800

But I know the "a million words for snow" meme is generally used to suggest the latter. I always heard that canard used to explain how a language's vocabulary tends to reflect the users' environment and culture.

By: Floydd

Floydd — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 14:24:14 -0800

I always heard that canard used to explain how a language's vocabulary tends to reflect the users' environment and culture. Which is why MetaFilter only has one word for "snowflake."

By: clarknova

clarknova — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 14:27:14 -0800

The usual American term for that same feeling is 'douche chills'. That just gave me fremdscham.

By: Flashman

Flashman — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 14:31:35 -0800

Lambert wasn't quite sure she understood language, but decided to just Wlingit.

By: effugas

effugas — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 14:31:35 -0800

I occasionally play completely outside of my normal domains. And then I very carefully approach people who actually do know what they're talking about, and try to calibrate. This is why. Ouch.

By: kmz

kmz — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 14:36:22 -0800

I always heard that canard used to explain how a language's vocabulary tends to reflect the users' environment and culture. That's a common misconception of the Tapir-Worf Hypothesis (first formulated when Ambassador Worf was stationed on DS9). People think that Worf was talking about many words Cardassians have for war, but that's actually a quirky mistranslation. In fact Worf was talking about just how darn cute tapirs are.

By: tommasz

tommasz — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 14:37:38 -0800

a "Hlingit for Beginners" exhibition at the Museum of Jurassic Hechnology FTFY

By: Infinite Jest

Infinite Jest — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 14:47:55 -0800

I wonder how accurate her Maori work is? I can just picture her lecturing her Maori neighbors about how they're speaking their own language wrong. Had a quick look on Google Books. It has a section called 'Etymology - corresponding Samoan vocabulary', which seems odd, Samoan not being the closest related language to Maori (Wikipedia). But then Lambert was born in Samoa.... Her "special message from the author" looks to be a mihi, which is basically a greeting where you say who you are and where you come from (both in terms of family/ancestry and place). For some reason she uses the English words 'Scottish' and 'French', which again seems odd to me (when there are perfectly good equivalent words in Maori). I don't know enough about the language to say any more, but I tried searching the book for definitions of a few words that I know, and it's missing, just plain missing, some very basic words. Pretty poor stuff, from what I can tell.

By: jfuller

jfuller — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 14:55:22 -0800

> Which is why MetaFilter only has one word for "snowflake." If metafilter were an agglutinative language it would also have specialsnowflake.

By: nicebookrack

nicebookrack — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 14:56:04 -0800

For her next project, Sally-Ann Lambert joins original author Pierre Menard to produce a landmark translation of the Tlingit literary classic, Don Quixote.

By: Saxon Kane

Saxon Kane — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 14:56:15 -0800

I think this is pretty amazing. It's like a wonderfully Borgian piece of outsider scholarship/art.

By: Saxon Kane

Saxon Kane — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 15:05:13 -0800

Anyone up for a Metafilter project? I'm thinking a group of us learn this language and then found a new civilization on a deserted island. We'll check back in 150 years.

By: jiawen

jiawen — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 15:07:29 -0800

Maybe she'll follow this up with a few translations of the Daode Jing.

By: Saxon Kane

Saxon Kane — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 15:14:45 -0800

Incidentally: reminiscent of Mutant Message from Down Under, although it doesn't seem [as] blatantly exploitative.

By: asnider

asnider — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 15:22:36 -0800

Anyone up for a Metafilter project? I'm thinking a group of us learn this language and then found a new civilization on a deserted island. We'll check back in 150 years. That depends. Can I be Supreme Emperor For Life?

By: cybercoitus interruptus

cybercoitus interruptus — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 15:32:55 -0800

From the second link: I wanted to do 52 different Native American nations' languages in one reader. As a medicine woman, I intuited the spiritual gifts of the different Native American nations. I wanted to bring these together. I discovered that although I had a special insight into the origin of Native American language, I still had to go through the whole learning process for each language. She discovered that she still had to go through the whole learning process for each language. Through this book, a new unity of First Nations people is possible. For those who love the land and its indigenous people, a new productiveness can emerge to heal the people and the land. It also needs a reversal of GM, and a knowledge of nightshades for eco-wisdom. The languages, the people and the land unite in a shared ecology, and the ecosystem must be understood as the medicine man understands it. It's sort of like reading a Dr Bronner's label but Dr Bronner's is fun. This, this...wholesale substitution of intuition for reality is disturbing.

