From: "Gene Smith" <SmithFrow@worldnet.att.net>
To: <baidarka@lists.intelenet.net>
Subject: Re: baidarka FOLDABLES AND STIFFNESS
Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1998 21:57:37 -0000
>Dear Gene
>Why do you say that they had inadequate vocabulary?
>Steve,wondering in Puget Sound
I did not say that they had an inadequate vocabulary, but rather that *we*
would find it so. Our culture is extremely good at "talking about" things -
witness the almost universal adaptation of English for engineering and many
other technical uses. What I am suggesting is that the aboriginal peoples
have a very different kind of vocabulary, one that requires an intimate sort
of "membership" to understand. I sincerely doubt that there was a lot of
chat about "modulus of elasticity" in between bites of blubber - which
doesn't mean that they were not entirely comfortable with a very similar
idea in their own "vocabulary". Our language and the way we tend to
approach inquiry is very analytical. We want to know what the components
are, and having discovered that, we want to know which ones are really
"important". Many concepts in aboriginal circles are still conveyed by
stories, myths and other forms that we are not so familiar with anymore. If
we ask someone why he ties a hitch a certain way, we don't expect to hear a
story but an analysis. The phrase "can't see the forest for the trees"
would be *us* - not them. We don't want to listen to how the trees "sing"
together in a certain way and what that song is. We want the "relevant"
details: what is each tree good for? What's the minimum age before we can
harvest it? Can we cut them all down and plant something that will grow
faster and be just as salable? It is difficult for us to see any value in
things beside what they can be sold for. A couple of lifetimes ago I was a
realtor, and I was supposed to always seek "the highest and best use" for
each piece of property that I was representing. And what does "highest and
best use" mean? It means the highest price. For us, a culture that can't
quite grasp the idea of land ownership is, at best, quixotic, but usually
more like comical and pathetic. They are "backward". We represent
"progress". There are many ways to learn things and transmit knowledge that
we don't bother with anymore - having found the "better" way. The very
notion that there is one "right" or "best" way of doing a given task, and
that the sensible man's job is to find that way is part and parcel of our
language and culture. There are many people on this planet who never had
that idea and never will.
Sorry for rambling on there. What I should say is that some things just
don't translate. The idea that I have a word for dog and you have a word
for dog and to translate all we have to do is match up the correspondences
really doesn't work except on a very superficial level. When you say dog,
you may mean faithful companion. When I say dog I may mean dinner. We are
both talking about the same general class of animal, but we sure mean
different things when we use our respective words. I certainly had no
intention of belittling aboriginal speech - I wished merely to point out
that we approach things in very different ways.
Gene Smith