Hi there
Do me a favor, somebody, and create the following Wikipedias for me as soon as you get a
chance:
http://mus.wikipedia.org/ -- Muscogee (Creek)
http://cho.wikipedia.org/ -- Choctaw
http://nv.wikipedia.org/ -- Navajo
I would also like to create a Wikipedia for the Mikasuki language, sort of a sister
language to Muscogee, one of my ancestral languages. (My grandmother is Cherokee and my
grandfather is Muscogee, although, due to my upbringing, I have a much stronger Cherokee
background.) Mikasuki is used alongside Muscogee on many of the Seminole areas of Florida,
and, although small by numbers, has an extremely vibrant population of speakers, young and
old, actively promoting the language. I can easily be in touch with the Seminole
reservations to inform them of the creation of a Mikasuki Wikipedia, which, I'm sure
(knowing them) will excite them quite a bit.
Mikasuki does not have an ISO code. What is preferred to use in this case?
I am also readily in touch with Muscogee and Choctaw speakers. Choctaw is a particularly
good candidate for Wiki'ing, for a SE First Nations language, as it has a good number
of young, native speakers who could highly benefit from a Choctaw Wikipedia. Muskogee is
also a good candidate for wiki'ing--it still has a good number of fluent speakers, but
it is suffering from significant language shift, which is rather worrisome. Muskogee
(unlike Cherokee) is easily learnable, for the most part, and has a robust but simple
grammatical structure (much like Esperanto). I am in the process of learning it from
native speakers.
Cherokee, on the other hand, with which I am gaining increased fluency, is a much harder
language to quickly pick up, not because of irregularities, but because of its sheer
grammatical complexity. Still, it is a very good candidate for Wiki'ing, and I am also
adding Cherokee material to the Wikisource archives. Muskogee texts, with a little
research and permission, may also be easily added.
You can find a large Muskogee archive here, if you are curious:
http://www.wm.edu/linguistics/creek/
Cherokee has a large amount of written text out there, but only a small amount of it is
online. There is, however, a large amount of conversational Cherokee (little of it
actually being ORIGINAL!) available -- fire up Google with "o-si-yo" (a dumbly
hyphenated version of the syllables that make up "hello") and you'll see
what I mean!
Creek has the exact opposite situation. I am in the process of improving both of these
situations and will have the first of many high quality IPA-friendly, Cherokee dialogues
[with sound files of native-level speakers, including myself] and exercises up on my
website, FNN:SE (
http://www.nativesouth.org) by tomorrow afternoon. (My accent in Cherokee
is at the native level--I just need to increase my fluency in Cherokee! My grandmother and
great-grandmother speak English with Cherokee accents, even though they don't realize
it!) I will also be adding a large amount of Cherokee source material to my website,
within time, as well as to the Wikisource archives. All of my work is copyright-friendly,
and ALL of it may be freely and mercilessly reproduced for the betterment of the Cherokee
language.
Navajo needs a spot in Wikipedia. It has a HUGE number of native speakers, young and old,
who grow up speaking the language more often than they speak English.
For all of these languages, I will set to work on creating their place in Wikipedia, and
in advertising their presence to native speakers.
Thanks!
-- Jeremy
Today's Topics:
1. help me answer this question (egbunu david)
2. Re: meta vandalism (Tim Starling)
3. Custom Logo (jneden(a)bellsouth.net)
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