Letter from Jack Siebert to MMSD Colleagues




КАК ЖЕ ЭТО ИЗУЧАТЬ?

Человек создал язык, а язык отплатил своему создателю сторицей. Он позволил ему развить человеческий мозг, облагородил его, дал возможность думать, бороться и развиваться. Он во много раз облегчил и сделал более плодотворным неустанный человеческий труд.

В конце концов, можно сказать без особых преувеличений, что именно он, сын труда - язык, вывел человека в люди.

Случилось это очень давно, бесконечно давно. Нельзя отсчитать известное число лет, даже весьма большое, и определить дату, после которой люди, став существами говорящими, из животных превратились в людей. Невозможно отпраздновать десяти тысячелетний или стотысячелетний "юбилей" языка. Нет возможности и почтить памятником его "изобретателя". Этих изобретателей были миллионы, и работали они над своим замечательным делом огромное число лет. И нам сейчас, как только мы обращаемся к вопросам, связанным с прошлым языка, приходится углубляться в такую даль, и глубь времен, где все теряется в тумане, на первый взгляд непроницаемом.

В самом деле, трудно, но возможно дознаться, как говорили наши предки тысячу лет тому назад. От этого времени остались кое-какие письменные документы. Сохранились записи, сделанные людьми из других стран - византийцами, арабами; они описывали в те самые времена чуждый им, но интересовавший их язык "руссов". Наконец, вполне возможно, что и сам наш народ мог сберечь с того времени - даже не в записи, а в своей памяти - отдельные древние слова, пословицы, прибаутки, сказки, песни... Мы увидим вскоре, что это и на самом деле случается, - ведь между предками нашими и нами тянется вековая, никогда не прерывавшаяся связь.

А вот подумайте: как вы будете восстанавливать язык людей, живших за сотни тысячелетий до нашего времени?

Они не умели писать; ни единой буквы после себя они нам не оставили. У них не было никаких грамотных современников, которые могли бы рассказать что-нибудь про их язык: все их ровесники были такими же, как они, лохматыми, низколобыми варварами. На таких плоха надежда!

Трудно представить себе, чтобы что-то существенное могло дойти от их времени до нас и в самой памяти народов: слишком уж долог, бесконечно долог пройденный с тех пор человечеством путь. Так неужели мы обречены навсегда остаться в неведении относительно всего, что лежит за пределами эпохи письменной речи?

Это было бы крайне печально: самые древние, самые несовершенные письменные знаки, какие известны нам и могут быть прочитаны нами, не древнее пяти - шести тысячелетий. А ведь человек существует на земле как человек уже сотни тысяч лет. Значит, мы можем изучать только ничтожную долю истории языка, жалкие проценты всего этого отрезка времени? По счастью, положение оказывается не таким уж безнадежным, если к нему приглядеться внимательнее.

Прежде всего, о многом мы имеем право заключать по аналогии. Что это значит?

 

 


How to study it?

A man created language, and language returned a hundredfold to its creator. It let him develop his brain, ennobled him, gave an opportunity to think, to fight and to evolve. It facilitated tireless human labor manyfold and made it more fruitful.

In the end we can say without any exaggeration that it was language, son of labor, which set the man on his feet.

It happened long ago, way too long ago. It’s impossible to count known number of years, even large enough, and determine the date when people becoming speaking creatures evolved from animals into human beings. You cannot celebrate a ten or a hundred thousand year jubilee of language. Neither can you pay tribute to its inventor with a monument. There were millions of such inventors who worked on their brainchild for a great number of years. And now as soon as we turn to the issues related to the past of language we have to go into such depth and distance in time where everything is lost in seemingly impermeable fog.

In fact it is difficult but not impossible to guess how our ancestors spoke thousands of years ago. There are some written documents of those times which have remained - recordings made by people from different countries - Byzantines, Arabs. In those very times they described an alien but interesting language - the language of Russians. And finally it’s quite possible that our people can have saved - not even in writing but in their memory - individual ancient words, proverbs, bywords, fairy tales, songs of that time. Soon we’ll see that this actually happens for there is a never-breaking link between our ancestors and us.

But let us think: how will we restore the language of people who lived hundreds of thousands of years ago?

They could not write; not a single letter have they left behind. They had no literary contemporaries who could tell something about their language. All their peers were the same as they shaggy, low-browed barbarians. You can’t rely on them.

It is difficult to imagine that something essential of that time could reach us through the memory of nations: too long way has humanity passed since then, infinitely long. So are we really doomed to forever stay ignorant of everything that lies beyond the era of writing?

It would be extremely sad since the most ancient, the most imperfect graphic signs which are known to and can be read by us are no older than five or six millenniums. And the man has been living on Earth as a human being for hundreds of thousands of years. So we can study only that tiny portion of the history of language, a thousandth part of all this space of time, can’t we? Fortunately, the situation turns out not to be so hopeless if looked at more carefully.

First of all we have the right to draw a conclusion about many things by analogy. What does that mean?

