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This article considers the question that community members ask linguists: What good is linguistics to our community? I consider why most previous answers are not received positively, and then offer a different approach. The linguist can help the community by bringing them new understanding of the beauty of their language, helping maintain a value for the language in a context where it is threatened. I then consider a classic grammatical issue from Plains Cree ("obviation"), both from the Cree perspective and that of the formal linguist. I conclude that linguistic analysis can be used to strengthen the Cree perspective.
Dans l'article, on examine la question posée par des membres de la collectivité aux linguistes : à quoi sert la linguistique dans notre collectivité? J'examine pourquoi la plupart des réponses antérieures ne sont pas accueillies favorablement avant de proposer une approche différente. Le linguiste peut aider la collectivité en lui présentant une nouvelle compréhension de la beauté de la langue qu'elle utilise, participant ainsi à préserver la valeur de la langue dans un contexte où elle est menacée. J'explore ensuite une question grammaticale classique des Cris-des-Plaines (« obviation »), à la fois du point de vue des Cris et de celui de la linguistique formelle. Je conclus que l'analyse linguistique peut servir à renforcer le point de vue des Cris.
What Good Is Linguistic Work to the Speakers? Not Much?
Many years after David Mandelbaum completed his anthropological work with the Plains Cree, an unnamed Cree leader asked him what good his work does for the Cree people.
After one of my talks, there was a discussion session. One man whom I had known as a teenager and who is now a much-travelled participant in American Indian movements, rose to ask me a pointed question. He encased the question in the oratorical style of the old tradition, and when he spoke in English for my benefit, two other of my former helpers, Adam and Stan Cuthand (who at the time of the conference were both on the staff of the University of Manitoba), translated into Cree. "What good," he asked, "have all your efforts among us and your writings about us done for my children and my people?" (Mandelbaum 1978: xvi)
Mandelbaum's...