tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-269405359584571732024-03-05T16:50:51.585-08:00Languages of the WorldAsya Pereltsvaighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06111831062274618509noreply@blogger.comBlogger265125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26940535958457173.post-82027247106074495482012-01-16T16:53:00.000-08:002012-01-16T16:53:19.551-08:00LOTW Readers: Please Update Your RSS FeedsDear Readers,<br />
<br />
Languages of the world has recently been renovated and moved to its new url at http://LanguagesOfTheWorld.info.<br />
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If you would like to continue receiving RSS updates about our newest articles, please subscribe to the new feed address: http://feeds.feedburner.com/LanguagesOfTheWorld.<br />
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Looking forward to a continued exploration into the world of linguistics with you!Asya Pereltsvaighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06111831062274618509noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26940535958457173.post-56625943478144237482011-12-14T12:43:00.000-08:002011-12-14T12:43:17.531-08:00Student posts and other scheduling issues -- part 2Dear Readers,<br />
<br />
Thank you very much to all of you for reading -- and especially for commenting on -- my students' posts! I am especially grateful to John Cowan, who remains a loyal reader of this blog and who has spent a lot of time and effort to comment on student posts -- much appreciated, John! <br />
<br />
I will now take a short break from posting on this blog in order to complete its overhaul, with the help of the web-developers <a href="http://KJProductions.com">Kevin Morton and Jordan Sandoval</a>. I am hoping to re-launch the blog in early January, with a new design, improved functionality and ever more exciting new content. <br />
<br />
In the meantime, you can read our sister-blog (or should it be "brother-blog"?) -- <a href="http://geocurrents.info/">GeoCurrents.info</a>.<br />
<br />
Happy, merry & joyful whatever-holiday-you-celebrate-this-season!<br />
<br />
See you in January!<br />
<br />
Asya PereltsvaigAsya Pereltsvaighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06111831062274618509noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26940535958457173.post-4653295472542367902011-12-13T17:08:00.000-08:002011-12-13T17:08:55.716-08:00The History of English Orthography<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> </w:Compatibility> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style>
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<div class="NoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"> BY VAISHNAV ARADHYULA ("Languages of the World")</span></div><div class="NoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span></div><div class="NoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">It was the first day of seventh grade Spanish class, and the word “ghoti” was written on the blackboard. “Ghoti,” Señor Robles explained, spells <i>fish</i>. In English. “The "gh" makes an f-sound, like in <i>tough</i>. The ‘o’ is pronounced like it is in <i>women</i>, and the "ti" makes a sh-sound like in <i>motion</i>. “English has more silly rules than any other language,” he continued, “so don’t complain if you encounter such a rule in Spanish.”<sup>1</sup></span></div><div class="NoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;"><br />
</div><div class="NoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Although the digraph “gh” (a digraph is a pair of letters representing one sound<sup>2</sup>) never makes the “f” sound at the start of a word<sup>3</sup>, he had made his point— spelling in English is quirky and notoriously difficult.* </span></div><div class="NoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;"><br />
</div><div class="NoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">English was not always this way. In the 5<sup>th </sup>century, when Anglo-Saxon invaders brought a West Germanic language with them to England, they employed a phonemic spelling system with a runic script. Even as the Germanic language combined with local Norse and Celtic dialects to develop into Old English (which was still unintelligible with Modern English), the writing system continued to be phonetic into the 11<sup>th</sup> century.<sup>4</sup> </span></div><div class="NoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;"><br />
</div><div class="NoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">The Norman Conquest of England in 1066 changed the circumstances significantly and prompted the evolution of Middle English. The Norman invaders spoke a dialect of Old French (more precisely, an Oïl language), and imposed a Latin script upon their English subjects. The Latin script, however, was not as capable as the pre-existing script at phonetically conveying the Old English Language.<sup>4, 12 <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></sup>This caused several difficulties. Since the Latin script couldn’t entirely express all Old English sounds, many Old English words could be spelled in different ways— the word <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">and</i>, for example, could have also been written as <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">ond</i>.<sup>4</sup> As Middle English developed under Norman rule in the 12<sup>th</sup>, 13<sup>th</sup>, and 14<sup>th</sup> centuries, the incompatibility of the Latin alphabet with certain Anglo-Saxon phonemes continued to cause confusion and inconsistencies in spelling. Even Chaucer, the famed 14<sup>th</sup> century author of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Canterbury Tales</i>, would often spell the same word differently in his works.<sup>5,8</sup> Many silent letters in Modern English can be also attributed to phonetic infidelity during this script-switching. The Modern English word <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">knight</i> derives from the Old English <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">cniht</i>. While the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">k</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">h</i> in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">knight</i> are silent, the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">c </i>and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">h</i> were pronounced in Old English, which corresponds to the pronunciation of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">knecht</i>, the German word from which <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">cniht</i> is derived.<sup>4</sup> </span></div><div class="NoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;"><br />