By: Saxon Kane

Saxon Kane — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 15:40:31 -0800

This, this...wholesale substitution of intuition for reality is ~~disturbing.~~ politics FTFY.

By: TheKM

TheKM — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 15:47:09 -0800

That depends. Can I be Supreme Emperor For Life? Well, we'll have to take turns.. but you can have the first one.

By: Sidhedevil

Sidhedevil — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 16:06:38 -0800

As a medicine woman, I intuited the spiritual gifts of the different Native American nations. To me, this is arrogance. It may be delusion as well. But it isn't happening outside a context; it's happening in the context of Native people who have spent their lives being told what to think about their own language and their own cultural heritage by white outsiders. Giving a nation a "gift" of a horribly mangled "encyclopedia" of the language they have worked hard to preserve--without any acknowledgement of the years of effort and sacrifice they have invested in preserving and codifying the language, including many years in which this work was done in the face of opposition and resistance from the larger society and government entities--is a pretty arrogant thing to do. If the reason she cannot see how arrogant and offensive her action is is because she is living with mental illness that impairs her cognitive functions, I am sorry for her and hope she can get help to resolve those issues. But none of this shit is happening in a vacuum. If this is a delusional fixation, it's one that takes place in a context of a society filled with "What These People Need Is A Honky" memes.

By: Uther Bentrazor

Uther Bentrazor — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 16:09:42 -0800

Those internet kids have been misusing the term; this is what an "epic fail" looks like.

By: plastic_animals

plastic_animals — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 16:17:09 -0800

If you think this is bad you should have seen what happened when she said 'mattress' in front of her husband.

By: benito.strauss

benito.strauss — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 17:21:57 -0800

'Sad' is the first word that came to mind, but seeing quotes from her like this:

As a medicine woman, I intuited the spiritual gifts of the different Native American nations. I wanted to bring these together. I discovered that although I had a special insight into the origin of Native American language, I still had to go through the whole learning process for each language;

made me think 'arrogant'. And then I went on to 'angry', because I love the art of the Tlingit (and Haida, and other Northwestern groups), and instead of people finding out about that they're finding out about some delusional Kiwi. So, to try to remedy that:

A lovely heron.
Another beautiful bird.
When you visit Vancouver, go to the UBC Museum of Anthropology. In addition to some stunning totem poles, you can see this carving of raven coaxing the first men from the clam shell he found them cowering in (another view). It's 10 feet high and shares the back of the Canadian $20 bill.
A beautiful carved box.

I could go on and on, but let Google image search be your guide.

By: zeptoweasel

zeptoweasel — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 17:33:23 -0800

It's like a wonderfully Borgian piece of outsider scholarship/art. Do you mean it's reminiscent of Borges or of the Borg? Because I can kind of see either.

By: spitbull

spitbull — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 17:37:27 -0800

Tlingit grammar is quite well described. Maybe she should have paid attention to academic linguistics after all.

By: spitbull

spitbull — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 17:44:03 -0800

Whoa. I just read the description of this on her "We International" website. This is a crazy person who has no technical knowledge of linguistics that I can discern, and a lot of what she says there would be offensive to many Native people I know on its face. Let's not confuse this with scholarship, please. It is New Age tripe.

By: spinifex23

spinifex23 — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 17:49:57 -0800

Who appears in the story: there is the girl who becomes a woman, shape-changer bear and the bear clan, the girl's family, her husbands who are sunbeams, her son who is also like a sunbeam (and who becomes a man), the girl her son marries, a cannibal, slaves, shape-changer canoes, and a grandmother mouse. And there are berries. Berries. WHAT.

By: wobh

wobh — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 17:51:24 -0800

I strongly second the recommendation of the UBC Museum of Anthropology.

By: delmoi

delmoi — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 18:15:14 -0800

In other words, "Language X has more words for thing y than English does" leads me to the conclusion that English's word-hoard is understocked on this one, not that the speakers of Language X are some kind of mythical creatures like fairies or gnomes. But I know the "a million words for snow" meme is generally used to suggest the latter.

