Lakota elders helped a white man preserve their language. Then he tried to sell it back to them.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/native-american-language-preservation-rcna31396

STANDING ROCK INDIAN RESERVATION, S.D. — Ray Taken Alive had been fighting for this moment for two years: At his urging, the Standing Rock Sioux Tribal Council was about to take the rare and severe step of banishing a nonprofit organization from the tribe’s land.

The Lakota Language Consortium had promised to preserve the tribe’s native language and had spent years gathering recordings of elders, including Taken Alive’s grandmother, to create a new, standardized Lakota dictionary and textbooks.

But when Taken Alive, 35, asked for copies, he was shocked to learn that the consortium, run by a white man, had copyrighted the language materials, which were based on generations of Lakota tradition. The traditional knowledge gathered from the tribe was now being sold back to it in the form of textbooks.

“No matter how it was collected, where it was collected, when it was collected, our language belongs to us. Our stories belong to us. Our songs belong to us,” Taken Alive, who teaches Lakota to elementary school students, told the tribal council in April.

[DURHAM D]

1. Unbelievable.

I don't understand how they were able to "copyright" a tradition/language.

[Retrograde]

8. They can't copyright a tradition or language, but

they can copyright a written description of it, as well as their own translations. And anyone else who wants to can do their own research and come up with their own descriptions and definitions.

That said, it would have been a thoughtful gesture to donate copies of the finished work to the tribe as a gesture of thanks.

[DFW]

2. Maybe I should copyright Republicanese

That way, every time someone posts or prints a text with the following anomalies, I can claim royalty payments! Considering how often Republicanese is used, my net worth will overtake Elon Musk within six months. When I buy Kaua'i, you're all invited to come stay for as long as you like!

EXCERPTS FROM THE OFFICIAL DICTIONARY OF REPUBLICANESE

In Republicanese, many words that sound alike may be spelled differently at random. A few prominent examples:

In Republicanese, the following words may be spelled at random using any of the three ways given:

A.) Two, Too, To
B.) Their, They're, There
c.) Your, Yore, You're

The Republicanese version of Robin Hood therefore starts with "In days of you're...."

The only rule is that the correct use of them as in English is never permitted twice in a row.

Words with single letters that change meaning when that letter is doubled must never be used in correct English context. The classic example is “lose” vs. “loose.” In Republicanese, if you do not win an election, then you “loose” that election. Conversely, if your (Republicanese: you’re) belt is too tight, you need it more “lose” in order to be comfortable. Another example would be the Republicanese, “I met Donald Trump, and he was rudder than I imagined,” vs. “I grabbed the ruder and was able to steer the boat to shore.”

In English, the contraction for "it is" is written "it's." To show possession referring to something previously mentioned, one writes "its." In Republicanese, it is the other way around.
Example:
English: “It's impractical for a building to have its solar panels in the basement.”
Republicanese: “Its impractical for a building to have it's solar panels in the basement.”

In Republicanese, an apostrophe is used to form a plural, whereas this is never correct in English. But it must be done at random, never systematically. For example, Bill and Hillary are "the Clinton's," but Bill, Chelsea and Hillary are "the Clintons." The other way around is also correct. In Republicanese, either form is correct as long as it is not spelled the same way twice in a row.
Example:
In English, one writes "The Clintons like dogs."
In Republicanese, this can be written as "The Clinton's like dogs," or "The Clintons like dog's" or "The Clinton's like dog's." The only version that would be incorrect in Republicanese would be to use no apostrophe at all. Only English is written that way.

[Ocelot II]

4. Unfortunately, Republicanese has infected the population at large.

The misuse of apostrophes is rampant even on DU.

[2naSalit]

5. +1

When I notice a mistake in a comment, especially when someone responds to it, I have to correct it.

[DFW]

7. I have noticed that

Too many people spending time in Freeperville or Murdochland, and getting subtly infected with Cofox19?

I really don't get it. There is NO school, from Kindergarten up, ANYWHERE in the English-speaking world that teaches forming a plural with an apostrophe--not in the U.K., not in the USA, not in Canada, not in Australia, not in New Zealand, not even in Belize. From WHERE do people suddenly get the idea that it's correct to form a plural with an apostrophe? The Simpsons? Reruns of George of the Jungle? WHERE????

[Ocelot II]

9. Other Germanic languages don't use apostrophes

either for plurals or possessives (only for some contractions); e.g., "the man's dog" = "der Hund des Mannes," or "mannens hund." Maybe the more liberal sprinkling of apostrophes in English gets GOPers so confused that they don't know what to do with them and figure that too many is better than not enough..

[DFW]

10. German uses them very sparingly

Usually to indicate a contraction of speech. "Wie geht es (how is it going)?" ia usually spoken as "Wie geht's (how's it going)?" and can be written as such, but that is about it.

Maybe they get it from too many Russian handlers at the top. Slavic languages don't have articles (e.g "the, an, a" ) and are declined, so they rarely need certain words that western languages do. Therefore, where we would say "the air of the city," a Russian would say "air city-a" or воздух города ("VOZ-dookh GAW-ro-da" ). They wouldn't need extra words for "the" or "of," because their language doesn't use them. The last thing Russians learn to use in English are the little words their languages don't have. If you remember Rocky and Bullwinkle, whoever was doing the dialog for Boris and Natasha knew some Russian, because "Natasha" always used to say, "Look, Boris dahlink, is moose and squirrel!" It drives native speakers of Slavic languages absolutely nuts trying to get a feel for when to use them. German drives them ever more nuts, as the articles are declined.

But even that doesn't explain why some (apparently/supposedly) native speakers of English write "Canada and the USA are two different country's," since there is not one school on this planet that teaches a different plural for "country" other than "countries." Not even Russians learn "country's" when they get their first classes in English in the fifth grade.

[Ocelot II]

11. I have a bunch of books in Norwegian, so for fun I decided to go hunting for apostrophes.

They are very, very scarce. I finally found a tiny handful of contractions in the speech of a character who speaks in a dialect and runs his words together even more than Norwegians normally do, which is a lot. For example, at one point he says "Har'n sagt no'?" for "Har hun sagt noe?" ("Has she said anything?" ). I'm beginning to think that the reason semiliterate English-speaking morons use them everywhere except where they should is that they believe their writing looks more literate because they had to use extra characters, even though that usage is never taught anywhere by anyone.

[mobeau69]

3. Sounds like only the textbooks were copyrighted.

Sounds like they should’ve had an attorney working for them. Actually, the tribe could’ve copyrighted the materials themselves but still better to have a CR attorney.

Remember, never trust the white man.

“The white man made us many promises but kept just one; he promised to take our land and he took it.”

[2naSalit]

6. +1