Folder: 
From jguy@alphalink.com.au  Sun Mar 13 01:00:11 2005
Message-Id: <200503130400.j2D3xx7Y018654@pop2.alphalink.com.au>
Date: Sun, 13 Mar 2005 14:00:00 +1000
To: Jorge Stolfi <stolfi@ic.unicamp.br>
From: Jacques Guy <jguy@alphalink.com.au>
Subject: Re: [Piraha] Re: I'll swap you...
Reply-To: jguy@alphalink.com.au

12/03/2005 7:54:29 PM, "Jorge Stolfi" <stolfi@ic.unicamp.br> wrote:

>I expect that your Portuguese, plus Romance interpolation, will be enough
>for you to read the text.

The only words I would not have understood were "pesquisa" 
and "ferrementa". The rest I knew, or could guess from French,
Spanish or Italian. I even knew "seringueiro" from way, way
back when I was a teenager in France and there was an almost
daily radio broadcast about Brazil. I remember it always
started with a song, "Meu Brazil brazileiro" (it think it
was).

>Beware that the author often lapses into English-induced 
>mistakes or strained phrasing, >like "providenciar" instead 
>of "prover" for "to provide", or "cesta de alumínio"
>(lit. "aluminum basket") instead of the more idiomatic 
>"bacia de alumínio" ("aluminum basinet").  So don't take 
>his Portuguese as a model! 

So after 25 years in Brazil, he still can't write proper
Portuguese? Eh bien, bravo le bonhomme!

And then, você escrivou (just showing off what's
left after 45 years of disuse, don't pay attention):

>I can't swear for the honesty of all involved, but 
>the probablility that Brazilian indians --- who are 
>at the very bottom of our social scale, below migrant 
>cane cutters, slum dwellers and homeless juvenile 
>delinquents --- could invent such an elaborate linguistic 
>hoax is rather small. If there is a hoax, they may be 
>the actors, but the director must be someone more 
>sophisticated -- a la Tasaday.

I had a closer look at "Killing the Panther", this
time ignoring the Piraha and the interlinear translations,
only paying attention to the English. Look at what it
becomes:

Here the jaguar pounced upon my dog. There the jaguar 
pounced on my dog and the dog died, it happened
with respect to me. There the jaguar killed the dog 
by pouncing on it. With respect to it, the jaguar 
pounced on the dog, I thought I saw it. Then I 
recognized that the panther pounced on my dog.
Then the panther pounced on my dog. Then I said 
that this (is the work of) a panther. Then I said 
with respect to the panter, "Here is where it went.
I think I see (where it went)".

I shall spare you the rest.

It is entitled "Killing the Panther, 
Author ?AHÓÁPATI (Brazilian name is Simão)
July 28, 1980 Maici River
Posto Novo
Collected, translated, analyzed, and transcribed by
Daniel L. Everett"

No, that is not a story. It is the same sentence
repeated over and over again with minor changes.

I guess that this is what happened:

Simão (in Piraha): "Here the jaguar pounced on
     my dog."

Everett (in Portuguese): "How would you say then:
     the jaguar pounced on my dog and the dog died?"

S.: ti kagáíhiaí kagi abáipí koái ?aí ti aiá ?aiá

E.: Now, how would say....

And that is how NOT to do fieldwork.

>But the simplest way is indeed to send you the book, 
>air mail.  The publisher is the University's own 
>("Editora Unicamp") and they may still have a few 
>left, so I may not even have to part with my copy.

I can send it back once I have scanned it.

>Rotokas would be fine as payment, but I am more 
>curious about the Easter Island script.
>Have you posted anything that I should look up?

There is a long article of mine due to appear
in the next issue of the Rapa Nui Journal (I am
not sure what "next" is, the spring issue, or
the autumn issue). It is about the properties 
of the script and, for once, I stick my neck out
and I suggest two or three phonetic values.

I have also received an e-mail from a couple in
North Carolina saying: here is a photo of a tablet
we bought 20 years ago in Easter Island, is it
worth anything? Ha, ha, another pitiful fake, I
thought to myself. But when I looked at it...
the writing had all the properties which I had
spent months explaining in my article. Nothing
like the fakes floating about. It cannot be 
a genuine tablet. It would have rotted away long,
long ago. But it could just be a copy of a copy 
of ... a copy of a genuine tablet, now lost.
I will write an article about it. Georgia Lee,
the editor of the Rapa Nui Journal, is interested
enough to publish it. I am also working on 
"Frogguy for Rongorongo". And then, I'll have to
transcribe the rongorongo corpus into... shall
we call it "Frorongoronguy"?

I'll burn my Rapanui Journal article onto a CD, with
the photos of that tablet, and a few more things.

Just remind me of your snail-mail address.

Don't worry about the Piraha book. Plenty of
time. I have to go to France next month for
my brother-in-law's 90th birthday. Big do,
90 guests in a hotel in Tours booked for the
purpose for two full days.  

I am not invited, I am _ordered_ to turn up. 

So I won't be able to pay attention to Piraha 
until I am back, mid-June. 

The poor fellow is in a bad way. If I don't go 
I may never see him alive again. Diabetis, 
half-blind, had a pace-maker put in, can no longer  
tell when  a wine is corked--and he used to be so 
keen on  his wine collection. So that is why I just 
have to go, even though I really don't want to go:
it's too sad.

So, remind me of your snail-mail address.

Mine is: PO Box 5088, Pinewood 3149 Australia.

The Australian Post Office is pretty sharp,
BTW, would you believe that I received a 
parcel of documents addressed to me PO Box
5088, Pinelawn??? Yes, Pinelawn!