|
 |
Learning the minority languages of the RF | ||
Tags: Russia | Endangered Language | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| elvisrules Tetraglot Senior Member BelgiumRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5468 days ago 286 posts - 390 votes  Speaks: French, English*, Dutch, Flemish Studies: Lowland Scots, Japanese, German | Message 9 of 38 16 January 2010 at 4:30pm | IP Logged | |||||
|
I can't speak for the creator of this thread, but...
To me, communication is only one part of learning a language. Being able to understand the written and spoken langugage alone is fascinating to me. Also, the rich culture that is behind every language and dialect. Once I've learnt a language to fluency, I want to discover its different varieties and similar languages, I think that's a natural feeling. You think that minority languages should stay with the minorities? I don't think that should be the case at all. A language is not solely for communication reasons, and if I set my mind to learning a language fluently then I would do so, and not stop until I had a thorough knowledge of it. Others can share in the cultures of that language too. I can only applaud those who endevour to study such languages, especially when the cultural/linguistic link is not their own, but have taken the decision to learn a language not solely for communication, which I see as a superficial reason, but for pure love of language and culture. They can have so much to offer. And when you use the minority/endangered language actively, you yourself feel an amazing feeling, and feel a part of the culture and history... Or at least that what's happened to me... 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| daristani Senior Member United States Joined 7143 days ago 752 posts - 1661 votes Studies: Uzbek | Message 10 of 38 16 January 2010 at 5:04pm | IP Logged | |||||
|
Having taken a semester-long class in Chuvash a number of years ago, I can attest to both the intrinsic interest and the limited utility to studying such languages for most people.
But rather than address the "why" and "why not" aspects of the issue, I just want to note some possible resources for those interested in some of the minority Turkic languages in Russia. First, the Uralic and Altaic series of books published by Indiana University published a number of "manuals" of these languages. Rather dry, they consisted of short grammatical descriptions, reading selections, and vocabularies, and were intended to enable English-speakers to develop a basic reading knowledge in the languages in question. They were published for Chuvash, Yakut (=Sakha), Tuvan, Tatar, Bashkir, and Buryat Mongol. (There may also be one or two others I've forgotten.) They should be available in major libraries, and copies of some might also be available at sites like uz-translations.net The titles were "Chuvash Manual", "Tatar Manual", etc. More recently, Margarete Ersen-Rasch, the author of the best textbook and reference grammar for Turkish written in German, has published textbooks (in German) for Bashkir ("Baschkirisch") and Tatar ("Tatarisch"), with CDs to accompany. They can be ordered from Amazon.de Finally, I wanted to note that Arizona State University offers intensive summer courses in Tatar and various other languages, such as Uzbek, Armenian, Albanian, Yiddish, etc. These courses are tuition-free, although there are housing and other fees to be paid. In addition, they have introductory and intermediate Tatar courses in Kazan, the capital of the Tatar Republic in Russia. So for those interested in this particular language, this might be a good place to look. Info available at: http://cli.asu.edu/cli_summer/main Edited by daristani on 16 January 2010 at 6:44pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Wilco Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 6329 days ago 160 posts - 247 votes Speaks: French*, English, Russian | Message 11 of 38 16 January 2010 at 5:39pm | IP Logged | |||||
That's exactly the kind of foolish remarks I am used to hear in the media, in the school system, among "pragmatic intellectuals", etc. How disappointing to see those comments here, in a forum about language learning. Hopefully, you'll "get" it someday. Learning a language is much more than just talking about the weather.
I could not agree more. 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Wilco Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 6329 days ago 160 posts - 247 votes Speaks: French*, English, Russian | Message 12 of 38 16 January 2010 at 5:59pm | IP Logged | |||||
Great! Without any doubts, Wrestling in Tuva would be the ultimate linguistic immersion. For what I know, the Tuvan culture is one of the more alive in Siberia, and the Tuvan language is still commonly used (with even a relatively high percentage of the population monolingual in Tuvan). Unfortunately, I am not aware of any professional textbook for the language available online or outside the RF.
Chuvash is indeed really interesting. Did you have a chance to interact with natives in Chuvashya? There is some material available online on Uz-translations (Русско-чувашский словарь by М.И., Скворцова А.В. and Чувашский язык - начальный курс by Андреев, И. А.). [/QUOTE] 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| daristani Senior Member United States Joined 7143 days ago 752 posts - 1661 votes Studies: Uzbek | Message 13 of 38 16 January 2010 at 6:43pm | IP Logged | |||||
|
See this site for some Tuva-related items:
http://scs-intl.com/trader/ They sell John R. Krueger's "Tuvan Manual", among some other language-related stuff. If you know Japanese, there are some downloadable Tuvan items here: http://www.aa.tufs.ac.jp/project/aa03_gengo_text_j.html Re Chuvash, my semester of Chuvash was at Indiana, and was taught by the above-named Professor Krueger, who wrote the Yakut, Chuvash, and Tuvan manuals for the university series. He had in fact never heard Chuvash spoken, and if memory serves had even been unable to find any spoken Chuvash on tape. (Chuvashia was, during the Cold War, a "closed" region, and so traveling there was essentially impossible.) So he had to write his "manual" based on works primarily by Russian/Soviet scholars. When it was published, he was attacked in the Chuvash parliament for allegedly having said negative things about Chuvashia, but I think he was formally "rehabilitated" after the fall of the Soviet Union. There was also a handy little guide to Chuvash prepared in German during World War Two, presumably in preparation for a German occupation of the region. ADDENDUM: A Chuvash site that may be of interest, with a forum and some language-related writings: http://en.chuvash.org/ Edited by daristani on 16 January 2010 at 7:03pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7155 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 14 of 38 16 January 2010 at 7:18pm | IP Logged | |||||
|
Thanks for the links Daristani. The fact that there are a few departments outside Russia which allow for serious study of some Central or North Asian languages tells me that there is some interest among outsiders for such "useless" languages (I'm thinking of Indiana University, U of Arizona, and other schools that I've seen which have departments of Finno-Ugrian studies or Turkology). Surely in such profit-driven societies, if there were no interest/demand for these kinds of departments, then there would be no supply of them.
