On Numeral Complexity in Hunter-Gatherer Languages
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Load more
Recommended publications
-
Rift Valley Bibliography Version 1.3
Griscom, Richard, Andrew Harvey, and Anne Kruijt (eds.). 2020. Rift Valley Bibliography Version 1.3. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4300224 Rift Valley Bibliography Version 1.3 December 1st, 2020 1 Introduction This document is a bibliography of the languages of the Rift Valley Area of Tanzania, which is home to dozens of distinctive ethnic groups and languages. Uniquely, it is the meeting place of languages from three of the largest language families in Africa—Nilo-Saharan, Niger-Congo, and Afro-Asiatic—as well as Sandawe, a language with possible affinity with the so-called 'Khoisan' group, and Hadza, a language isolate, which means that it is not known to be related to any other languages currently spoken. The Rift Valley Bibliography is compiled by members of the Rift Valley Network and is hosted on the network website at the Rift Valley Bibliography page. This is a text version of the bibliography, but other formats of the bibliography are available on the website for those who use reference manager software (e.g. Zotero, EndNote, or Mendeley), and a Zotero Group is used to make additions and changes to the bibliography. A PDF Collection of selected entries is available for members of the Rift Valley Network only, and release notes are made available for each release. For comments or questions related to this bibliography, please send an email to [email protected]. 1 2 Table of Contents Table of Contents 1 Introduction.............................................................................................................................................1 -
M01hjbr 10Ngujb
CONTENTS Page Feature 1 Linguistic Methodology and Distant Linguistic Comparison M01HJBR Allan R. Bomhard 4 Toward a Defmitive Classification of the World's Languages 10NGUJB Harold C. Fleming 30 Pama-Nyungan II and Tasmanian NJEWSLJETTJER OF Geoff O'Grady and Susan Fitzgerald tHJE ASSOCIAtiON 36 C. C. Uhlenbeck and Dene-Caucasian W. Wi/fried Schuhmacher FOR tHJE StuDY OF 37 Book Review: Language in the Americas (1987) LANGUAGJE IN Reviewed by Stefan Liedtke PREHIStORY 39 In the Public Media: - Late Dates in East Polynesia (Science News) - A Geneticist Maps Ancient Migrations (New York Times) 40 Brief Communication: Seeking the Traces ofthe Indo-European Homeland. Vac/av Blaiek 41 Software: Gamma UniVerse/or Windows 42 Letters to the Editor 43 Editorial 43 ASLIP Business 44 Books for Review AIM &SCOPE The Association for the Study of Language in Prehistory (ASLIP) is a nonprofit organization, incorporated under the laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Its purpose is to encourage and support the study of language in prehistory in all fields and by all means, including research on the early evolution of human language, supporting conferences, setting up a databank, and publishing a newsletter and/or journal to report these activities. Annual dues for ASLIP membership and subscription to Mother Tongue are US $15.00 in all countries except those with currency problems. In those countries, annual dues are zero ($0.00). European distribution: All members living in Europe (up to the borders of Asia), and not having currency problems, will pay their annual dues to, and receive Mother Tongue from: Prof. Dr. -
The Languages of Amazonia Patience Epps University of Texas at Austin
Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America Volume 11 Article 1 Issue 1 Volume 11, Issue 1 6-2013 The Languages of Amazonia Patience Epps University of Texas at Austin Andrés Pablo Salanova University of Ottawa Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.trinity.edu/tipiti Part of the Anthropology Commons Recommended Citation Epps, Patience and Salanova, Andrés Pablo (2013). "The Languages of Amazonia," Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America: Vol. 11: Iss. 1, Article 1, 1-28. Available at: http://digitalcommons.trinity.edu/tipiti/vol11/iss1/1 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Digital Commons @ Trinity. It has been accepted for inclusion in Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ Trinity. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Epps and Salanova: The Languages of Amazonia ARTICLE The Languages of Amazonia Patience Epps University of Texas at Austin Andrés Pablo Salanova University of Ottawa Introduction Amazonia is a linguistic treasure-trove. In this region, defined roughly as the area of the Amazon and Orinoco basins, the diversity of languages is immense, with some 300 indigenous languages corresponding to over 50 distinct ‘genealogical’ units (see Rodrigues 2000) – language families or language isolates for which no relationship to any other has yet been conclusively demonstrated; as distinct, for example, as Japanese and Spanish, or German and Basque (see section 12 below). Yet our knowledge of these languages has long been minimal, so much so that the region was described only a decade ago as a “linguistic black box" (Grinevald 1998:127). -
On Numeral Complexity in Hunter-Gatherer Languages
