Le récent colloque de linguistique française, tenu au Centre international d’études pédagogiques de Sèvres du 20 au 22 décembre dernier, soulignait fort à propos l’unité profonde de la langue, dans laquelle l’analyste découpe des tranches et des niveaux avec l’insouciance d’un chirurgien en salle de dissection. Or, en fait, ces unités et ces niveaux avec lesquels nous opérons sont si bien entremêlés que, pour mieux les voir, nous risquons de détruire la matière même que nous prétendons connaître.

It is strange to observe how many linguists do not know how to exploit an etymology properly. One of the sad consequences of this ignorance is the destructive and unjustifiable rejection of traditional vocabulary within the realm of grammar which linguistics is supposed to defend. The symptom indicates the more serious condition of an ignorance of profound grammatical truths that the ancient Romans and Greeks had discovered, but which, for the most part, have escaped our attention because often we do not know how to use words properly. As an illustration of this point, I ask you to reconsider with me the word “case.” Its grammatical meaning is almost always a source of confusion even though both English and French have cases. Since the word comes to us from Latin, I shall first examine what “case” is and how it works out in the Latin language.

On establishing a Standard Literary Language (SLL). Having once designed a SO to serve all the Canadian Eskimo dialects, the question of selecting a standard literary language remains. It is important to repeat that the existence of the former does not presuppose the use of the latter. The best proof of this is the existence of the syllabary which most Canadian dialects have used as a SO although not one of them is as yet recognized as representing a SLL.

Most languages of long literary tradition developed, at least in the early stages, without any organized central control. The fact that the Canadian government and other groups such as religious bodies can benefit themselves and the Eskimos by publishing their texts in a SLL written phonemically makes it necessary to decide on the criteria that will govern the official choice of the dialect that will form the basis of the SLL. To wait for the natural process of history for the creation of a SLL among a population of some 10,000 Eskimos would involve too long a period of time and might even endanger the survival of their language under the increasing influence of the white man’s language.