</div><div class="NoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Old English also underwent significant French influence under Norman rule. For example, the Old English vowel <ae> was killed off since it was not commonplace in the French orthography. As a result, Old English words with a long <ae> were spelled as in Middle English, and Old English words with a short <ae> were spelled with an <e>. Thus, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">thr<ae>d</ae></i> became <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">thread</i>, and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">cr<ae>ft</ae></i> became <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">craft</i>.<sup>12</sup> Other instances of French influence include the use of “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">c</i>”<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i>to make the “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">s</i>” sound before vowels (e.g. center, city, ice), the substitution of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">qu </i>for <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">cw</i> (e.g. queen replaces cwen), and the introduction of the <oy> diphthong (e.g. choice).<sup>12</sup> </oy></e></ae></ae></ae></span></div> <div class="NoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;"><br />
</div><div class="NoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;"><br />
</div><div class="NoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Perhaps the most seismic change to English spelling and pronunciation was the Great Vowel Shift, which began in the mid 1300s. By the time the shift concluded in the early 1500s, English orthography had taken on a recognizably more modern form. While the exact impetus behind the shift is still unclear<sup>9</sup>, its vast effects on the English language have been well documented.<sup>10</sup> The Great Vowel Shift, as the name implies, involved a upward shift in the pronunciation of vowels— five vowels shifted upward, and two became diphthongs.<sup>7,8,11,12</sup> These changes are illustrated in the following tables:</span></div><div class="NoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;"><br />
</div><div class="NoSpacing"><br />
</div><table border="1" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="MsoNormalTable" style="border-collapse: collapse; border: none; margin-left: 5.4pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-insideh: .5pt solid windowtext; mso-border-insidev: .5pt solid windowtext; mso-padding-alt: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-yfti-tbllook: 1184;"><tbody>
<tr style="height: 23.35pt; mso-yfti-irow: 0;"> <td style="border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; height: 23.35pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 121.95pt;" width="163"> <div class="NoSpacing"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Position</span></b></div></td> <td style="border-left: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; height: 23.35pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 108.7pt;" width="145"> <div class="NoSpacing"><br />
</div></td> <td style="border-left: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; height: 23.35pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 121.15pt;" width="162"> <div class="NoSpacing"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Middle English</span></b></div></td> <td style="border-left: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; height: 23.35pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 121.6pt;" width="162"> <div class="NoSpacing"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Modern English</span></b></div></td> </tr>
<tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 1;"> <td rowspan="3" style="border-top: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 121.95pt;" valign="top" width="163"> <div class="NoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">FRONT VOWELS</span></div></td> <td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 108.7pt;" valign="top" width="145"> <div class="NoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">HIGH</span></div></td> <td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 121.15pt;" valign="top" width="162"> <div class="NoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">/i:/ <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div></td> <td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 121.6pt;" valign="top" width="162"> <div class="NoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">---> /ai/</span></div></td> </tr>
<tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 2;"> <td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 108.7pt;" valign="top" width="145"> <div class="NoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">MID (CLOSED)</span></div></td> <td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 121.15pt;" valign="top" width="162"> <div class="NoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">/e:/ <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div></td> <td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 121.6pt;" valign="top" width="162"> <div class="NoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">---> /i:/</span></div></td> </tr>
<tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 3;"> <td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 108.7pt;" valign="top" width="145"> <div class="NoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">LOW (OPEN)</span></div></td> <td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 121.15pt;" valign="top" width="162"> <div class="NoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">/æ:/ <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div></td> <td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 121.6pt;" valign="top" width="162"> <div class="NoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">---> /e:/ (later --> /i:/)</span></div></td> </tr>
<tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 4;"> <td style="border-top: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 121.95pt;" valign="top" width="163"> <div class="NoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">CENTRAL VOWEL</span></div></td> <td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 108.7pt;" valign="top" width="145"> <div class="NoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">LOW</span></div></td> <td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 121.15pt;" valign="top" width="162"> <div class="NoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">/a:/ <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div></td> <td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 121.6pt;" valign="top" width="162"> <div class="NoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">---> /e:/</span></div></td> </tr>
<tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 5;"> <td rowspan="3" style="border-top: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 121.95pt;" valign="top" width="163"> <div class="NoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">BACK VOWELS</span></div></td> <td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 108.7pt;" valign="top" width="145"> <div class="NoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">HIGH</span></div></td> <td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 121.15pt;" valign="top" width="162"> <div class="NoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">/u:/</span></div></td> <td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 121.6pt;" valign="top" width="162"> <div class="NoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">---> /au/</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"></span></div></td> </tr>
<tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 6;"> <td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 108.7pt;" valign="top" width="145"> <div class="NoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">MID (CLOSED)</span></div></td> <td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 121.15pt;" valign="top" width="162"> <div class="NoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">/o:/</span></div></td> <td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 121.6pt;" valign="top" width="162"> <div class="NoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">---> /u:/</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"></span></div></td> </tr>
<tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 7; mso-yfti-lastrow: yes;"> <td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 108.7pt;" valign="top" width="145"> <div class="NoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">LOW (OPEN)</span></div></td> <td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 121.15pt;" valign="top" width="162"> <div class="NoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">"au"</span></div></td> <td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 121.6pt;" valign="top" width="162"> <div class="NoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">---> /o:/</span></div></td> </tr>
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</div><div class="NoSpacing" style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: -.5in;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Source: http://www.courses.fas.harvard.edu/~chaucer/vowels.html</span></div><div class="NoSpacing"><br />
</div><table border="1" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="MsoNormalTable" style="border-collapse: collapse; border: none; margin-left: 5.4pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-insideh: .5pt solid windowtext; mso-border-insidev: .5pt solid windowtext; mso-padding-alt: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-yfti-tbllook: 1184;"><tbody>
<tr style="height: 26.5pt; mso-yfti-irow: 0;"> <td style="border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; height: 26.5pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 163.5pt;" width="218"> <div class="NoSpacing"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Middle English</span></b></div></td> <td style="border-left: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; height: 26.5pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 124.85pt;" width="166"> <div class="NoSpacing"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Sounds Like Modern</span></b></div></td> </tr>
<tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 1;"> <td style="border-top: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 163.5pt;" valign="top" width="218"> <div class="NoSpacing"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">y,i</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"> "myne, sight"</span></div></td> <td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 124.85pt;" valign="top" width="166"> <div class="NoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">"m<b>ee</b>t"</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></div></td> </tr>
<tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 2;"> <td style="border-top: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 163.5pt;" valign="top" width="218"> <div class="NoSpacing"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">e, ee</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"> "me, meet, mete" (close e)</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></div></td> <td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 124.85pt;" valign="top" width="166"> <div class="NoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">"m<b>a</b>te"</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></div></td> </tr>
<tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 3;"> <td style="border-top: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 163.5pt;" valign="top" width="218"> <div class="NoSpacing"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">e</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"> "begge, rede" (open e)</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></div></td> <td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 124.85pt;" valign="top" width="166"> <div class="NoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">"b<b>a</b>g"</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></div></td> </tr>
<tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 4;"> <td style="border-top: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 163.5pt;" valign="top" width="218"> <div class="NoSpacing"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">a, aa</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"> "mate, maat"</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></div></td> <td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 124.85pt;" valign="top" width="166"> <div class="NoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">"f<b>a</b>ther"</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></div></td> </tr>
<tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 5;"> <td style="border-top: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 163.5pt;" valign="top" width="218"> <div class="NoSpacing"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">u, ou</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"> "hus, hous"</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></div></td> <td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 124.85pt;" valign="top" width="166"> <div class="NoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">"b<b>oo</b>t"</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></div></td> </tr>
<tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 6;"> <td style="border-top: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 163.5pt;" valign="top" width="218"> <div class="NoSpacing"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">o, oo</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"> "bote, boot" (close o)</span></div></td> <td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 124.85pt;" valign="top" width="166"> <div class="NoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">“<b>oa</b>k"</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></div></td> </tr>
<tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 7; mso-yfti-lastrow: yes;"> <td style="border-top: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 163.5pt;" valign="top" width="218"> <div class="NoSpacing"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">o</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"> "lof, ok" (open o)</span></div></td> <td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 124.85pt;" valign="top" width="166"> <div class="NoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">"b<b>ough</b>t"</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></div></td> </tr>
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</div><div class="NoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Source: http://www.courses.fas.harvard.edu/~chaucer/vowels.html</span></div><div align="right" class="NoSpacing" style="text-align: right;"><br />