On numeral complexity in hunter-gatherer languages PATIENCE EPPS, CLAIRE BOWERN, CYNTHIA A. HANSEN, JANE H. HILL, and JASON ZENTZ Abstract Numerals vary extensively across the world’s languages, ranging from no pre- cise numeral terms to practically infinite limits. Particularly of interest is the category of “small” or low-limit numeral systems; these are often associated with hunter-gatherer groups, but this connection has not yet been demonstrated by a systematic study. Here we present the results of a wide-scale survey of hunter-gatherer numerals. We compare these to agriculturalist languages in the same regions, and consider them against the broader typological backdrop of contemporary numeral systems in the world’s languages. We find that cor- relations with subsistence pattern are relatively weak, but that numeral trends are clearly areal. Keywords: borrowing, hunter-gatherers, linguistic area, number systems, nu- merals 1. Introduction Numerals are intriguing as a linguistic category: they are lexical elements on the one hand, but on the other they are effectively grammatical in that they may involve a generative system to derive higher values, and they interact with grammatical systems of quantification. Numeral systems are particularly note- worthy for their considerable crosslinguistic variation, such that languages may range from having no precise numeral terms at all to having systems whose limits are practically infinite. As Andersen (2005: 26) points out, numerals are thus a “liminal” linguistic category that is subject to cultural elaboration. Recent work has called attention to this variation among numeral systems, particularly with reference to systems having very low limits (for example, see Evans & Levinson 2009, D. -
Meroz-Plank Canoe-Edited1 Without Bold Ital
UC Berkeley Survey Reports, Survey of California and Other Indian Languages Title The Plank Canoe of Southern California: Not a Polynesian Import, but a Local Innovation Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1977t6ww Author Meroz, Yoram Publication Date 2013 eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California The Plank Canoe of Southern California: Not a Polynesian Import, but a Local Innovation YORAM MEROZ By nearly a millennium ago, Polynesians had settled most of the habitable islands of the eastern Pacific, as far east as Easter Island and as far north as Hawai‘i, after journeys of thousands of kilometers across open water. It is reasonable to ask whether Polynesian voyagers traveled thousands of kilometers more and reached the Americas. Despite much research and speculation over the past two centuries, evidence of contact between Polynesia and the Americas is scant. At present, it is generally accepted that Polynesians did reach South America, largely on the basis of the presence of the sweet potato, an American cultivar, in prehistoric East Polynesia. More such evidence would be significant and exciting; however, no other argument for such contact is currently free of uncertainty or controversy.1 In a separate debate, archaeologists and ethnologists have been disputing the rise of the unusually complex society of the Chumash of Southern California. Chumash social complexity was closely associated with the development of the plank-built canoe (Hudson et al. 1978), a unique technological and cultural complex, whose origins remain obscure (Gamble 2002). In a recent series of papers, Terry Jones and Kathryn Klar present what they claim is linguistic, archaeological, and ethnographical evidence for prehistoric contact from Polynesia to the Americas (Jones and Klar 2005, Klar and Jones 2005). -
PDF Hosted at the Radboud Repository of the Radboud University Nijmegen
PDF hosted at the Radboud Repository of the Radboud University Nijmegen The following full text is a publisher's version. For additional information about this publication click this link. http://hdl.handle.net/2066/42006 Please be advised that this information was generated on 2017-12-06 and may be subject to change. Kwaza in a Comparative Perspective Author(s): Hein van der Voort Reviewed work(s): Source: International Journal of American Linguistics, Vol. 71, No. 4 (October 2005), pp. 365- 412 Published by: The University of Chicago Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/501245 . Accessed: 13/07/2012 09:37 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. The University of Chicago Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to International Journal of American Linguistics. http://www.jstor.org KWAZA IN A COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE1 Hein van der Voort Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi In view of the previous sparsity of data, the existing claims with regard to a genea- logical classification of the Aikanã, Kanoê, and Kwaza languages of Rondônia, on the Brazilian side of the Guaporé River, are premature and unconvincing. -
THE VOWEL SYSTEMS of CALIFORNIA HOKAN1 Jeff Good University of California, Berkeley
