Today it seems that I found something more akin of a corpus on the Taino language with the work being done by El Isbani. He also realized that there is no formal definition of the Taino language, including grammar and syntax. He started his work obtaining known words and comparing it with the related languages of Arawak.
This is significant for the following reasons:
- El Isbani came into the same conclusion on the lack of formal
definition of the Taino grammar. The only available information have
been dictionaries, but no grammar. He is using linguistic
anthropology techniques and comparing languages from the same root.
- I was concerned more into a gap analysis, what do we
have, what do we need, how we get it and the origin of roots and its
meaning. this is more on what an Engineer approaches problems. (it's
in my nature :) )
Discrepancies between he and I will be found, and that's ok. This is
still in a situation that the more information, the better. This is
because the amount of known information on the Taino
language is scant; there's no luxury of discarding
information. Mr. Isbani will post the first lesson on it, you just can
imagine that I just can't wait.
For More information about his work you can refer to: tainolanguage.wordpress.com.
Tainanto?
On the same venue, I sometimes wonder if the intent for the Taino
linguists or followers of the neo-taino movement (my term for lack of
a better one) is to have a practical language that they identify with
their roots, but with agreed rules based on what is known of Arawak
based languages.
One idea is to take the same approach as the Jewish people did with the
creation of the modern Hebrew. However, this in itself will be a matter
of discussion between purism and practicality.
One thing is for sure. Unless we take a time machine and kidnap a couple
of them into the modern era, we'll never be sure. Some of the
neo-tainos state that the language is spoken. Yes, indeed words are
spoken, but unless:
- There is a complete training in the Taino language available for
study.
- Somebody tells me the definition of excrement, urine, buggers and toe
fungus in Taino (no, I do not know, I do not think that anybody
knows).
Then, there's still work to be done in this.
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