1 Introduction 2 from Language Continuum to Linguistic Mosaic
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Language, Culture, and National Identity
Language, Culture, and National Identity BY ERIC HOBSBAWM LANGUAGE, culture, and national identity is the ·title of my pa per, but its central subject is the situation of languages in cul tures, written or spoken languages still being the main medium of these. More specifically, my subject is "multiculturalism" in sofar as this depends on language. "Nations" come into it, since in the states in which we all live political decisions about how and where languages are used for public purposes (for example, in schools) are crucial. And these states are today commonly iden tified with "nations" as in the term United Nations. This is a dan gerous confusion. So let me begin with a few words about it. Since there are hardly any colonies left, practically all of us today live in independent and sovereign states. With the rarest exceptions, even exiles and refugees live in states, though not their own. It is fairly easy to get agreement about what constitutes such a state, at any rate the modern model of it, which has become the template for all new independent political entities since the late eighteenth century. It is a territory, preferably coherent and demarcated by frontier lines from its neighbors, within which all citizens without exception come under the exclusive rule of the territorial government and the rules under which it operates. Against this there is no appeal, except by authoritarian of that government; for even the superiority of European Community law over national law was established only by the decision of the constituent SOCIAL RESEARCH, Vol. -
Dialects, Standards, and Vernaculars
1 Dialects, Standards, and Vernaculars Most of us have had the experience of sitting in a public place and eavesdropping on conversations taking place around the United States. We pretend to be preoccupied, but we can’t seem to help listening. And we form impressions of speakers based not only on the topic of conversation, but on how people are discussing it. In fact, there’s a good chance that the most critical part of our impression comes from how people talk rather than what they are talking about. We judge people’s regional background, social stat us, ethnicity, and a host of other social and personal traits based simply on the kind of language they are using. We may have similar kinds of reactions in telephone conversations, as we try to associate a set of characteristics with an unidentified speaker in order to make claims such as, “It sounds like a salesperson of some type” or “It sounds like the auto mechanic.” In fact, it is surprising how little conversation it takes to draw conclusions about a speaker’s background – a sentence, a phrase, or even a word is often enough to trigger a regional, social, or ethnic classification. Video: What an accent does Assessments of a complex set of social characteristics and personality traits based on language differences are as inevitable as the kinds of judgments we make when we find out where people live, what their occupations are, where they went to school, and who their friends are. Language differences, in fact, may serve as the single most reliable indicator of social position in our society. -
The Standardisation of African Languages Michel Lafon, Vic Webb
The Standardisation of African Languages Michel Lafon, Vic Webb To cite this version: Michel Lafon, Vic Webb. The Standardisation of African Languages. Michel Lafon; Vic Webb. IFAS, pp.141, 2008, Nouveaux Cahiers de l’Ifas, Aurelia Wa Kabwe Segatti. halshs-00449090 HAL Id: halshs-00449090 https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-00449090 Submitted on 20 Jan 2010 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. The Standardisation of African Languages Language political realities CentRePoL and IFAS Proceedings of a CentRePoL workshop held at University of Pretoria on March 29, 2007, supported by the French Institute for Southern Africa Michel Lafon (LLACAN-CNRS) & Vic Webb (CentRePoL) Compilers/ Editors CentRePoL wishes to express its appreciation to the following: Dr. Aurelia Wa Kabwe-Segatti, Research Director, IFAS, Johannesburg, for her professional and material support; PanSALB, for their support over the past two years for CentRePoL’s standardisation project; The University of Pretoria, for the use of their facilities. Les Nouveaux Cahiers de l’IFAS/ IFAS Working Paper Series is a series of occasional working papers, dedicated to disseminating research in the social and human sciences on Southern Africa. -
Adapting MARBERT for Improved Arabic Dialect Identification
Adapting MARBERT for Improved Arabic Dialect Identification: Submission to the NADI 2021 Shared Task Badr AlKhamissi∗ Mohamed Gabr∗ Independent Microsoft EGDC badr [at] khamissi.com mohamed.gabr [at] microsoft.com Muhammed ElNokrashy Khaled Essam Microsoft EGDC Mendel.ai muelnokr [at] microsoft.com khaled.essam [at] mendel.ai Abstract syntax, morphology, vocabulary, and even orthog- raphy. Dialects may be heavily influenced by pre- In this paper, we tackle the Nuanced Ara- viously dominant local languages. For example, bic Dialect Identification (NADI) shared task Egyptian variants are influenced by the Coptic lan- (Abdul-Mageed et al., 2021) and demonstrate guage, while Sudanese variants are influenced by state-of-the-art results on all of its four sub- the Nubian language. tasks. Tasks are to identify the geographic ori- gin of short Dialectal (DA) and Modern Stan- In this paper, we study the classification of such dard Arabic (MSA) utterances at the levels of variants and describe our model that achieves state- both country and province. Our final model is of-the-art results on all of the four Nuanced Ara- an ensemble of variants built on top of MAR- bic Dialect Identification (NADI) subtasks (Abdul- BERT that achieves an F1-score of 34:03% for Mageed et al., 2021). The task focuses on distin- DA at the country-level development set—an guishing both MSA and DA by their geographi- improvement of 7:63% from previous work. cal origin at both the country and province levels. The data is a collection of tweets covering 100 1 Introduction provinces from 21 Arab countries. -
