LINGUIST List 6.771

Sun 04 Jun 1995

Qs: Dialectology congress, Malayalam, Serrano and Hualapa

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Directory

1. Curt Woolhiser, Intl Congress of Dialectologists
2. Asha Rajan, Language issues for southwest Indian migrants
3. CAVEMAN -- San Bernardino, Calif. USA, Qs: Serrano and Hualapai

Dear Linguists,

I am posting this message for a colleague who does not have access to
email. His question: does anyone know when and where the next International
Congress of Dialectologists will be held?

Many thanks,

Curt Woolhiser

Department of Slavic Languages
University of Texas
Austin, TX 78713-7217

Tel.: work: (512) 471-3607
 home: (512) 302-0718
E-Mail: cfwoolhisermail.utexas.edu

Is there any information available on people from the state of Kerala
(speakers of Malayalam) who have migrated to other states/countries and the
language issues that they face? I'm after any papers/research/etc on
language behaviours (ie code-mixing/switching, incorporation of
non-Malayalam lexemes/grammar, "Malglish"(Malayalam & English) or
colloquialisms/slang that follow non-Malayalam word conjunctions eg:
andhi-thalla = dick-head) and on language issues facing migrant Malayalee
communities (ie language maintenance, language change etc). Does anyone
know of any good sources of information?

Asha Rajan
CENTRE FOR ABORIGINAL STUDIES
CURTIN UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY
PERTH WESTERN AUSTRALIA
AUSTRALIA
"As Kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame" (GM Hopkins)

I'm cross-posting this to LINGUIST and ENDANGERED-LANGUAGES-L, so
apologies if anyone gets two of these.

*****

Question 1: Serrano language (in San Bernardino, California,
 United States)

I have been searching without luck for anything regarding the
Serrano people and especially the Serrano language. I've been
able to find out that there remains *one* speaker of Serrano
left, but have had no luck so far in contacting her. You know
how that goes: A knows B, who knows C, whose aunt (D) is the
last speaker. (These are reliable people, so I feel confident
that D speaks Serrano; D's sister, who also spoke Serrano, died
recently.) I live about a mile from the San Manuel Indian
Reservation. The people there are Serrano, but most just know
they are "Indian," they don't know what "tribe." At the Tribal
Offices, the woman I spoke to was unaware that there had ever
been a Serrano language. The information I have so far comes
from anthropology/archaeology people and linguists working at the
Morongo Indian Reservation (Cahuilla, in Banning, California,
United States). I'm afraid that Serrano will be history within
the next couple of years. Does anyone know where I might find
information on the Serrano language or the people who once spoke
it?

*****

Question 2: Hypothetical Situation

D, above, is the last remaining speaker of Serrano. Her Serrano
would be an idiolect, her personal Serrano language. Suppose I
was able to capture all of her knowledge of the language before
she dies and write a descriptive grammar which was then used by
others to learn Serrano, and the language survived. (Wouldn't it
be nice if things worked that way!) Would the original idiolect
then be classified as a language? dialect? still an idiolect? If
Serrano would still be an idiolect, since my understanding of the
language would most likely be slightly different than D's, would
this be *my* ideolect, or *her* idiolect?

*****

Question 3: Hualapai language (in Peach Springs, Arizona,
 United States)

Soon, I will be moving to Peach Springs, Arizona, to the Hualapai
Indian Reservation. I will be living there for about three
months. The Hualapai language is still widely used in Peach
Springs (still a small group of people though), and I am going to
be doing a very intensive, crash course in Hualapai (two hours
per day, every day, with two native speakers, as well as basic
communication with other people outside my "learning" time). By
the end of my stay, I hope to be able to communicate with others,
but I'm pretty sure I won't completely master the language in
that short amount of time. My "official job" is setting up and
fixing the computer network for the school there, but I will also
be developing some computer applications in Hualapai (as opposed
to an English language interface like we are used to seeing). I
will also be working with the two native speakers to produce a
few books written in Hualapai. In addition to these books, I am
going to try to translate some public-domain children's classics,
for example _The Wonderful Wizard of Oz_, to help me with
learning the language, as well as providing great stories for the
kids there. I also plan on writing a journal of my learning of
the Hualapai language (adult L2 acquisition study). I am a
self-taught, amateur linguist -- i.e., I read a lot and pester
people with questions. The only formal education I have is a
10-week course in (English) language acquisition by children.

My question is, is there any interest outside the Hualapai
Reservation for the software, books, or journal? The books will
be printed and we will need to know how many copies to print
(i.e., just for use at the school, or extras for other people,
too). A new edition of the Hualapai Grammar has been finished
(the old edition is 8-1/2 x 11, 575 pages; I haven't seen the new
one yet), but not gone to the printers yet, and a dictionary is
in the making. The software and journal can be duplicated as
needed, but the books can be printed with Title VII funds
(government money) if they are for use at the school only, but we
will have to make other funding arrangements if the books are to
be sold to people outside the school. Is anyone interested?

*****

FYI

I developed a font for typing in Hualapai. It is *not* intended
to be a general-purpose, one-size-fits-all font, it is intended
to allow rapid typing in Hualapai. The font is a Times typeface.
Currently, I have TrueType and PostSrcipt versions for IBM-PC
compatible computers, and in the near future, Macintosh versions
of TrueType and PostScript fonts will be available. The SIL
(Summer Institute of Linguistics) and a couple of sites in
Germany have offered me space on their FTP computers for the
font. Any other FTP sites would be appreciated. When I get the
fonts uploaded, I'll post addresses to the lists. The font is
"postcard-ware," i.e., it is free, but you have to send us a
postcard from your hometown. :-)

*****

As is usual, I will post summaries of answers to my questions to
the list if there is sufficient interest. Thanks for wading
through this long-winded message.

Chuck Coker
CJCokerCSUPomona.Edu
CCokerIGC.APC.Org