Talk:Jemez language

Phonology and Morphology Sections

These sections were added recently by User:68.2.223.210. They are welcome additions because they add information that was not previously there, but they were done with some gross typographical errors. I have made a few changes to make the article a little more readable but they still need to be made into tables. I do not have access to the source from where they came, but page numbers would greatly improve the credibility of these additions. Also, because of the way they were in the source code for the page, they seemed to be copied and pasted. Again, page numbers from the source would help us in this regard. Joeystanley (talk) 12:47, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

Bell (1993) and Bell & Hein (1993)

These sources appear to be good. If anyone has access to them, they may prove useful here. Joeystanley (talk) 13:34, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

Bell 1993 is here: http://www.colorado.edu/linguistics/CRIL/Volumes1-16/CRIL12%201993.pdf – ishwar  (speak) 07:24, 22 March 2014 (UTC)

"to honor tribal wishes"?

"Specific examples of this morpheme are not posted here to honor tribal wishes"? I'm rather skeptical of this. The supposed source for this is a broken link, and in any case even if this is an actual tribal wish I don't think Wikipedia is bound by it. Furthermore it seems quite at odds with the stated desire of the tribe to preserve and revitalize their language. Benwing (talk) 04:23, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

Hi. I can explain this. On August 16, 2013 I gave some examples of this morpheme, taken directly from Deutscher (2005) cited in the Bibliography (see the page's history to view the deleted data). A few weeks later on September 21, it was taken down by an unknown user with the note "Respect the tribes wishes." Since then I haven't added specific Jemez words to the page.

Additionally, the website the broken link refers to is still there and I found the source of the "tribal wish": "Jemez is the only culture that speaks this language, and our traditional law forbids our language from being translated into writing in order to prevent exploitation by outside cultures." (I have fixes the link already.)

However, I agree that Wikipedia is probably not bound by this. Furthermore, I've seen written forms of words from this language in class and in published sources. Unless we find specific instructions to not post data on Wikipedia, I feel like we should not be bound by this. Joeystanley (talk) 15:27, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

It is not a tribal wish, it is a tribal law, which of course doesn't bind wikipedia. But still I think it is best to respect it both for wikipedia and for the Jemez and it doesnt hurt its readers. Although written Jemez can be found from older sources before linguists started respecting indigenous laws, I dont think we have any need to add examples of written Jemez here.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 15:37, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

I second the sentiment to follow the tribal law. The Jemez should be the gatekeeper's of their language and not non-Jemez. Generally, anthropologists and linguists are now respecting indigenous wishes and getting permission to work on languages. The southwest region has a lot of secrecy and anti-writing aspects to many of the cultures there. – ishwar  (speak) 02:10, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

This is a truly disgraceful position for encyclopedists. I'm sorry to use this expression, which is typically heard from bigots, but this time it's really a case of "political correctness gone mad". Wikipedia is not censored - and this is fanatically observed when it comes to, say, having pictures of nudity, despite the fact that, most likely, no reader actually needs them to learn something; but when it comes to spreading actual knowledge, which is the main point of Wikipedia's existence, you're yielding to the ridiculous claim of a tribe to have some kind of copyright on its language, which allows it to forbid other people from writing it. You don't "need" examples? Of course you need examples to make your text understandable, just like you need hyperlinks and even punctuation. An article about a language without examples from the language, what kind of a joke is that? Yes, you could do without examples, or without hyperlinks, or without punctuation, or even without vowels for that matter, but removing them makes the encyclopedia worse and is contrary to its purpose of spreading knowledge; and deliberately choosing to make the encyclopedia worse because someone finds the material objectionable is exactly (self-)censorship. And, of course, as always with matters of principle, there's the revolting precedent you're setting. Next thing the tribe may want to forbid people from making statements about the grammar, too, or from spreading any information about them at all. Will you obey their laws then, too? This is basically a taboo, and Wikipedia does not obey taboos, including writing "G*d", Yahweh/Jehovah, having pictures of Mohammad (by what kind of double standards can we keep this picture?), putting headscarves on women's "immodest" hair etc. Or, to take a secular parallel, here's a quote from WP:NOT: "Wikipedia will not remove content because of the internal bylaws of some organizations that forbid information about the organization to be displayed online. Any rules that forbid members of a given organization, fraternity, or religion to show a name or image do not apply to Wikipedia because Wikipedia is not a member of those organizations." The essence of wrong-headed PC: resisting obscurantism and general oppression only when it comes from the authorities and taboos of your native culture, and then completely failing to identify it and totally yielding to it when it comes from another culture.

Another issue is, of course, whether this is good or bad for the Jemez culture and language. Will keeping information about the language a secret confined to its speakers make it more likely to survive? I see absolutely no reason to believe so. The Jemez can very well keep their language without everybody playing along in their taboo, or indeed without them doing it themselves, if they only want to. In fact, I'm inclined to think that the only chance for survival for this and for any other language, in the long run, is precisely to be used in all spheres of life in the modern world, to be spoken, written, printed, texted and used in every possible context. --Anonymous44 (talk) 16:53, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

It is not up to us to make decisions about what is good or bad for the Jemez culture and language, that is up to the Jemez pueblo (which in act is one of the few whose language is not currently endangered). It is not about whether Wikipedia is censored it is about respecting reasonable wishes of living peoples and pueblos about how they are represented. User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 17:35, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

I addressed the question of what is good or bad for them, because you yourself wrote that "it is best to respect it both for wikipedia and for the Jemez", so I assumed you meant the viability of their language, not just how pleased they'd be by what we do. Unfortunately, I think that such minority languages are all threatened in the long run - of course, I can only hope that I'm wrong, at least in this particular case. Be that as it may - it is not up to the Jemez pueblo to make decisions about what the rest of the world is allowed to think and say, including whether the rest of the world may talk about their language or not, and how efficiently it may do it. The "wishes" in question are not "reasonable" in the least - they are as absurd as it gets, as far as Wikipedia linguistics articles are concerned (I've already stated the reasons, which should be completely obvious in any case); and "respecting" this kind of wishes is exactly what (self-)censorship is. --Anonymous44 (talk) 12:46, 17 May 2014 (UTC)

You are simply saying that your view is worthy while the Jemez view is not worthy. This is essentially a selfish and one-sided position. So, one can appeal further to this sentiment: if you disregard what the Jemez wish, then you make it difficult for any future linguist/anthropologist to establish positive relations with Jemez speakers and add more to the scientific knowledge of the Jemez language. In other words, by publishing Jemez language data, you may very well curtail any further language data, which you could view as defeating the purpose of publishing the known data in the first place.

That's not the convincing argument, in my opinion. More important is trying to acknowledge the historical and current mistreatment and marginalization of southwestern natives by European peoples and their descendants and to treat them today with respect that they have not been given in the past. It doesn't hurt you or me to respect a minority people who may not have the legal resources to prevent Wikipedia publishing. Why should a powerful majority be the gatekeeper to a minority people's culture? – ishwar  (speak) 21:56, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

-sh morpheme?

What is -sh? Is this /ʃ/? If so it should be written that way, or at least as š (Americanist tradition). Benwing (talk) 04:24, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

I agree with you. However, I am slightly hesitant to assume phonetic detail since the sources I've seen with this morpheme all use -sh. Then again, what else could sh stand for, given the phonetic inventory of the language? Joeystanley (talk) 15:40, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Number of speakers

How accurate are these numbers still? Given the apparent lack of language program effort and reasonable assumptions on die-off and life expectancy, I wouldn't be at all surprised if the current figures were closer to 2300 say. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.61.180.106 (talk) 15:16, 18 February 2022 (UTC)