Linguistics Development Team
Development Team Principal Investigator: Prof. Pramod Pandey Centre for Linguistics / SLL&CS Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi Email: [email protected] Paper Coordinator: Prof. K. S. Nagaraja Department of Linguistics, Deccan College Post-Graduate Research Institute, Pune- 411006, [email protected] Content Writer: Prof. K. S. Nagaraja Prof H. S. Ananthanarayana Content Reviewer: Retd Prof, Department of Linguistics Osmania University, Hyderabad 500007 Paper : Historical and Comparative Linguistics Linguistics Module : Indo-Aryan Language Family Description of Module Subject Name Linguistics Paper Name Historical and Comparative Linguistics Module Title Indo-Aryan Language Family Module ID Lings_P7_M1 Quadrant 1 E-Text Paper : Historical and Comparative Linguistics Linguistics Module : Indo-Aryan Language Family INDO-ARYAN LANGUAGE FAMILY The Indo-Aryan migration theory proposes that the Indo-Aryans migrated from the Central Asian steppes into South Asia during the early part of the 2nd millennium BCE, bringing with them the Indo-Aryan languages. Migration by an Indo-European people was first hypothesized in the late 18th century, following the discovery of the Indo-European language family, when similarities between Western and Indian languages had been noted. Given these similarities, a single source or origin was proposed, which was diffused by migrations from some original homeland. This linguistic argument is supported by archaeological and anthropological research. Genetic research reveals that those migrations form part of a complex genetical puzzle on the origin and spread of the various components of the Indian population. Literary research reveals similarities between various, geographically distinct, Indo-Aryan historical cultures. The Indo-Aryan migrations started in approximately 1800 BCE, after the invention of the war chariot, and also brought Indo-Aryan languages into the Levant and possibly Inner Asia. -
On Burgenland Croatian Isoglosses Peter
Dutch Contributions to the Fourteenth International Congress of Slavists, Ohrid: Linguistics (SSGL 34), Amsterdam – New York, Rodopi, 293-331. ON BURGENLAND CROATIAN ISOGLOSSES PETER HOUTZAGERS 1. Introduction Among the Croatian dialects spoken in the Austrian province of Burgenland and the adjoining areas1 all three main dialect groups of central South Slavic2 are represented. However, the dialects have a considerable number of characteris- tics in common.3 The usual explanation for this is (1) the fact that they have been neighbours from the 16th century, when the Ot- toman invasions caused mass migrations from Croatia, Slavonia and Bos- nia; (2) the assumption that at least most of them were already neighbours before that. Ad (1) Map 14 shows the present-day and past situation in the Burgenland. The different varieties of Burgenland Croatian (henceforth “BC groups”) that are spoken nowadays and from which linguistic material is available each have their own icon. 5 1 For the sake of brevity the term “Burgenland” in this paper will include the adjoining areas inside and outside Austria where speakers of Croatian dialects can or could be found: the prov- ince of Niederösterreich, the region around Bratislava in Slovakia, a small area in the south of Moravia (Czech Republic), the Hungarian side of the Austrian-Hungarian border and an area somewhat deeper into Hungary east of Sopron and between Bratislava and Gyǡr. As can be seen from Map 1, many locations are very far from the Burgenland in the administrative sense. 2 With this term I refer to the dialect continuum formerly known as “Serbo-Croatian”. -
After Serbo-Croatian: the Narcissism of Small Difference1
polish 3()’ 171 10 sociological review ISSN 1231 – 1413 After Serbo-Croatian: The Narcissism of Small Difference1 Snježana Kordić. Jezik i nacjonalizam [Language and Nationalism] (Rotulus / Universitas Series). Zagreb, Croatia: Durieux. 2010. ISBN 978-953-188-311-5. Keywords: Croatian, kroatistik, language politics, nationalism, Serbo-Croatian Kordić’s book Jezik i nacjonalizam [Language and Nationalism] is a study of lan- guage politics or political sociolinguistics. Language being such a burning political issue in Yugoslavia after the adoption in 1974 of a truly federal constitution. In her extensive monograph, written in Croatian (or Latin script-based Croato-Serbian?), Kordić usefully summarizes today’s state of the linguistic and popular discourse on language and nationalism as it obtains in Croatia, amplified with some comparative examples drawn from Bosnia, Montenegro and Serbia. These four out of the seven post-Yugoslav states (the other three being Kosovo, Macedonia and Slovenia) parti- tioned among themselves Yugoslavia’s main official language, Serbo-Croatian (or, in the intra-Yugoslav parlance, ‘Serbo-Croatian or Croato-Serbian’), thus reinventing it anew as the four separate national languages of Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin and Serbian. The first two are written in the Latin alphabet; Montenegrin is written both in this alphabet and in Cyrillic; Serbian is officially in Cyrillic, but is in practice also written in Latin characters. The monograph is divided into three parts. The first and shortest one, Linguis- tic Purism (Jezični purizam), sets out the theoretical (and also ideological) position adopted by Kordić. Building on this theoretical framework, she conducts her anal- ysis and discussion in the two further sections, The Pluricentric Standard Language (Policentrični standardni jezik) and the final more far-ranging one, Nation, Identity, Culture and History (Nacija, identitet, kultura, povijest). -
Saudi Dialects: Are They Endangered?
