LANGUAGE AND CULTURE.

LANGUAGE AND CULTURE

CULTURE: integrated human knowledge, belief and behaviour, which depends on the capacity of symbolic thought and social learning (pan-human or shared by different groups). LANGUAGE is a system of (verbal) signs embedded in social and cultural reality of language users. The structures of language reflect (and shape?) COGNITIVE STRUCTURES. CULTURE MIND LANGUAGE

LANGUAGE UNIVERSALS : All languages share the same universal matrix of syntactic patterns and generative-transformational rules. LINGUISTIC RELATIVITY: 1. Languages, especially those genetically unrelated, differ significantly. 2. The structure and the lexicon of a language reflect and affect the cognitive processes and conceptualization of reality.

LANGUAGE DIVERSITY languages in the world Languages by the number of speakers: Mandarine Chines e 847, Hindi 366, English 341, Spanish ,000 Bengali Arabic Portuguese Russian Japanese German …. 2000 languages – less than 1000 speakers

Distribution/concentration of languages:
English – official language in 52 countries 900 languages on Papua New Guinea (5-10 million people) high density also in Caucasus, (Native) California… ½ of languages no longer used by children 1/3 of languages less than 1000 speakers English: non-technical words (over 2, , if slang and techical words added) (imported from more than 240 languages) average use in daily speech words college graduates

Where does all this diversity come from?
Franz Boas ( ), anthropologist “Since the total range of personal experience which language serves to express is infinitely varied, and its whole scope must be expressed by a limited number of phonetic groups, it is obvious that an extended classification of experience must underline all articulate speech.”

Where does all this diversity come from?
Different languages – different implicit classification of experience: Inuit: aput ‘snow on the ground’ qana ‘falling snow’ piqsirpoq ‘drifting snow’ qimuqsuq ‘snow drift’ Linguistic classifications reflect, not dictate thought.

Edward Sapir (1884-1939), anthropologist-linguist
formal completeness of each language as a symbolic system:

“The outstanding fact about any language is its formal completeness [
“The outstanding fact about any language is its formal completeness [...] [W]e may say that a language is so constructed that no matter what any speaker of it may desire to communicate [...] the language is prepared to do his work.” “The Hopi language is capable of accounting for and describing correctly...all observable phenomena of the universe... Just as it is possible to have any number of geometries other than the Euclidean”. Linguistic classifications channel thought: “ Language is guide to social reality [...] Human beings do not live in the objective world alone [...] but are very much at the mercy of the particular language which has become the medium of expression for their society [...] No two languages are ever sufficiently similar to be considered as representing the same social reality...«

Benjamin Lee Whorf ( ) known for his descriptions of Nahuatl, Hopi, Mayan and other native American languages the need for calibration – objective non-linguistic evaluation (physical sciences?) “The very natural tendency to use terms derived from traditional grammar, like verb, noun, adjective, passive voice, in describing languages outside of Indo-European is fraught with grave possibilities of misunderstanding”

“We cut nature up, organize it into concepts, and ascribe significances as we do, largely because we are parties to an agreement to organize it in this way – an agreement that holds throughout our speech community and is codified in the patterns of our language. The agreement is, of course, and implicit and unstated one, but its terms are absolutely obligatory…” Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis = the structure of a language affects the way in which its speakers conceptualize the World.

Categorization of the World
comparison of things (phenomena) that are not alike but similar in (at least) one important way conceptual metaphor source domain (more concrete > target domain (more abstract) metaphor mapping: = a systematic set of correspondences that exist between constituent elements of the source and the target domain […] To know a conceptual metaphor is to know the set of mappings that applies to a given source-target pairing. Time is a path. I fear the days ahead. Time is money. Don’t waste my time.

Lakoff, George & Mark Johnson (1980) Metaphors We Live By.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press How does one’s conceptualization (categorization) of the world become culture? (integrated human knowledge, belief and behaviour, which depends on the capacity of symbolic thought and social learning (pan-human or shared by different groups). memetic theory: culture and language united by memes: meme > Greek mīmēma ‘something imitated’ Richard Dawkings, The Selfish Gene (1976) “Culture is an aggregate of many different meme sets or memeplexes shared by the majority of population. Language – created by memes and for memes is [also] the principal medium used for spreading memes.”

