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 DIVERSITY
6.000-7.000 languages in the world
Languages by the number of speakers:
Mandarine Chinese
847,000.000
Hindi
366,000.000
English
341,000.000
Spanish
330.000,000
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: 615.000 non-technical words
(over 2,000.000, if slang and techical words added)
(imported from more than 240 languages)
average use in daily speech 800-1000 words
college graduates 10.000-20.000
Where does all this diversity come from?
Franz Boas (1858-1942), 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
qana
piqsirpoq
qimuqsuq
‘snow on the ground’
‘falling snow’
‘drifting snow’
‘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
[...] [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 (1897-1941)
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 sourcetarget 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
a) Did you hear that the guy who the police were looking for’s red
Cortina got stolen?
b) 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. 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 5000-3000 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 128.000 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
Yiddish
Plattdeutsch (Low German)
Swiss German (Alemannic)
Dutch
Afrikaans
Flemish
Frisian
English
Scots
Danish
Faroese
Islandic
Norwegian (Nynorsk, Bokmal)
Swedish
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 (493-553)
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
North Sea (Ingvaeonic)
Dutch
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
700.000 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
He sleeps
PREDICATE
verb
He kicked the ball
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
benefactor
indirect object
patient
direct object
….
ROLE ASSIGNEMENT – SYNTACTIC OR MORPHOLOGICAL
ROLE ALIGNMENT
ergative - absolutive
:
nominative – accusative
intransitive agent/subject
transitive patient/object
ABSOLUTIVE CASE
intransitive agent/subject
transitive agent/subject
NOMINATIVE CASE
transitive agent/subject
ERGATIVE CASE
transitive patient/object
ACCUSATIVE CASE
Basque:
Gizona etorri da.
man-ABS arrived-AUX
Gizonak mutila
ikusi du.
man-ERG boy-ABS saw-AUX
Japanese
Otoko ga tsuita.
man-NOM arrived
Otoko ga kodomo o mita
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
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 10.000
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 (400-600)
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 (30.000 – 70.000)
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
• genitive
talon
• accusative
talo
• partitive
taloa
• translative
taloksi
• instructive
taloin
• abessive
talotta
• essive
talona
• comitative
taloineen
LOCATIVE internal:
• inessive
talossa
• elative
talostani
• illative
taloonsa
LOCATIVE external
• adessive
talolla
• ablative
talolta
• allative
talolle
house
of the house
(object, complete)
(object, part, incomplete)
into (change) a house
with, using the house
without a house
as a house
together with the house
in the house
from inside of the house
into the house
at the house
from the house
to the house
ALTAIC LANGUAGES
ALTAIC LANGUAGES:
•TURKIC
Turkish (83 millions), Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Uzbek, Azerbaijani, Turkmen, Uigur,
Chuvash (Bulgarian), Yakut (360.000)
•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-ler N. pl.
ev-i D. sg.
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’ -1949 – 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
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
ไหมใหม่ไหม้ม้ ยั
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.
コーヒー
飲んだ
喫茶店
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
a) the addressee
b) the referent
c) the bystander
d) 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 oor 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
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
AUSTRALIA
• 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 100.000 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
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.
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) 2000-3000 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
9, 10
animals, loanwords, other
Ø/n-, Ø/n-
ndoto
dream
ndoto
11, 12
extension
u-, Ø/n-
ua
fence, yard
nyua
14
abstraction
u-
utoto
childhood
visu
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 75.000 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
45.000 – 14.000 BC
across the Beringia land bridge
one wave, several waves?
Native American languages
45.000 – 14.000 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: 200.000 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 – 170.000 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
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nfo_LnuDJ1c&feature=related
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
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFayFUiyv20
implosive, ejective phonemes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFayFUiyv20
implosive, ejective phonemes
polysynthetic
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFayFUiyv20
implosive, ejective phonemes
polysynthetic
ergative
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFayFUiyv20
implosive, ejective phonemes
polysynthetic
ergative
classifiers
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFayFUiyv20
implosive, ejective phonemes
tonemes
polysynthetic
ergative
classifiers
alienable/inalienable possession
animacy marking
many mood, tense and aspect distinctions
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFayFUiyv20
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 unts’it wop – a stick from that tree
tek = plant
ts’it = elongated object
Mayan numeral classifiers:
untek wop – jahuacte tree unts’it wop – a stick from that tree
tek = plant
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
Mayan numeral classifiers:
untek wop – jahuacte tree unts’it wop – a stick from that tree
tek = plant
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.

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