Re: Caucasian langs (was Hello All!!)

On Monday, April 28, 2003, at 01:15  PM, Joe wrote:

> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "David Starner" <dvdeug@...>
> To: <CONLANG@...>
> Sent: Monday, April 28, 2003 7:45 PM
> Subject: Re: Caucasian langs (was Hello All!!)
>
>
>> On Mon, Apr 28, 2003 at 07:35:35PM +0400, Pavel Iosad wrote:
>>> Hello,
>>>
>>>>> As for understudied, that simply a misunderstanding.
>>>>
>>>> I second it. Soviet (Russian) school of linguistics did a great job
>>>> in
>>>> supporting minor languages.
>>>
>>> Unlike the government, sadly.
>>
>> In what way? I've read a little of the Soviet approach to languages,
>> and
>> it seem far more supporting then the US approach--okay, that's not
>> hard,
>> but what is it you think they did wrong?
>>
>
> Does the US support Native language projects in any way, anyway?
It depends on what you mean by "US" and what kind of project you had in
mind. The NSF, NEH, and NIH all support linguistic fieldwork of various
types (the NIH is more apt to support psycholinguistic and acquisition
projects, while the NSF and NEH divide up the linguistic pie in a way
which is strange to me and which often overlaps). State granting
agencies (as opposed to Federal) also support linguistic fieldwork. In
addition to governmental organizations, there are a number of private
organizations which fund and support linguistic fieldwork. The sad fact
is, though, that many graduate students choose the easy way out and
write "library dissertations" based on primary data which others have
gathered. This includes work done on Native languages. Just last week I
saw a descriptive phonology of Nootka which was based *entirely* on
Sapir's work. What a waste of time and effort; might as well go look at
Sapir as at that.

Dirk

--
Dirk Elzinga
Dirk_Elzinga@byu.edu

"I believe that phonology is superior to music. It is more variable and
its pecuniary possibilities are far greater." - Erik Satie