Cultural schemas/frames
Did you hear that the guy who the police were looking for’s red Cortina got stolen? Will they deny that a nun who your shopkeeper was chatting up’s large settee got replicated? c) No head injury is too trivial to ignore.

“Grammar is thick with cultural meaning
“Grammar is thick with cultural meaning. Encoded in the semantics of grammar we find cultural values and ideas, we find clues about the social structures.” N. J. Enfield: Ethnosyntax. Explorations in Grammar and Culture. OUP 2002

LANGUAGE FAMILIES AND LANGUAGE TYPOLOGY

EUROPE

EUROPE Indo-European Uralic (Ugro-Finnic) Altaic Basque Semitic

INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES
from the Indo-Eropean Parent language, spoken about AD in south-eastern Russia patriarchal society > kinship terms, masculine pantheon social stratification: slave < ‘warrior’, ‘man’ wulf, birch, beech, bear cow, dog, plough, seed

inflectional language(s)
nouns: 3 numbers + collective (?) – drevje : drevesa 3 genders 8 or 9 cases: nominative, vocative, accusative, genitive, dative, ablative, locative, directive (?) instrumental verbs: tense/aspect: present, imperfect, aorist, perfect, pluperfect, future mood: indicative, imperative, subjunctive, optative voice: active, middle persons: 3

Indo-Iranian languages:
Indic: Vedic, Sanskrit, Hindi, Bengali, Urdu, Romany… chakra, ashram, guru, karma, caste Iranian:Avestan, Iranian, Pashto, Kurdic, Ossetic, Tadjik… Balkan (‘upper house’), Bagdad (‘given by God’), balcony, caravan, candy, dervish, mag(ic), paradise

Armenian attested from 5th c. AD Bible translation by St Mesrob Grabar – classical Armenian Armenian Apostolic Church Christianity as national religion (301) language: strong Iranian influence, convergeance with Caucasic languages glottalized consonants (ejectives)

Albanian descended from Illyrian? Thracian? Ptolomy (150 AD) – Illyrian tribe Albani Middle Ages – Arbër, Arbëresh 16th c. - Shqipëria ‘land of eagles’(?) shqip ‘understand each other’ Arnaut – Turkish name

1190 – independent state Gheg – since 16th c. (north) Tosk – official Albanian (south)

Baltic languages: Latvian, Lithuanian, Old Prussian (extinct)

Anyone wishing to hear how Indo-Europeans spoke
should come and listen to a Lithuanian peasant. (Antoine Meillet) pitch accent, free accent two grammatical genders (masculine and feminine)

Slavic (Slavonic) languages:
Eastern branch: Russian, Ukranian, Belarusian Western branch: Polish, Czech, Slovakian, Sorbian Southern branch: Old Church Slavonic (extinct), Bulgarian, Macedonian, Serbian, Croatian, Slovenian

GREEK LANGUAGE(S) Minoan civilization on Crete (settled BC, signs of agriculture 5000 BC) named by Arthur Evans Linear A Minoan eruption (Thera, Santorinin) - 2nd millenium BC, tsunami

Minoan eruption – Thera (Santorini)
ashes, tsunami, deforestation Mycenaean conquest

Mycenean Greek – Linear B
Ancient Greek: Aeolic Ionic (Asia Minor, Attic) Doric Greek alphabet < Phoenician syllabary Katharevousa Hellenistic Koinē > modern Greek Demotic (official in Greece, Cyprus)

CELTS AND CELTIC LANGUAGES
core territory – 6th century BC maximal expansion by 275 BC

CELTIC LANGUAGES (insular Celtic) Brythonic: Welsh (Cymric) Cornish Breton Gaelic: Irish Gaelic Scottish Gaelic Manx

Brehon Law – the early Celtic law
women’s rights to property, the king’s position and duties, status grading of clerics, lay men and poets, payment for injury, sick maintenance….