THE VOWEL SYSTEMS OF CALIFORNIA HOKAN1 Jeff Good University of California, Berkeley Unlike the consonants, the vowels of Hokan are remarkably conservative. —Haas (1963:44) The evidence as I view it points to a 3-vowel proto-system consisting of the apex vowels *i, *a, *u. —Silver (1976:197) I am not willing, however, to concede that this suggests [Proto-Hokan] had just three vowels. The issue is open, though, and I could change my mind. —Kaufman (1988:105) 1. INTRODUCTION. The central question that this paper attempts to address is the motivation for the statements given above. Specifically, assuming there was a Proto-Hokan, what evidence is there for the shape of its vowel system? With the exception of Kaufman’s somewhat equivocal statement above, the general (but basically unsupported) verdict has been that Proto-Hokan had three vowels, *i, *a, and *u. This conclusion dates back to at least Sapir (1917, 1920, 1925) who implies a three-vowel system in his reconstructions of Proto-Hokan forms. However, as far as I am aware, no one has carefully articulated why they think the Proto-Hokan system should have been of one form instead of another (though Kaufman (1988) does discuss some of his reasons).2 Furthermore, while reconstructions of Proto-Hokan forms exist, it has not yet been possible to provide a detailed analysis of the sound changes required to relate reconstructed forms to attested forms. As a result, even though the reconstructions themselves are valuable, they cannot serve as a strong argument for the particular proto vowel system they implicitly or explicitly assume. -
Linguistic Evidence for a Prehistoric Polynesia—Southern California Contact Event
Linguistic Evidence for a Prehistoric Polynesia—Southern California Contact Event KATHRYN A. KLAR University of California, Berkeley TERRY L. JONES California Polytechnic State University Abstract. We describe linguistic evidence for at least one episode of pre- historic contact between Polynesia and Native California, proposing that a borrowed Proto—Central Eastern Polynesian lexical compound was realized as Chumashan tomol ‘plank canoe’ and its dialect variants. Similarly, we suggest that the Gabrielino borrowed two Polynesian forms to designate the ‘sewn- plank canoe’ and ‘boat’ (in general, though probably specifically a dugout). Where the Chumashan form speaks to the material from which plank canoes were made, the Gabrielino forms specifically referred to the techniques (adzing, piercing, sewing). We do not suggest that there is any genetic relationship between Polynesian languages and Chumashan or Gabrielino, only that the linguistic data strongly suggest at least one prehistoric contact event. Introduction. Arguments for prehistoric contact between Polynesia and what is now southern California have been in print since the late nineteenth century when Lang (1877) suggested that the shell fishhooks used by Native Hawaiians and the Chumash of Southern California were so stylistically similar that they had to reflect a shared cultural origin. Later California anthropologists in- cluding the archaeologist Ronald Olson (1930) and the distinguished Alfred Kroeber (1939) suggested that the sewn-plank canoes used by the Chumash and the Gabrielino off the southern California coast were so sophisticated and uni- que for Native America that they likely reflected influence from Polynesia, where plank sewing was common and widespread. However, they adduced no linguistic evidence in support of this hypothesis. -
French Creole
Comparative perspectives on the origins, development and structure of Amazonian (Karipúna) French Creole Jo-Anne S. Ferreira UWI, St. Augustine/SIL International Mervyn C. Alleyne UWI, Mona/UPR, Río Piedras Together known as Kheuól, Karipúna French Creole (KFC) and Galibi-Marwono French Creole (GMFC) are two varieties of Amazonian French Creole (AFC) spoken in the Uaçá area of northern Amapá in Brazil. Th ey are socio-historically and linguistically connected with and considered to be varieties of Guianese French Creole (GFC). Th is paper focuses on the external history of the Brazilian varieties, and compares a selection of linguistic forms across AFC with those of GFC and Antillean varieties, including nasalised vowels, the personal pronouns and the verbal markers. St. Lucian was chosen as representative of the Antillean French creoles of the South-Eastern Caribbean, including Martinique and Trinidad, whose populations have had a history of contact with those of northern Brazil since the sixteenth century. Data have been collected from both fi eld research and archival research into secondary sources. Introduction Th is study focuses on a group of languages/dialects which are spoken in Brazil, French Guiana and the Lesser Antilles, and to a lesser extent on others spoken in other parts of the Americas (as well as in the Indian Ocean). Th is linguistic group is variously referred to as Creole French, French Creole, French-lexicon Creole, French-lexifi er Creole, French Creole languages/dialects, Haitian/Martiniquan/St. Lucian (etc.) Cre- ole, and more recently by the adjective of the name of the country, particularly in the case of the Haiti (cf. -
Languages of the Middle Andes in Areal-Typological Perspective: Emphasis on Quechuan and Aymaran