Amen, Wilco. The utility or value of a "small" language to someone can't be written off on finding out that one is forced to use a foreign intermediary language. As a native-speaker of English, I'm no different from say a native-speaker of Spanish who wants to learn a Lappish language. That Spaniard would face the same problem as me in not being able to find much usable material in his/her native language and would also need to consider learning Norwegian or Swedish before moving on to a Lappish language. In another example, should Slovenes be shut out from studying a minority language like Cornish because they can't find Cornish courses offered in Slovenian? As far as I can tell most substantial courses in Cornish for foreigners use English as the language of instruction. If Slovenes wish to learn Cornish badly enough, they'll use their knowledge of English (or learn enough English) to fulfill that wish. It simply comes down to how badly one wants to learn that "small" language. As for myself, if I could learn a Central Asian or North Eurasiatic language using English as the medium, that would be ideal. Yet I'm practical too but just not in the way that cordelia0507 would define it. If I would need to learn Russian as a "bridge" language (which actually wouldn't be overly difficult for me since I have some background in other Slavonic languages) in order to gain access to a course in [insert Central Asian/Siberian language here], then so be it. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| zhiguli Senior Member Canada Joined 6440 days ago 176 posts - 221 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Russian, Mandarin | Message 15 of 38 17 January 2010 at 1:34am | IP Logged | |||||
|
I have and I can agree with both sides but more with cordelia0507, especially where practicality is concerned. Unfortunately, if you want to have meaningful conversations with the natives (and not just talk about the weather) and enjoy the cultural output produced in the language, it's going to be an exercise in frustration. Starting with the scarcity of all the things necessary for studying a language "long-distance" - namely good textbooks, helpful native speakers with internet connections, and books/movies/music/podcasts/etc in that language. And if the language you want to study has no literature whatsoever then god help you.
Of course this doesn't have to matter if your only goal is to scratch some language itch. But don't expect to get much further than that. I've studied Avar, Chechen and Kalmyk (among others). The first two have pretty extensive learning material and dictionaries, a mediocre amount of webpages and literature, and a fair amount of native speakers (at least compared to other related languages). Kalmyk lacks all of the above. The real stumbling block was the native speakers. Chechens outright refused to use their language and were quite opposed to the idea of a foreigner appropriating any aspect of their culture (even something like a Chechen melody played on an accordion. Some foreigner made the mistake of posting a video of himself doing this very thing on youtube and got mercilessly attacked by Chechens for "ruining" their folk music. He wasn't a bad player btw). Avars were more open to the idea, but showed the typical attitude of minority language speakers ("Why would you want to learn such a useless language?" "Why would you learn the language if you're not Avar yourself?") and made it quite clear that if I insisted on learning it, they wished me luck but I'd be very much on my own. And there was good reason, too, because most of them only knew their own dialects and not the literary Avar found in textbooks. A lot of them did not even know the alphabet and you can be sure they didn't read "national" literature, either. For Kalmyk I found one native speaker, who was the one who encouraged me to learn his language in the first place. But one enthusiastic native speaker with spotty internet access is not enough to learn more than some tourist phrases and random grammar bits. At any rate, the language itself is seriously endangered and has all but disappeared from public life in its native republic. So if you wish to learn this language you better do it fast, because soon there will be hardly anyone left to speak it. Needless to say, pretty much all my interactions with these people were in Russian, apart from the stray greeting or vocabulary item. A few years of Russian allowed me to access all three cultures; learning one of these languages for 5 years would not grant the same access to even one. 5 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Captain Haddock Diglot Senior Member Japan kanjicabinet.tumblr. Joined 6767 days ago 2282 posts - 2814 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, Korean, Ancient Greek | Message 16 of 38 17 January 2010 at 7:39am | IP Logged | |||||
|
I think the "argument from practicality" that there's no point learning someone's language if you already share an
L2 is false. Sure, in a limited one-on-one situation, it'll be easier to speak Russian with (for example) a Tatar than stumbling along in Tatar. But if you wanted to make friends with Tatars and spend time with groups of them, and they prefer speaking in Tatar to each other, then you'll have to know some Tatar to feel included even if their Russian or another L2 is better than your Tatar. And that's not counting all the reasons beyond basic conversation someone might study a language for. Now, if those people are already 100% native Russian speakers and prefer that language even amongst themselves, it's another matter. But if that is the case, the language is already (sadly) dead for most intents and purposes. Edited by Captain Haddock on 17 January 2010 at 7:41am 3 persons have voted this message useful |
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
