Date: Fri, 13 Jan 1995 09:30:05 CST From: salikoko mufwene Subject: Re: Gullah Bible In Message Thu, 12 Jan 1995 18:31:53 -0500, "Peter L. Patrick" writes: > one of the striking things about the Jamaican and what I've >heard about the Black Bible Chronicles is how they differ from the >vernacular speech that speakers speak and linguists know. I get the >feeling that even though these folks are in some sense validating the >variety by publishing important stuff in it, they're still very >reluctant to see it as linguists do, and very prone to dress it up or >Anglicize/standardize it-- while celebrating its "difference"! Well said, Peter. > This ambivalence is a very familiar, and very understandable, >attitude in a post-colonial society, but it also reveals the very >same confusion of social values with linguistic structure, the >acceptance of a non-arbitrary (even "natural") relationship between >them, that members of dominant groups show-- and which is perhaps >the main target of sociolinguistics. So though the translators of >these efforts are doing something good, and progressive, I think >there's still an essential point they're missing, which only linguists >seem to be teaching. Cool! Sali. Salikoko S. Mufwene University of Chicago Dept. of Linguistics 1010 East 59th Street Chicago, IL 60637 s-mufwene[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uchicago.edu 312-702-8531; fax: 312-702-9861