There’s a writeup (by me) of the exciting documentary The Linguists over on Donkey Hottie. The movie closes with a bunch of ostensibly Chulym children illustrating a (Chulym) story for a children’s book to be published in Chulym, a language that, however, the children do not speak.
The linguists celebrate this “reconnection” with one’s “history” via this “community project,” but I’m not so sure. I think the value of language is being overstated. So the Lithchatty question becomes:
If I don’t speak a word of Lithuanian, but illustrate a version of (say) “Eglė žalčių karalienė” told to me in English, am I creating Lithuanian cultural output? Can I be a Lithuanian cultural producer without speaking Lithuanian?
Anyway, The Linguists is available to watch online for the time being on babelgum.com, so hurry to watch it if you can.
May 25th, 2009 at 12:01 am
Отлично написано. Позитива конечно не хватает, но читал на одном дыхании
September 9th, 2009 at 2:55 pm
Основная задача Яндекса — давать ответы на вопросы пользователей!