Book stuff

[lusentoj]

ordered a test copy of the physical version of my book, HOPEFULLY it arrives before i move to taiwan, then i can dump it off at my local esperanto club as a parting gift.

i started writing a textbook + dictionary for greenlandic now, which is really hard because i don't know greenlandic and the dictionaries/lessons suck. for example, "alluu" or something like that is "hello", but i managed to learn from a greenlandic youtuber that "alluu-kkat" means "hi everyone!" - elsewhere it said this kkat means "plural" among other things, but i had no idea from the lessons i saw that you could use it like that.

anyway i'm hoping to make a dictionary of 1,000-1,200 words, throw in a few examples of the grammar from 2-word and 3-word phrases i could actually understand, and then put it up for sale. right now i'm at about 800 words... i'm just hoping that someone will be able to use this book, go on to *actually* learn greenlandic, and then write a better textbook later so i can learn from it myself lol.

Comments

[naraht]

Why would you try to write a textbook for a language you don’t know...?

[lusentoj]

I want to learn Greenlandic myself. Even my shitty textbook / dictionary will be better than the ones I've seen on many points (for example, the dictionaries only list compound words/phrases and don't let you look up the individual parts within the compounds). Theoretically, someone who already knows Greenlandic might get inspired by my book to write their own much better book which I can then learn from, stuff like that. Also I can theoretically apply for a grant from the Nordic Languages Council thing and get some extra money l-lol...

[naraht]

Doing it as a learning exercise absolutely makes a lot of sense.

But selling it? Trying to get a grant for it? I'm going to be a bit blunter here than I usually am online – the idea of making money from sharing knowledge that you don't really possess yourself, particularly when it comes to a rare and marginalised language like Greenlandic, seems really questionable to me. First, you're almost certain to pass on errors that you don't know about. Second, you're putting yourself in front of people who actually do have that knowledge. There's something almost colonialist about it.

Having said that, it would be great if there were better Greenlandic textbooks! Maybe there are other ways you could help that to happen?

[lusentoj]

Even the books put out by people who know the language have mistakes (for example, misexplaining the grammar, mistranslating a word, or leaving out major grammatical forms entirely), and I figure as long as I write in the author's note "I'm just a learner myself blah blah" it'll be fine. My contact info will be in the book, so if someone finds mistakes to correct or decides they want to help me out and totally remake the book or something, they can just Email me.

If you can put me in touch with someone who knows Greenlandic and is willing to work for free, be my guest... I've even tried Emailing universities to ask if anyone could help me and didn't get a response. (If I were to get a grant, it could go towards hiring a Greenlander lol.) As for colonization, err, they'll be pretty happy to have more materials out there in foreign languages for teaching their own language, no matter how bad the quality. It's not like I'm writing a textbook about "Hey go to Greenland and speak Danish" (which is essentially what everyone was told until around 20 years ago).

Right now the fact is there's no textbooks for Greenlandic in any languages other than Danish or German (and at least the Danish ones are crap), so for me it's just like, even if what I put out might have mistakes, it's still better than having absolutely nothing. Most people give up on learning Greenlandic precisely because they have to spend a few years learning Danish first. Again in my mind it's just like, a half-bad book is better than no book, and maybe ONLY through actually publishing the book can I get the help I need to improve it and turn it into a really good book.

Oh, the Nordic language grants are a joke, you can get them for putting out like a 4-page children's book, and the same old ladies writing about "Matti's First Reindeer" keep getting them over and over because no one else is doing anything. Anyway it's not like you automatically get the grant, so if they decide my book doesn't deserve it since it's too bad, that'll be that and I can just try with the Faroese book instead.

[ocean]

Hi, just going to jump in here, don't mind me.

if what I put out might have mistakes, it's still better than having absolutely nothing

Exactly this. We're talking about Greenlandic, a language that only has about 55,000 speakers on an island with only 56,000 people. I can't imagine there's much overlap between "people who are fluent in Greenlandic", "people who are proficient/fluent in English", and "people who want to write resources for the Greenlandic language and publish them for English speakers to use".

Can you imagine if only native/fluent speakers were allowed to make dictionaries, grammar guides, translation aids, etc.? There wouldn't be very many resources available for any language. And even if the dictionary ends up flawed or incorrect, making mistakes and being corrected on those mistakes by more fluent speakers is how you get better at understanding and speaking a language.

There are so many languages that don't exist anymore because nobody outside of the native speakers cared enough to learn them, pass them on, etc. There are languages on the planet now that we could lose forever if nobody makes an effort to teach/learn them! An example: the Ainu language. It's extremely rare and there's only about fifteen people left in the world who are considered native speakers. What about the Sami languages? What about the Haida language? Maori? Should we just not learn these because they are all spoken by marginalized peoples and we shouldn't co-opt their languages?

I guess my point is, I honestly see this dictionary project as "hey I'm a novice and this is what I've learned and how I learned it, hopefully it'll help other novices improve too," and not "hey my knowledge of Greenlandic is superior, screw actual Greenlanders, I know their language better than them." I think it's better to have some kind of resource for languages like these, even if they're flawed. Languages die when we lose native speakers, and non-native speakers can't or won't learn them. So a non-fluent person trying to help others learn a vulnerable language is only a good thing, in my opinion.