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</div><div class="NoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">To accommodate these large-scale changes in vowel pronunciation, many English spellings changed during the Great Vowel Shift as well. However, these new spellings were not necessarily phonetic like in Old English. For example, the <<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">ou></i> (pronounced like <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">oo </i>in the modern word boot) in the Middle English word <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">doun</i> shifted to <<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">au></i>; as a result the Modern English word for <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">doun</i> is <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">down</i>. Similarly, when the <<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">e></i> in the Middle English word <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">del</i> shifted to <<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">i></i> (pronounced like the <<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">ee> </i>in the modern word<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> meet</i>), the new Modern English word became <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">deal</i>.<sup>12</sup> Perhaps the most infamous cases of new spellings failing to match new pronunciations are the dreaded “ough” words. In original Old English script, the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><ough> </ough></i>sound corresponded to a fricative represented by the character </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Times-PhoneticIPA;">γ</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times-PhoneticIPA; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times-PhoneticIPA;">. </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Times-PhoneticIPA;">After the introduction of the Latin <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>script and the evolution of Middle English, the γ kept its fricative sound but was spelled as <<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">gh</i>>. During the Great Vowel Shift, the fricative sound was dropped, but the <<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">gh</i>> remained.<sup>12</sup> For example, the Middle English word <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">coghe</i>, pronounced with the fricative <<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">gh</i>>, became <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">cough</i> in Modern English.<sup>12</sup> </span></div><div class="NoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="NoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Times-PhoneticIPA;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The Early Modern English following the Great Vowel Shift continued to evolve, but at a less rapid pace that its predecessors.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the late 1500s, several scholars began to re-spell certain words in an effort to highlight their Greek and Latin sources. While in some cases the re-spelling was phonologically accurate (e.g. the Middle English word <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">teatre</i> was re-spelled as <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">theatre</i> to better match the Latin <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">theatron</i>), in other cases these re-spellings further distanced spelling and phonology. Often, these re-spelled words created silent letters. For example, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">samon</i> was changed to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">salmon</i> with a silent <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">l</i> in order to resemble the Latin <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">salmonis</i>.<sup>12</sup><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div><div class="NoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="NoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Times-PhoneticIPA;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>While some minor medications continued to be made, the English language had largely stabilized into its modern form by the early 1700s, largely due to the advent of the printing press and publication of dictionaries (most famously Samuel Johnson’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Dictionary</i> in 1755).<sup>12</sup> In recent years, however, the English Language has continued to grow through loanwords and new words to describe new technologies. This ensures that spelling in English will continue to be challenging for years to come! </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"></span></div><div class="NoSpacing"><br />
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</div><div class="NoSpacing"><u><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Footnotes</span></u></div><div class="NoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">* Incidentally, there is another pronunciation of “ghoti”-- complete silence (“gh” silent like in </span></div><div class="NoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">light, “o” silent like in people, “t” silent like in valet, and “i” silent like in business).<sup>3</sup></span></div><div class="NoSpacing"><br />
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</div><div class="NoSpacing"><u><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">References </span></u></div><div align="right" class="NoSpacing" style="text-align: right;"><br />
</div><div class="NoSpacing" style="margin-left: .5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">1.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">https://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/27/magazine/27FOB-onlanguage-t.html</span></div><div class="NoSpacing" style="margin-left: .5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">2.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Microsoft Encarta Dictionary</span></div><div class="NoSpacing" style="margin-left: .5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">3.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">http://e-gli.com/ghoti/</span></div><div class="NoSpacing" style="margin-left: .5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">4.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_English_language</span></div><div class="NoSpacing" style="margin-left: .5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">5.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_orthography</span></div><div class="NoSpacing" style="margin-left: .5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">6.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/188048/English-language/74808/Orthography</span></div><div class="NoSpacing" style="margin-left: .5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">7.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Vowel_Shift</span></div><div class="NoSpacing" style="margin-left: .5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">8.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">http://www.courses.fas.harvard.edu/~chaucer/vowels.html</span></div><div class="NoSpacing" style="margin-left: .5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">9.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Millward, C. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">A Biography of the English Language</i>. Cengage Learning, 2011</span></div><div class="NoSpacing" style="margin-left: .5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">10.