linguistic typology of Celtic languages:
V-S-O order consonant mutation vigesimal numeric system 20 as the base number: French (quatre-vingts) Resian dialect of Slovene (trikart dwesti nu deset) English (score)

counting base: no base (Melanisia: thumb, wrist, elbow, shoulder…) quarternary: (Maori, Papua New Guinea, other Austronesian languages) quinary: sub-base of vigesimal systems octal: American languages vigesimal: Mayan, Nahualt, Celtic…. decimal, duodecimal…

GERMANIC LANGUAGES (expansion of the territory from 750 BC and 200 A)

Western: Northern: German Danish Yiddish Faroese Plattdeutsch (Low German) Islandic Swiss German (Alemannic) Norwegian (Nynorsk, Bokmal) Dutch Swedish Afrikaans Flemish Frisian English Scots Eastern: Gothic Vandalic ….

GOTHS migration from the Baltic to the Black Sea Wulfila (4th c. AD) Crimean Gothic

Ostrogothic and Visigothic attacks on the Roman Empire
Visigoths – in Iberia (till 711) Ostrogoths – In Italy ( )

Gothic art

Noth Germanic languagaes:
Old Norse > eastern (Swedish, Danish) western (Norwegian > Faroese, Icelandic) Dansk-Norsk, Riksmal, Bokmal Landnorsk, Nynorsk

West Germanic languages
Bavarian Alemanic High German High Franconian Frankish Low Franconian Dutch North Sea (Ingvaeonic) Frisian English Saxon (Low German, Plattdeutsch)

ROMANCE LANGUGES

Italic languages: first attested in 7th c. BC
in old Italic script on the basis of Etruscan/Greek alphabet

Oscan , Umbrian, Latin Archaic Latin (7th-2nd c. BC): scattered inscriptions, Plautus, Terence, Cato the Elder… Classical Latin (Golden and Silver Age): Cicero, Caesar, Horace, Vergil, Ovid, Seneca… Vulgar Latin (spoken Latin, from 3rd c.) > Romance languages: Gallo-Romance languages: French (attested since 9th c.): langue d’oïl, langue d’oc Central French, Norman French (Anglo-Norman), Walloon Occitan > Provençal Corsican?

Ibero-Romance languages:
Spanish Castilian (standard Spanish), attested since 11th c. Catalan (official language in Andorra, co-official in Catalonia, Balearic Islands and Valencia, spoken also in Alghero on Sardinia) Portuguese Ladino (Judaeo-Spanish) Italian (since 10th c. – dialects of Tuscany) Sardinian? Rhaeto-Romance languages: Ladin Friulian Romansch Istriot? Romanian

ETRUSCAN Tusci, Etrusci (Latin) Tyrrennioi (Greek) Rassena, Rasna (Etruscan) since 8th c. BC – 3rd c. BC

BASQUE LANGUAGE – EUSKARA
Basque country – Euskal Herria: Spanish-French border speakers, most bilingual, the first printed book in 1545 Basque language unrelated to any other known language DNA shows close relations to other Europeans

ergative-absolutive language
complex agreement system: the auxiliary agrees with the subject, direct and indirect object very complex nominal paradigm, (9 cases, 2 numbers, postpositioned article)

ergative-absolutive languages
It rains PREDICATEverb He kicked the ball He sleeps He gave her a flower VALENCY - THE NUMBER OF ARGUMENTS/ACTANTS/COPMPLEMENTS CONTROLLED BY THE PREDICATE

impersonal – no argument
It rains intransitive – one argument He sleeps verb transitive – two arguments He kicked the ball He gave her a flower ditransitive – three arguments

ARGUMENTS HAVE SEMANTIC ROLES: agent, patient, recipient,
beneficiary, means/instrument…. impersonal – no argument It rains intransitive – one argument He sleeps AGENT verb transitive – two arguments He kicked the ball AGENT, PATIENT He gave her a flower ditransitive – three arguments AGENT, RECIPIENT, PATIENT

semantic roles grammatical (syntactic) function
agent, doer subject instrument subject recepient indirect object benefactor patient direct object …. ROLE ASSIGNEMENT – SYNTACTIC OR MORPHOLOGICAL