Vocabulary:

Вывел человека в люди – set the man on his feet

Сторицей – a hundredfold

На таких плоха надежда – you can’t rely on them

Ничтожная доля – tiny portion

Жалкие проценты – thousandth part

Низколобые – low-browed


 

Letter from Jack Siebert to MMSD Colleagues

Dear Friends,

Well it's hard to believe, but I have now been in California for more than a month; I must say that adjustment has been rather easy and therefore it feels as if I have been here longer. That is probably due to the fact that I have been coming out here for seven years and very little seems new or strange to me. Then again, there was Tuesday when I went to the Department of Motor Vehicles*. It was my first experience of having to wait in line - for one hour and 30 minutes just to get to the counter. I did not know that it is possible to make an appointment! Well, I finally got up to the counter and the woman who waited on me said, "Thank God, an easy one!" What she was referring to was that the gentleman before me was a Spanish speaker and she was not one bit patient with him. Anyway, after a little help from the examiner, I did pass the test and am now in possession of a California license. I guess that makes me somewhat official?

Let me tell you a little about Redwood City School District*. There are about 8,500 students and fully HALF of them are LEP*. The vast majority of the 4,300 LEP students are Spanish speakers, but there are several other groups with appreciable numbers of students (i.e. Tongan is the second most spoken language, Tonga being an island in the South Pacific and the culture being a Polynesian one). There are also some Vietnamese, but not too many; San Jose (about 30 miles to the south) has a large Vietnamese population and the Hmong* tend to be more in the central part of the state (i.e. Modesto). By the way, I just found out an interesting fact; 80% of the donut stores in California (and there are about 2,400 of them) are owned by Cambodians! It all started with one Cambodian refugee who bought one store in the late 70's and eventually he bought more and then began selling them to other Cambodians! I imagine that there are not too many donut stores in Cambodia?

The Redwood City School District is made up of 14 schools, which cover the grades K-8. There is a separate high school district with its own administration, school board, schools, etc. Absolutely no connection between the two systems! Also, the Redwood City Schools are not all the same - some are K-6, some K-7, some K-8 and one of them is a charter school* and operates completely as its own entity. Interesting system. - I'll let you know later on if I think that it is working or not.

The staff that I work with is a varied lot with some of them having a lot of experience with LEP students and others less so. I am impressed with the number of teachers and principals that speak Spanish - and they are not necessarily native speakers, but people who have learned it in school. Also, ESL* as a profession doesn't really exist in this district. ALL teachers, no matter what they teach, must take a course and pass a test for LDS (Language Development Specialist). Classroom teachers are then supposed to teach LDS (or ESL as we in Madison call it) to their students sometime during the day. The problem is that many don't feel confident, don't have the time, don't have the materials, or just don't do it!

The big push in this district is on Bilingual Education*. Students who are native Spanish speakers and who speak no English can come into this district and will be placed in bilingual classes for most of the day; for example, they would have Language Arts*, Social Studies*, Math and Science* in Spanish and this could go on for several years. They are supposed to be exposed to English through the mediums of Art, PE and Music. But guess what? Most schools do not have these courses since they don't exist in California schools. If a school wants a PE* teacher, their staff has to agree that it is a priority. And then the allocation is taken out of the total school allocation and in order to make up for the shortage of a teacher, everyone has to agree to take one more student in their class and then an allocation is now loosened up for PE. Music - in the classroom. Art - in the classroom. LMC* - they exist, but NO LIBRARIANS! Usually they have a volunteer parent come in to work whenever. So Madison, revel in what you have - it's definitely more!

You may have heard through the grapevine of our first 24 hours here (I say “we” as my son Aaron accompanied me on the trip out here). When we arrived at the apartment complex, I almost was not allowed to take possession of my apartment since I did not have (and they neglected to tell me) a cashier's check* or money order*. Even though they had a thorough credit check on me, they were not going to accept my personal check. After two hours of ranting and raving, the manager of the complex agreed to have me dial my bank # and she listened in on the recording which stated the balance in my account. Since there was more than enough money, she decided she would accept my check!

Then that evening, after we had unpacked, we went out to dinner with friends. When we returned, we parked on the street right by our apartment building; as we were unloading, two young men passed by. One of them and I exchanged glances and 1 noticed a sneer on his face, but thought nothing of it. About 20 minutes later, when we were upstairs in my 11th floor apartment, we heard all sort of sirens. We looked out the window and could see, about 25 feet from where we were standing, police cars, 2 ambulances and a fire truck. Aaron said that he thought that someone had been murdered and I said, "I'm sure it was just some sort of accident." Wrong! Two Russian immigrants, who were going into the garage to get their car, had been attacked in the stairwell and both were shot - one died and one did not. The one who lived gave a description to the police of the assailants and it turned out to be the two young men we had seen just 20 minutes earlier as we unpacked our car. I'm sure that nothing happened to us as were under a light and therefore more visible. Good luck for us, but not the other two gentlemen!

Finally, on the way to a meeting in Redwood City the next day, I had a flat tire. They do say that things happen in three's and I do believe that these were mine!

All in all, I am very happy that I made the move and am enjoying the city to its fullest. One day I went with a friend to Opera In the Park and it was fabulous - we will be seeing Don Giovanni in November at the Opera House. On another day, we rode our bikes through Golden Gate Park, over the Golden Gate Bridge into Sausalito, back by ferry and then through the city again to his home and eventually mine. Put on about 25 miles that day and it felt great! There are street festivals all the time, great restaurants (so far I've been to Chinese, Thai, Italian, etc.), movies, museums (I'm going to a Mongolian artifacts exhibit next week) and friends to spend time with. I have also tried to keep up with correspondence, and doing a group letter such as this will hopefully take care of many of my friends.

I do hope that all of you are doing well and that the school year has gotten off to a good start. Having spoken with a few friends, I am aware that changes continue - have faith, in a few years we'll be back where we started. Do drop a line if you get a chance - I always love hearing from home.

Love, Jack Siebert



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