Academic Research Publishing Group English Literature and Language Review ISSN(e): 2412-1703, ISSN(p): 2413-8827 Vol. 2, No. 12, pp: 131-141, 2016 URL: http://arpgweb.com/?ic=journal&journal=9&info=aims Saudi Dialects: Are They Endangered? Salih Alzahrani Taif University, Saudi Arabia Abstract: Krauss, among others, claims that languages will face death in the coming centuries (Krauss, 1992). Austin (2010a) lists 7,000 languages as existing and spoken in the world today. Krauss estimates that this figure could come down to 600. That is, most the world's languages are endangered. Therefore, an endangered language is a language that loses her speakers within a few generations. According to Dorian (1981), there is what is called ―tip‖ in language endangerment. He argues that a language's decline can start slowly but suddenly goes through a rapid decline towards the extinction. Thus, languages must be protected at much earlier stage. Arabic dialects such as Zahrani Spoken Arabic (ZSA), and Faifi Spoken Arabic (henceforth, FSA), which are spoken in the southern region of Saudi Arabia, have not been studied, yet. Few people speak these dialects, among many other dialects in the same region. However, the problem is that most these dialects' native speakers are moving to other regions in Saudi Arabia where they use other different dialects. Therefore, are these dialects endangered? What other factors may cause its endangerment? Have they been documented before? What shall we do? This paper discusses three main different points regarding this issue: language and endangerment, languages documentation and description and Arabic language and its family, giving a brief history of Saudi dialects comparing their situation with the whole existing dialects. -
C U R R I C U L U M V I T a E Salikoko S. Mufwene
C U R R I C U L U M V I T A E Salikoko S. Mufwene Table of contents: Personal information, p. 2 Professional experience, p. 2 Education, p. 3 Fields of specialization/interest, p. 3 Honors, fellowships, and grants, p. 3 Membership in professional societies, p. 5 Membership in professional society committees & editorial boards, p. 5 Dissertation committees, p. 7 External examiner for doctoral dissertations, p. 7 Postdoctoral fellows, p. 8 Publications a. Short monographs, p. 8 b. Books (authored & edited), p. 8 c. Books edited for the series Cambridge Approaches to Language Contact, p. 10 d. Refereed scholarly articles, p. 10 e. Other scholarly articles, p. 13 f. Chapters in books, p. 16 g. Review articles, p. 25 h. Book reviews, p. 25 Invited conference presentations and lectures, p. 28 Regular conference presentations since 1995, p. 46 Organization of professional meetings/panels, p. 47 Miscellanea, p. 48 Book endorsements, p. 48 Interviews, p. 49 2 C U R R I C U L U M V I T A E NAME: Salikoko S. Mufwene ADDRESS: University of Chicago Department of Linguistics 1010 East 59th Street Chicago, IL. 60637 Phones: (773)702-8531 (W); (773)324-5793 (H) Fax: (773)834-0924 e-mail: [email protected] CURRENT RANK: The Frank J. McLoraine Distinguished Service Professor of Linguistics and the College, July 1, 2004- Google Scholar Index, as of September 2019: h: 44; g: 88; hI,norm: 42; hI,annual: 0.98 DATE AND PLACE OF BIRTH: 1 November 1947, Mbaya-Lareme/D. R. CONGO CITIZENSHIP: Naturalized American, May 1996 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE Jan. -
The Production of Lexical Tone in Croatian
The production of lexical tone in Croatian Inauguraldissertation zur Erlangung des Grades eines Doktors der Philosophie im Fachbereich Sprach- und Kulturwissenschaften der Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität zu Frankfurt am Main vorgelegt von Jevgenij Zintchenko Jurlina aus Kiew 2018 (Einreichungsjahr) 2019 (Erscheinungsjahr) 1. Gutacher: Prof. Dr. Henning Reetz 2. Gutachter: Prof. Dr. Sven Grawunder Tag der mündlichen Prüfung: 01.11.2018 ABSTRACT Jevgenij Zintchenko Jurlina: The production of lexical tone in Croatian (Under the direction of Prof. Dr. Henning Reetz and Prof. Dr. Sven Grawunder) This dissertation is an investigation of pitch accent, or lexical tone, in standard Croatian. The first chapter presents an in-depth overview of the history of the Croatian language, its relationship to Serbo-Croatian, its dialect groups and pronunciation variants, and general phonology. The second chapter explains the difference