ROLE ALIGNMENT ergative - absolutive : nominative – accusative intransitive agent/subject intransitive agent/subject transitive patient/object transitive agent/subject ABSOLUTIVE CASE NOMINATIVE CASE transitive agent/subject transitive patient/object ERGATIVE CASE ACCUSATIVE CASE Basque: Gizona etorri da. Gizonak mutila ikusi du. man-ABS arrived-AUX man-ERG boy-ABS saw-AUX Japanese Otoko ga tsuita. Otoko ga kodomo o mita man-NOM arrived man-NOM child-ACC saw

ergative languages: Basque Caucasian (Kartvelian=Georgian) Tibetan Native American (Chinook, Eskimo-Aleut, Mayan) Australian

URALIC LANGUAGES

URALIC LANGUAGES proto-Uralic (the Ural Mountains) UGRO-FINNIC Finnic: Finnish, Estonian, Sami (Lappish) Ugric: Hungarian SAMOYEDIC

FINNISH (SUOMI) official language in Finland Finland settled at least 8500 BC Swedish rule from 12th century – 1249 Swedish – the dominant language of higher classes 17th century – Sweden and Russia fought over Finland 1809 – Finland becomes an autonomous Great Duchy of Russia Finnish language gains recognition Kalevala – 1835 (Elias Lönnrot) independence delared on December 6, 1917

SAMI Sapmi area: settlements since BC fishermen, raindeer hunters, since 1500 raindeer herders 19th, 20th century: pressure to wipe out Sami culture (Norwegian names, language, sterilization of Sami women in Sweden… logging, mineral mining, military activitities, Chernobyl… 9 varieties of Sami language: Northern Sami (15000), the rest 3500 ( )

HUNGARIAN – Ugric language
Pannonia (9th BC – end of 4th AD) – Roman province Huns, Ostrogoths, Lombards, Gepids, Avars and Slaves Magyars led by Arpad – since 895 federation of tribes Saint Stephan I – Hungary integrated into feudal Christian Europe Latin official language until 19th c. 1200 – funeral oration 1430s – Bible translation 1533 – first printed book (letters of St. Paul) agglutinative language, up to 18 cases 2 conjugations: definite for transitive, indefinite for intransitive verbs four levels of politeness kinship terms depend on the relative age (younger/older) separate prefixes for up to eleventh ancestors and tenth descendants surname generally comes first

SAMOYEDIC ( – ) Nenets

17th vs 20th c.

TYPOLOGY OF URALIC LANGUAGES
nominative-accusative alignment elaborate case systems agglutination no grammatical gender dual in Samoyedic and Sami languages vowel harmony

FINNISH NOUN CASES nominative talo house genitive talon of the house accusative talo (object, complete) partitive taloa (object, part, incomplete) translative taloksi into (change) a house instructive taloin with, using the house abessive talotta without a house essive talona as a house comitative taloineen together with the house LOCATIVE internal: inessive talossa in the house elative talostani from inside of the house illative taloonsa into the house LOCATIVE external adessive talolla at the house ablative talolta from the house allative talolle to the house

ALTAIC LANGUAGES

ALTAIC LANGUAGES: TURKIC Turkish (83 millions), Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Uzbek, Azerbaijani, Turkmen, Uigur, Chuvash (Bulgarian), Yakut ( ) MONGOLIAN Mongolian (Khalka), Kalmyk, Buryat TUNGISIC Evenki, Manchu

TYPOLOGY vowel harmony agglutination SOV word order Vowel harmony: result of distant assimilation of vowels in neighbouring syllables – adjustment of the vowels in the bound morpheme to the vowel in the stem Turkish ev ‘house’ - ev-ler ‘houses’ kadin ‘woman’ - kadin-lar ‘women’ Agglutination: ev – N. Sg. ev-i D. sg. ev-ler N. pl. ev-ler-i D. pl.