It's not a million words for snow, it's something like a hundred or something, and the point is supposed to be that Eskimos deal with a lot of snow, so they a lot of terms for different types, like we have a lot of terms for highways and roads and stuff. Since English has at least 88 words for snow, so it's probably not impossible. I found this bit somewhat hilarious

Also I found this bit In 2007 I visited France, to stimulate my progress on the Gaul project. I stayed with WWOOF program gardeners, it was wonderful, and I learned and saw great things. I expect this book will be actually in French, so I'm having to improve my French. To do this, I've been reading French rather than English novels for the past three years. Generally, I choose Fred Vargas' detective novels.

By: Saxon Kane

Saxon Kane — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 18:28:41 -0800

Do you mean it's reminiscent of Borges or of the Borg? Borges. I think the adjectival form of Borg is just Borg.

By: Guernsey Halleck

Guernsey Halleck — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 19:08:27 -0800

As amusing as this story is, it also makes me a bit angry. I'm a huge proponent of the idea that good research can be done outside of a formal academic setting, and that independent scholarship should be taken seriously. People like Sally-Anne Lambert just reinforce the view that learning and research should be left to the ivory tower of academia, and make it more difficult for legitimate independent scholarship to reach the mainstream.

By: clvrmnky

clvrmnky — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 19:26:48 -0800

Wave your freak flag high, lady.

By: el_lupino

el_lupino — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 19:34:06 -0800

I'm late to the pile-on here, but there's a mention of Kittemagund on page x of the foreword. She was a real figure who lived not far from my hometown, but would be oddly obscure to anyone not specifically interested in central Maryland and the Piscataway. Everything else seems to be from a fever dream, but that bit's... right, I guess?

By: kjs3

kjs3 — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 21:44:42 -0800

This is the linguistic equivalent of homeopathy and crystal healing. Mere mockery is insufficient.

By: No-sword

No-sword — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 23:48:33 -0800

Borges. I think the adjectival form of Borg is just Borg. Yes, in Middle Borg it was /borgd/ but by Early Modern Borg the -d prefix had been assimilated.

By: otherthings_

otherthings_ — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 23:54:22 -0800

I've always assumed that "English as She is Spoke" was an artifact of its time, a particular type of hilarious failure that could never possibly be repeated in our technological age. This woman has proved me, happily, wrong. I'm going to enjoy probing this text for completely novel shapes and textures of crackpot craziness. It's safer and a lot less disturbing than my previous mainline source for cognitive dissonance, listening to U.S. Republican presidential candidates.

By: No-sword

No-sword — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Suffix.

By: Mr. Bad Example

Mr. Bad Example — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 04:36:54 -0800

Metafilter: And there are berries.

By: Mr. Bad Example

Mr. Bad Example — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 04:59:40 -0800

Also: Am I reading this right? She's suggesting that Tlingit has its origins in Scottish Gaelic Ohmygod ohmygod she is.

"I don't think anyone suspected Hlīngit could have come from Gàidhlig, but that's what I found, over 20 years ago."

The appendix to the book (starting around page 402) is a 160-plus-page massive vein of New Age crazy. She goes on about DNA, copper, how the Neanderthals spoke Gaelic, why iodine made us evolve into modern humans...it just goes on and on.

By: Saxon Kane

Saxon Kane — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 20:43:20 -0800

delmoi: That's 88 words FROM snow, not 88 words FOR snow. Important difference.

By: His thoughts were red thoughts

His thoughts were red thoughts — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 21:53:02 -0800

Do you mean it's reminiscent of Borges or of the Borg? Because I can kind of see either. ~~RESISTANCE~~ RESEARCH IS FUTILE. PEER REVIEW IS IRRELEVANT. LOGIC IS IRRELEVANT. YOUR ~~TECHNOLOGICAL AND BIOLOGICAL~~ CULTURAL DISTINCTIVENESS WILL BE ~~ADDED TO OUR OWN~~ MISREPRESENTED AND IGNORED.

By: Rhaomi

Rhaomi — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 22:48:53 -0800

Hello, amigos! El soy quando agunto! Ella balloona balunga espanyo! Did that sound Spanish to you? I bet that means something. And guess what? I've never had one lesson. It's just that I have a natural gift for Spanish. I was able to pick it up all by myself, "outside the system," if you will.

By: girl Mark

girl Mark — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 22:53:55 -0800

"Fremdscham"- OMG, German has a word for something my friends and I had to invent an English word for- 'embarrathy'- defined (by us, in the audience at an amateur performance) as 'uncomfortable feelings of empathy for someone else making a fool of themselves on stage'.