between various types of prosodic prominence and describes systems of pitch accent in various languages from different parts of the world: Yucatec Maya, Lithuanian and Limburgian. Following is a detailed account of the history of tone in Serbo-Croatian and Croatian, the specifics of its tonal system, intonational phonology and finally, a review of the most prominent phonetic investigations of tone in that language. The focal point of this dissertation is a production experiment, in which ten native speakers of Croatian from the region of Slavonia were recorded. The material recorded included a diverse selection of monosyllabic, bisyllabic, trisyllabic and quadrisyllabic words, containing all four accents of standard Croatian: short falling, long falling, short rising and long rising. Each target word was spoken in initial, medial and final positions of natural Croatian sentences. -
Emerged from Antiquity As an All-Jewish Possession, Together with Is Interesting
7+ Yiddish in the Framework of OtherJewish Languages Yiddish in the Framework of OtherJewish Languages there discoverable threads extending lrom these three linguistic groups "Arabic" as a native tongue amongJews (in z.rr.I it will become to the ancient Parsic? These questions have not yet been touched by cle ar why it is more appropriate to spe ak of a separate Jewish language scholarship. with Arabic stock, which.may be called Yahudic) is current among a 2.ro The sunset of Targumic as the spoken language of a major much larger group. On the eve of World War II the number of Yahudic Jewish community came with the rise of the Arabs (z.r.r). A survey of speakers was estimated at about seven hundred thousand. Of course, we the linguistic condition of the Jews up to the Arab period is therefore in have no statistics on the Gaonic period, but by no means can the current place. figure give us any idea of the proportion and the dynamics of Yahudic The frontal attack of Hellenism on Jewish culture failed; but at least in former years. By virtue of the Arab conquests, Yahudic was firmly it was historical drama on a large scaie, and visible signs olJaphet's established in Yemen, Babylonia, Palestine, and all of North Africa, beauty remained in the tents of Shem, to use a stock phrase so popular from Egypt to the Atlantic; even Sicily and southern Italy, which as a in the Haskalah period. Nor will we leave Persian out of consideration rule should be included in the Yavanic culture area (z.I 2 ), were at times in the overall picture ofJewish subcultures, although the phenomenon considerably influenced by North Africa. -
Article Journal of Catalan Intellectual History, Volume I, Issue 1, 2011 | Print ISSN 2014-1572 / Online ISSN 2014-1564 DOI 10.2436/20.3001.02.1 | Pp
article Journal of Catalan IntelleCtual HIstory, Volume I, Issue 1, 2011 | Print ISSN 2014-1572 / online ISSN 2014-1564 DoI 10.2436/20.3001.02.1 | Pp. 27-45 http://revistes.iec.cat/index.php/JoCIH Ignasi Casanovas and Frederic Clascar. Historiography and rediscovery of the thought of the 1700s and 1800s* Miquel Batllori abstract This text shows the similitudes and the differences between Ignasi Casanovas and Frederic Clascar, two of the most important representatives of the religious thought in Catalonia, in the first third of the 20th century. The article studies their philosophi- cal writings in the rich context of their global work, analysing their deficiencies and underlining the positive contribution to the Catalan culture. key words Ignasi Casanovas, Frederic Clascar, religious thought. I would like to begin with a small anecdote on the question as to whether there is such a thing as “Catalan” philosophy. Whilst teaching at Harvard, Juan Mar- ichal, publisher and scholar of the life and political works of Manuel Azaña, was asked by an American colleague what he taught there. On receiving the answer “the History1 of Latin America Thought”, the colleague replied, “Is there such * We would like to thank INEHCA and the Societat Catalana de Filosofia (Catalan Philo- sophical Society) for allowing us to public the text of this speech given by Father Miquel Batllori on 26 February 2002 as part of the course “Thought and Philosophy in Catalonia. I: 1900- 1923” at the INEHCA. The text, corrected by Miquel Batllori, has been published in the first of the volumes containing the contributions made in these courses: J.