SINO-TIBETAN LANGUAGES
CHINESE LANGUAGES TIBETO-BURMAN LANGUAGES

CHINESE CHARACTERS (hànzi)

PHONO-SEMANTIC COMPOUNDS
radical + phonetic clue mother = woman + “sounds like horse”

CHINESE LANGUAGES Han languages - Hànyŭ Wén-yán – 1500 BC – logographic writing system Báihuà – 1917 reformed languages (written) Simplified Chinese – since 1956 (2.238 characters simplified) Pŭtōnguà ‘common language’ – spoken standardized language based on Mandarin (official in China and Taiwan, Singapore and UN) Mandarin (850) Cantonese (Yue) (70) – Guangong, Hong Kong, Macau, overseas Wu (90) - Shanghai Min (50) – Taiwan (Taiwanese), Southeast Asia Hakka - southern China, Xiang – Hunan (central China)….

Typology of Chinese languages isolating languages SVO tonal languages
classifiers In isolating languages free morphemes prevail. Words are mostly monomorphemic. khi tôi dên nhà ban tôi, chúng tôi bát dâu làm bài. when I come house friend I plural I begin do lesson article 76

Tonal languages have tonemes, i. e
Tonal languages have tonemes, i. e. phonemes which differe only in the register (pitch) and/or its contour (shift). Tonal languages: Chinese, Thai, Vietnamese, sub-Saharan African languages, Native American languages ไหมใหม่ไหม้มั้ย IPA: /mǎi mài mâi mái/ "Does new silk burn?“ (Thai tong-twister) 妈妈骂马的麻吗?/媽媽罵馬的麻嗎? Pinyin: māma mà mǎ de má ma? "Is mom scolding the horse's hemp?“ (Mandarin)

Classifers are morphemes which refer to some innate semantic feature of the content word they are used with. They can be used with different word classes. Classifier languages: Chinese, Thai, Australian languages, Mayan… Murrinhpatha (Australian): Nanti kamarl : C:generic + eye = eye Kura kamarl : C:water + eye = pond Mi kamarl: C:non-meat food + eye = seed Nominal: (Yidini) bama waguja: C:human + man Numerical: (Thai) luuk saam khon: child + three-C:human Verbal: (Waris) sa ka-m put-ra-ho-o coconut + me + C:kokos + meni + C:round + give ….

Chinese classifers (measure words) between numerals/demonstratives and nouns
五wǔ five 头tóu CL 牛niú cattle general classifer, books, flat objects, animals, large buildings and mountains, domestic animals, long and flexible animals, horses…

JAPANESE many typological characteristic of Altaic languages (agglutination, SOV word order) Chinese influence – lexicon, writing system Chinese characters – kanji (< hanzi) (several thousands) 2 syllabaries: kana scripts: katakana, hiragana (46 basic characters each) Latin script: romaji

JAPANESE many typological characteristic of Altaic languages (agglutination, SOV word order) Chinese influence – lexicon, writing system Chinese characters – kanji 2 syllabaries: kana script: katakana, hiragana Latin script: romaji: Watashi-wa kissaten-de koohi-o nam-da. 飲んだ喫茶店コーヒー

JAPANESE many typological characteristic of Altaic languages (agglutination, SOV word order) Chinese influence – lexicon, writing system Chinese characters – kanji 2 syllabaries: kana script: katakana, hiragana Latin script: romaji WATASHI wa KISSATEN de koohi o NAM da

HONORIFICS grammatical or morphosyntactic encoding of the relative social status of the addressee the referent the bystander the circumstances Examples: T-V distinction in many Indo-European languages 3 different linguistic “styles” in Japanese, 4 in Javanese and Nahuatl, 6 in Korean… “avoidance speech”: Australian, Austranesian, American, Cushitic and Bantu languages (e.g. different words used in the presence of opposite sex parents-in-law, children-in-law, cross-cousins in Dyrbal)

Honorifics in English:
Mr,, Mrs., Ms,. Miss, Doctor, Captain, Coach, Officer, Reverend, Father, Professor… Sir, Madam, Your Honour, Your Majesty, Your Highness (below royalty) Your Excellency (heads of state, ambassadors, governors, bishops) Your Eminence (cardinals)