Languages of the Middle Andes in areal-typological perspective: Emphasis on Quechuan and Aymaran Willem F.H. Adelaar 1. Introduction1 Among the indigenous languages of the Andean region of Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, northern Chile and northern Argentina, Quechuan and Aymaran have traditionally occupied a dominant position. Both Quechuan and Aymaran are language families of several million speakers each. Quechuan consists of a conglomerate of geo- graphically defined varieties, traditionally referred to as Quechua “dialects”, not- withstanding the fact that mutual intelligibility is often lacking. Present-day Ayma- ran consists of two distinct languages that are not normally referred to as “dialects”. The absence of a demonstrable genetic relationship between the Quechuan and Aymaran language families, accompanied by a lack of recognizable external gen- etic connections, suggests a long period of independent development, which may hark back to a period of incipient subsistence agriculture roughly dated between 8000 and 5000 BP (Torero 2002: 123–124), long before the Andean civilization at- tained its highest stages of complexity. Quechuan and Aymaran feature a great amount of detailed structural, phono- logical and lexical similarities and thus exemplify one of the most intriguing and intense cases of language contact to be found in the entire world. Often treated as a product of long-term convergence, the similarities between the Quechuan and Ay- maran families can best be understood as the result of an intense period of social and cultural intertwinement, which must have pre-dated the stage of the proto-lan- guages and was in turn followed by a protracted process of incidental and locally confined diffusion. -
Línguas Arawak Da Bolívia Henri Ramirez Universidade Federal De
LIAMES, Campinas, SP, v. 19, 1-71, e019012, 2019 Línguas Arawak da Bolívia Henri Ramirez Universidade Federal de Rondônia, Brasil http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0784-3812 Maria Cristina Victorino de França Universidade Federal de Rondônia, Brasil http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1907-1098 abstract: This summary of the Bolivian subgroup (Mojeño, Baure, Pauna, Tereno) of the Arawak family is extracted from our Encyclopedia of Arawak Languages - with six new languages and two databases (in press). No branch of this family is as cohesive as the Bolivian subgroup: its lexicon, its grammar, with an unusual suprafix A “non-factual”, and two complex vocalic chain shifts (*i > *i > *e > *a ; *a > *ʊ / *o > i / i / u) show a diagnostic unity among its languages. After detailing the historical and dialectical destruction of each of these four languages (16th-18th centuries), as well as their phonological and grammatical structures, we suggest a reconstruction of Proto-Bolivian and a Bolivian-Purus-Kampa-Amuesha supergroup (bpka) among Arawak languages. This contribution ends by listing more than 500 cognate sets for the whole Bolivian subgroup. Since Payne (1991), comparative Arawak studies in the Bolivian subgroup have been extremely chaotic and, in some ways, have regressed rather than advanced. Besides, a thorough analysis of Paikone, Magíana and Apolista leads us to some spurious word lists that force us to revise the status of these languages. keywords: Arawak classification; Bolivian subgroup; Vocalic chain shifts; Spurious data. resumo: Este artigo é um capítulo resumido e extraído de nossa Enciclopédia das Línguas Arawak - acrescida de seis novas línguas e dois bancos de dados (no prelo). -
Institutional Change on a Conservationist Frontier: Local Responses to a Grabbing Process in the Name of Environmental Protection
land Article Institutional Change on a Conservationist Frontier: Local Responses to a Grabbing Process in the Name of Environmental Protection Lisa Alvarado Institute of Social Anthropology, University of Bern, 3000 Bern 9, Switzerland; [email protected] Received: 30 October 2019; Accepted: 26 November 2019; Published: 28 November 2019 Abstract: In a wave of global conservationism, Ecuador established two large protected areas in its Amazon region in 1979. One of these is the Reserva de Producción Faunística Cuyabeno (RPFC), located in the northeastern corner of the country. Given that this land was previously managed as commons by local indigenous groups, the establishment of protected areas has had numerous consequences for these people. The research conducted comprised three months’ fieldwork in three of the affected Siona communities, primarily through the use of participant observation. Based on the framework developed by Ensminger, this paper demonstrates how institutional change has occurred in the last few centuries with the arrival of various frontiers overriding the region. This has led to the almost total eradication of traditional institutions and the introduction of a new ideology, namely conservationism. In order to legitimize their existence in the Reserve, indigenous groups are compelled to argue in a conservationist discourse if they want to stay in their ancestral territory. The article discusses tourism as one key impact on the lives of the local Siona, alongside their response to the grabbing process, which takes the form of a re-creation of their identity, including institution shopping from below. This article contributes to the debate on commons grabbing from the perspective of local actors by arguing that institution shopping from below does not necessarily mean a loss of authenticity, considering different ontological perspectives in the process of identity construction.