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Subject: SEELANGS Digest - 10 Mar 2006 to 11 Mar 2006 - Special issue
(#2006-89)

There are 7 messages totalling 887 lines in this issue.

Topics in this special issue:

  1. Are we postcolonial?
  2. kofe, stress, language, dogma, but no opera
  3. Russian Postcolonial Poetry
  4. Obo vsem po nemnozhku
  5. From Kazakhstan: Are We Postcolonial?
  6. lazit', English, standards, and still no opera (2)

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Date:    Sat, 11 Mar 2006 12:47:33 -0500
From:    Alina Israeli 
Subject: Re: lazit', English, standards, and still no opera

>actually, regarding "lazit'," the 4-volume dictionary of Russian (ed. by
>Evgenieva) doesn't list the verb "zalazit'," it lists only "zalezt'" with
>imperfective "zalezat'" and no problems in conjugation with either.

I did not say "zalazit'" exists, only that the pattern is broken with the
prefix za-.

Lazit' is a tretorous word. Case in point (and I probably griped about this
before): Muravyova, the author of a book on verbs of motion in a chart of
conjugation at the end for the verb lazit' gives imperatives "lazaj,
lazajte" (which are for "lazat'" and she should have given "laz', laz'te").
The earliest edition I own is the third (1978), and the latest is 8th
(2001). It's still there. How many editors and proof-readers looked at it
and no one noticed. If only the book editors stopped pushing this verb
(lazit') on innocent foreigners and stuck to the easier and common -
lazat'.


>I am being a purist....because that is how we were taught in England.
>American-English is considered far to 'loose' in wording.


I am not sure what "loose" means in this context. But I think it is
linguistically proven that the migrating group retains the older variety of
language. Thus Icelandic is Old Norse (of about 12th century, I believe),
Ladino is Spanish of circa 1492, and American English, particularly that
spoken on some islands off Carolina's coast is English of 17th century
variety. So American English is much closer to Shakespearian English than
Queen's English is (if you believe this theory of course).


>On the other hand, being dogmatic is the only way to ensure the existence
>of the standard variant of whatever language. Now, of course, we might
>wonder whether there's a need for any norm or standard especially when it
>comes to stress or phonetics,


This statement confuses "norm" and "standard". Any dialect has a norm, i.e.
something is either correct or incorrect in a given dialect. Standard
language, whatever dialect or variety is accepted as NATIONAL norm, while
having a norm, also has the authorities who say what is and what isn't a
norm.

Even they agree that language, and consequently norms change.


>but if we take this reasoning to its logical limits, we might soon arrive
>to a standstill described in Alice Through the Looking-Glass where
>Humpty-Dumpty explains to Alice that words mean only what he wants them to
>mean.

No, if we take "this reasoning" (i.e. "there's a need for any norm or
standard especially when it comes to stress or phonetics") to its logical
limits, we may come to languages like Polish and French that have no
movable stress, Polish stress is fixed on a penultimate syllable, a French
at the end (of a syntagm).


>Naturally, Alice doesn't understand his particular speak until he
>translates "his" words into "common" words. Should we reach that point,
>each of us will have their own private language and some lingua franca
>will emerge to help the speakers of these languages unde!
> rstand each other. I guess I're back to a standard variant of whatever
>language.


This is an interesting situation, known in linguistics as code-switching.
Evidently, Humpty-Dumpty knew both languages or dialects, his own and the
one Alice would understand. While code-switching has been studied in many
immigrant groups, Hispanics in America, Nisei (Japanese-Americans) and
others, anecdotally it's found in fiction like "To Kill a Mockingbird"
where the black housekeeper speaks "standard American English" with the
family of Atticus Finch and switches to Black English in her church (to the
great surprise of the narrator-protagonist Scout).

__________________________
 Alina Israeli
 LFS, American University
 4400 Mass. Ave., NW
 Washington, DC 20016

 phone:    (202) 885-2387
 fax:      (202) 885-1076 

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End of SEELANGS Digest - 10 Mar 2006 to 11 Mar 2006 - Special issue (#2006-89)
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