HONORIFIC SPEECH - KEIGO
polite language: TEI NEIGO desu at the end of the sentence, masu at the end of the verb, prefixes o- or go- for nouns used by television presenters, the “safest” form to be learned by non-native speakers respectful language: SON KEIGO special forms or words used, lengthy polite expressions, e.g taberu ‘eat’, nomu ‘drink’ > meshiagaru hito ‘person’ > kata: 人 > 方 when talking about/to superiors and customers; not used when referring to oneself. in business, professional capacity humble language: KEN YOOGO similar to respectful language but used when referring to oneself 85

HONORIFIC WORDS/particles, added to nouns or names
chan – children, pets, close friends little girls kun – people of lower social status, boys san – the most common marker of respect (Mr. Mrs, also for family members) sama – ‘esteemed’ sensei – ‘master, teacher’

LANGUAGES IN SOUTH AND SOUTH-EASTERN ASIA
INDIA Indo-European languages (Hindi, Urdu, Bengali…) Dravidian languages

LANGUAGES IN SOUTH AND SOUTH-EASTERN ASIA
INDIA Indo-European languages (Hindi, Urdu, Bengali…) Dravidian languages INDOCHINA Sino-Tibetan languages (> Tibeto-Burmese > Burmese) Tai languages (Thai, Lao/Laotian) Austro-Asiatic languages (Khmer, Mon, Vietnamese?)

LANGUAGES IN AUSTRALIA AND OCEANIA
Indo-European languages (English) Australian Aboriginal languages; Tasmanian languages

27 language families 150 languages many ergative mother-in-law (avoidance) languages skin system taboo against naming the dead (a year or more) sign languages

LANGUAGES IN AUSTRALIA AND OCEANIA
INDIAN OCEAN, INDONESIA, MALESIA, PACIFIC OCEAN Austronesian languages: Formosan, Malagasy, Indonesian, Malay, Javanese, Filipino (Tagalog), Maori, Samoan, Tahitian, Hawaiian, Tongic… . Papuan languages 800 languages, 60 families, only a few more than speakers polysynthetic some are tonal PIDGIN AND CREOLE LANGUAGES

PIDGIN AND CREOLE LANGUAGES
SOCIO-LINGUISTIC DEFINITION: pidgin: auxiliary language, emerging where more than two languages in contact, no native speakers, the use restricted to certain fields of life (e.g. trade) creole: first language of communication GEOGRAPHIC DISTRIBUTION: Pacific and Indian Ocean, Australia, West Africa, Caribean islands, South America…

LINGUISTIC CHARACTERISTICS:
lexifier language, common grammatical features pidgin: the number of grammatical categories reduced, the encodement transparent, poor morphology creole: reassertion of grammatical categories, grammaticalization of lexemes, basic morphology Tok Pisin: balus ‘bird’ kaikai ‘eat’ bubu ‘great parent/child’ lotu ‘church’ rokrok ‘frog’ tambu ‘in-laws’ (< taboo) pikinini ‘child’ kantiri ‘sister’s child, uncle’

belo kaikai belhat manki gras bilong fes gras no gut maus gras sit haus, liklik haus haus moni manmeri solwara gat bel hevi

Nem bilong yu i mas i stap holi. Kingdom bilong yu i mas i kam.
Papa bilong mipela, Yu stap long heven. Nem bilong yu i mas i stap holi. Kingdom bilong yu i mas i kam. Strongim mipela long bihainim laik bilong yu long graun, olsem ol i bihainim long heven. Givim mipela kaikai inap long tude. Pogivim rong bilong mipela, olsem mipela i pogivim ol arapela i mekim rong long mipela. Sambai long mipela long taim bilong traim. Na rausim olgeta samting nogut long mipela. Kingdom na strong na glori, em i bilong yu tasol oltaim oltaim.Tru. 95

decreolisation: basilect mezolect acrolect

LANGUAGES IN AFRICA

AFRO-ASIATIC languages (Hamito-Semitic languages)
Semitic, Berber, Cushitic, Chadic, Omotic, Egyptian

