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The Life And Death Of Words

Aug 26, 2013
by Caroline Miller
"How to read the dictionary of an endangered language.", Endangered Language Alliance, Ross Perlin, Trung language, Yunnan province
2 Comments

The Trung people of Yunnan province in southwest China say they once had a written language “but a dog chewed up the dried animal skin on which it was recorded.” (“How to read the dictionary of an endangered language,” by Ross Perlin, Harper’s August 2013 pg. 70.)  Ross Perlin is the assistant director of the Endangered Language Alliance who is working with others to give a written form to Trung speech. 

As there is no Trung alphabet, the letters must be invented, followed by the spelling of the spoken word.   But almost before the project begins, it is hampered by a culture clash, as China opens the province to extensive logging in its rush to progress.  Scholars have to decide what old words are to be eliminated and what new ones to be included in a Trung dictionary.   For example, Trung children are named according to their birth order.  When Du is attached to a name, it signifies the 9th daughter. But China has limited Trung families to 3 children, which makes  Du a word destined to become obsolete. Should it be  added to the new dictionary or ignored?  In addition, China is a communist country while Trung culture is Christian.  New words to accommodate communist ideology have already cropped up in the language.  Should these be  included, too?

 In sum, the problem for scholars is how to respect the ideology of one culture while providing  a language broad enough to communicate with a second?   Perlin describes the fluidity of the situation as   difficult, like “a finger dipped in the flux of a language.” (Ibid pg. 71) 

But isn’t that always the irony of the written word?  A dictionary is a glimpse of how people communicate at a given moment in time.  Eventually, these tomes have to be revised to accommodate change.  Once committed to paper, a word may appear to be frozen in time, like the image from a camera, but unlike an image, words live and die. Just like people, they are affected by the ebb and flow of life.

words floating on water

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Courtesy of rtstockimages.photoshelter.com)

  

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2 Comments
  1. Richard September 16, 2013 at 9:12 am Reply
    Caroline: Good catch from Harper's. However, I question whether the Trung's are predominantly Christian (per your inference). On the other hand, I admire your writing and subjects. I came across your blog because I am writing a coffee table book about Taishan, China. It's former inhabitants left and built the Chinatowns of the world. As a result, Cantonese is the spoken language in almost all Chinatowns, including the one in Portland. In China, less than five percent speak Cantonese whereas 70% of China speaks Mandarin. It was interesting your quoted Ross Perlin. I am too. Richard
    • Caroline Miller September 16, 2013 at 11:26 am Reply
      Thanks for your comment Richard. I don't pretend to know anything about the Trungs. I simply read an article about the difficulties of writing a dictonary for a culture that previously had no writtne language. My comment about Christianity was what I gleaned from my reading of the article. It's nice to have your perspective. Great that you would take the time to share.

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Contact Caroline at

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Portland, Oregon author Caroline Miller had distinguished careers as an educator, union president, elected official and artist/advocate.

Her play, Woman on the Scarlet Beast, was performed at the Post5 Theatre, Portland, OR, January/February 2015

Caroline published a serialized novelette, Marie Eau-Claire, on the website, The Colored Lens.  She also published the story Gustav Pavel,  a parable about ordinary lives, choice and alternate potential, on the website Fixional.co.

Caroline has published four novels

  • Ballet Noir
  • Trompe l’Oeil
  • Gothic Spring
  • Heart Land

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