Re: World Lingos

"SMITH,MARCUS ANTHONY" wrote:

> On Mon, 28 Aug 2000, Thomas R. Wier wrote:
>
> > > Perhaps we can say that languages with a substantial literary
> > > tradition are more readily revivld.  Revival of hiterhto unwritten
> > > languages is not unheard of either: Menominee, e.g.
> >
> > But surely Menominee was not entirely extinct, right?
>
> Lowest count I've ever read for it was 7 speakers, back in the late 70s.
> I had assumed it was dead by now, but I guess that isn't the case?
No, Menominee is not dead yet, but it isn't at all well either.  I just came
back from a teaching stint at the University of Wisconsin, where a small
group of faculty and grad students have recently begun establishing contact
with elders of the Menominee Nation in the hopes of doing some substantive
fieldwork on Menominee.  So far, I think, they've made contact with perhaps
6 or 7 speakers (most of them over 60, but one or two younger than that),
and there seem to be even more out there.  Things have not progressed very
far yet with the fieldwork:  the Menominee are--perhaps
understandably--extremely suspicious of white people showing interest in
their intellectual resources.  So far the U Wisconsin team have only been
able to record some place names and a handful of sentences, and to
double-check some things from Bloomfield's extensive reference grammar.  But
slowly they're winning the trust of the people on the reservation, and we
can hope for some more substantial material on Menominee to come soon...

Matt.