8th BC – Aramaic becomes the common language of communication in the Middle East > after 3rd BC, also the spoken language of Jews Hebrew remains the literary and liturgical language of Jews 19th c. – Eliezer ben Yehuda – 4000 new words, 1959 dictionary of modern Hebrew – Ivrit Arabic – until 7th c. on the Arabian penninsula – with expansion of Islam 8th c. > northern Africa, Spain, India… 610 – Muhammad recieved revelations by Gabriel (Jibril) Koran (Quran) – classical Arabic > modern literary Arabic algebra, alcohol, alchemy, zenith, nadir, zero, cipher…

Amharic – Ethiopia, (from Ge’ez)

Typology of Semitic languages
introflection (nonconcatanative/discontinuous morphology) kitāb "book" kutub "books" kātib "writer" kuttāb "writers" kataba "he wrote" yaktubu "he writes" VSO word order some dialects only 3 vowels most dialects 3 numbers 2 genders – masculine and feminine

Berber, Cushitic, Chadic, Omotic, Egyptian (formerly Hamitic languages)

NIGER-CONGO LANGUAGES

Niger-Congo (1350) Yoruba, Fula, Akan BANTU languages (535, 250 mutually intelligible) Cameroon (proto-Bantu language) years ago eastward and southward Swahili Xhosa Zulu Rwanda Swazi Kongo Shona Ndebele…

Class languages Swahili: class semantics prefix singular translation
plural 1, 2 persons m-/mu-, wa- mtu person watu 3, 4 trees, natural forces m-/mu-, mi- mti tree miti 5, 6 groups, AUG Ø/ji-, ma- jicho eye macho 7, 8 artefacts, DIM ki-, vi- kisu knife visu 9, 10 animals, loanwords, other Ø/n-, Ø/n- ndoto dream 11, 12 extension u-, Ø/n- ua fence, yard nyua 14 abstraction u- utoto childhood

AGREEMENT, CONCORD AGGLUTINATION Mtoto mdogo amekisoma. ‘a small child has read it’ Watoto wadogo wamekisoma ‘small children have read it’ amekisoma: a = class marker of the subject me = perfect tense ki = class marker of the object (< kitabu ‘book’) soma = root morpheme ‘read’

KHOISAN LANGUAGES

Khoi-Khoi ‘first people’
Khoi-Khoi > many speak Bantu languages Nama (Namibia), a.k.a. Hottentot San ‘outsiders’, Bushmen Kalahari, about still hunters gatherers land conflict with Botswana Clicks reduplication for plural 3 tones 3 genders, feminine and masculine nouns 3 numbers, neuter nouns 2 numbers SOV

Native American languages
– BC across the Beringia land bridge one wave, several waves?

Native American languages
– BC across the Beringia land bridge one wave, several waves? macro families (Joseph Greenberg) Eskimo-Aleut Na-Dene Amerind

preColumbian America: over 1500 languages,
10 million in North America, 30 million Central America 50 million South America today: North America: speakers Central America: 6 million speakers South America: 12 million speakers Most populous: Navajo, Inuit, Nahuatl, Mayan, Quechua Aymara, Guarani… Mayan – 6 million Nahuatl – 1,5 million Guarani – 5 million Quechua – 6-7 million Navajo – speakers

History of Native American – European relations
Columbus: “They traded with us and gave us everything they had, with good will..they took great delight in pleasing us..They are very gentle and without knowledge of what is evil; nor do they murder or steal..Your highness may believe that in all the world there can be no better people ..They love their neighbours as themselves, and they have the sweetest talk in the world, and are gentle and always laughing”…

Leyes de Burgos 1512 Leyes nuevas 1542: forbade maltreatment, endorsed conversion to Catholicism, pregnant women protected hammock provided, meat on Sundays, sacred dances allowed, no physical abuse allowed… typhus, influenza, smallpox, measles…

Indian Removal Act – 1830 (Andrew Jackson)
Trail of Tears

Pine Ridge Reservation,
Wounded Knee incident in 1973

Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act of 1975

Eskimo-Aleut: Inuit, Inuktikut, Kalaallisut (Greenlandic)… Na-Dene Athabascan Navajo, Apache Amerind Algonquian: Cree, Algonquin, Blackfoot, Ojibwe, Shawnee.. Siouan: Sioux (Dakota, Lakota), Crow Iroquian: Iroquois, Cherokee, Chocktaw… Uto-Aztek: Nahuatl Mayan: Mayan, Yucatec Arawakan, Caribean Andean: Quechua, Aymara, Guarani

implosive, ejective phonemes

implosive, ejective phonemes polysynthetic

implosive, ejective phonemes polysynthetic ergative

implosive, ejective phonemes polysynthetic ergative classifiers

implosive, ejective phonemes tonemes polysynthetic ergative classifiers alienable/inalienable possession animacy marking many mood, tense and aspect distinctions

from Nahuatl: Nimitztētlamaquiltīz ni-mits-teː-tla-maki-ltiː-s' I-you-someone-something-give-CAUSATIVE-FUTURE "I shall make somebody give something to you"[6]

Classifier+Stem Label Explanation Examples -'ą́ SRO Solid Roundish Object bottle, ball, boot, box, etc. -yį́ LPB Load, Pack, Burden backpack, bundle, sack, saddle, etc. -ł-jool NCM Non-Compact Matter bunch of hair or grass, cloud, fog, etc. -lá SFO Slender Flexible Object rope, mittens, socks, pile of fried onions, etc. -tą́ SSO Slender Stiff Object arrow, bracelet, skillet, saw, etc. -ł-tsooz FFO Flat Flexible Object blanket, coat, sack of groceries, etc. -tłéé' MM Mushy Matter ice cream, mud, slumped-over drunken person, etc. -nil PLO1 Plural Objects 1 eggs, balls, animals, coins, etc. -jaa' PLO2 Plural Objects 2 marbles, seeds, sugar, bugs, etc. -ką́ OC Open Container glass of milk, spoonful of food, handful of flour, etc. -ł-tį́ ANO Animate Object microbe, person, corpse, doll, etc.

Mayan numeral classifiers:
untek wop – jahuacte tree - tek = plant unts’it wop – a stick from that tree ts’it = elongated object

untek wop – jahuacte tree - tek = plant unts’it wop – a stick from that tree ts’it = elongated object Animacy scale in Navajo: humans/lightning → infants/big animals → mid-size animals → small animals → insects → natural forces → inanimate objects/plants → abstractions

untek wop – jahuacte tree - tek = plant unts’it wop – a stick from that tree ts’it = elongated object contrast between alienable and inalienable possession Animacy scale in Navajo: humans/lightning → infants/big animals → mid-size animals → small animals → insects → natural forces → inanimate objects/plants → abstractions

“wigwam words” hickory, pecan, chipmunk, papoose, moose, squaw, igloo, kayak , pow-wow, moccasin, racoon, tomahawk, totem… chocolate, tomato, condor, coke, chili, hammock…

Native American toponyms:
Arkansas (Arkans - tribe), Oklahoma (red people), Arizona (little springs), Michigan (great water), Chicago (place of onions), Mississippi (big river), Missouri (person who has a canoe), Utah (mountain top dwellers), Wyoming (place of the big plain), Dakota (another name for Sioux), Idaho (tribe),

Nebraska (flat river), Texas (via Spanish tejas = friends), Iowa (tribe), Kansas (tribe), Minnesota (cloudy river), Illinois (tribe), Ohio (fine river), Tennessee (after a Cherokee village Tanase), Kentucky (meadowland), Alabama (tribe Alibamon), Wisconsin (gathering of waters), Connecticut (beside the long tidal river), Canada (village, community), Manitoba (great spirit), Ontario (beautiful lake), Manhattan (island of many hills) etc.

LANGUAGE AND CULTURE.

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LANGUAGE AND CULTURE.

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