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">http://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/documents/ME_Pronunciation.pdf</span></div><div class="NoSpacing" style="margin-left: .5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">11.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Tutschka,V. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Great Vowel Shift: From Middle to Standard English</i>. Erfurt University, 2009. http://www.grin.com/en/e-book/139444/great-vowel-shift#inside</span></div><div class="NoSpacing" style="margin-left: .5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">12.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Freeborn, Dennis. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">From Old English to Standard English</i>, 3<sup>rd</sup> ed. http://www.palgrave.com/language/freeborn/site/pdfs/commentary_pdfs/35_development_of_mne.pdf</span></div><div class="NoSpacing" style="margin-left: .5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">13.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>http://eweb.furman.edu/~wrogers/phonemes/</span></div>Asya Pereltsvaighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06111831062274618509noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26940535958457173.post-50086020189313156962011-12-13T16:58:00.000-08:002011-12-13T16:58:04.529-08:00Comparing Verb Conjugations in the Romance LanguagesBY <span class="email">DEREK CZAJKA ("Languages of the World")</span><br />
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Readers of this blog are doubtless aware of the notion of language families. Many of the world's languages belong to a family of related languages. When languages are said to belong to a family, the implication is that these languages all descended from a common ancestor. Given sufficient data, it is often possible to reconstruct forms found in this common ancestor, by comparing forms found in extant descendants, and, with luck, forms attested in older languages that are now extinct. A longer explanation of this phenomenon, replete with examples, may be found, among many other places, in any basic historical linguistics textbook, any introductory linguistics textbook that contains a section on historical linguistics, or any textbook that deals at length with language families, such as the <a href="http://cup.es/aus/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=9780521175777">book currently in press</a> from the principal author of this blog.<br />
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The comparative method, the technique of comparing related languages and attempting to derive possible proto forms, has proved to be an invaluable resource for those who study the historical relationships between languages. A great deal is now known about the language known to us, though presumably not to those who spoke it, as Proto-Indo-European, a language that, to our knowledge, was never written down. Similar efforts have been made, though perhaps not with quite the same amount of loving detail, with many other language families throughout the world. For all of its power, though, it is important to recognize that the comparative method has its limits. In order to demonstrate a little of both the potential and the limitations, I will examine two verbs in five Romance languages. One, the verb that means 'to sing', is a regular verb in all the languages shown here. The other, the verb meaning 'to do' or 'to make', has varying degrees of irregularity in the languages considered. For the sake of brevity, I will only consider the present indicative forms of these verbs. I will be looking at five Romance languages: French, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian, and Spanish. I will then include the forms of these verbs in classical Latin. Verb conjugations are courtesy of Verbix. I will provide these conjugations as they are spelled, but I will make remarks about pronunciation. The pronunciations were taken from the text-to-speech engines for the respective languages provided in the Apple iPhone and/or Google Translate. While this method of gleaning pronunciations is, perhaps, not the most scientific one, it is useful in cases where I have no direct experience with the languages in question (in the cases of Portuguese and Romanian), and is one computer-generated pronunciation made with consultation of native speakers more than linguists often have available when making linguistic comparisons.<br />
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To sing<br />
p# French Italian Portuguese Romanian Spanish Latin<br />
1S chante canto canto cânt canto cantō<br />
2S chantes canti cantas cânţi cantas cantās<br />
3S chante canta canta cântă canta cantat<br />
1P chantons cantiamo cantamos cântăm cantamos cantā́mus<br />
2p chantez cantate cantais? cântaţi cantáis cantā́tis<br />
3P chantent cantano cantam cântă cantan cantant<br />
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Given the forms from the five modern languages, and asked to come up with forms from the protolanguage, you would probably come up with answers that are reasonably close to the Latin versions. There might be a few problems with vowel height in a couple forms, but these things are to be expected. However, there are a number of things that might lead you astray, and a couple things that you would miss altogether. One thing that makes the task easier is that I presented the words orthographically, and not phonetically. Had I done the latter, the task would have been a bit more difficult. In particular, French would have become all but useless to the task, since four of the six forms--all of the singular, plus the third-person plural--would resemble each other. French orthography provides some corroborating evidence for the sibilants at the end of the second-person endings and the first-person plural. It would be very difficult to account for these sibilants if they were not found in the proto-language. However, without the evidence from French orthography, a few might note the geographical closeness of Spanish and Portuguese, and draw the conclusion that something went a bit funny in Iberia.<br />
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Losing French orthography would also get rid of any chance to reconstruct the final <i>-t</i> in the third-person plural. As it is, none of these languages leaves behind any trace of the <i>-t</i> suffix in the third-person singular. In the case of the plural, one might be far more tempted by the Italian <i>-ano</i>, especially considering that it is, after all, pronounced. Anyone considering this option, however, would also need to consider the fact that we already have evidence that final <i>-o</i> in Italian also appears in Spanish and Portuguese. At the very least, a person hypothesizing a <i>*-ano</i> in the proto-language would do well to search for a verb in this conjugation where the stem ends in <i>n</i>. Another trap in Italian is the extra "i" that appears in the first-person plural. The way to avoid this one is to look at other verb conjugations, and see that <i>-iamo</i> seems to be a near universal suffix, even in cases where other languages have differing endings (compare, for example, Italian <i>dormiamo</i> and Spanish <i>dormimos</i>).<br />
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Another feature that is entirely absent from these forms is vowel length. In the Latin forms, long vowels are marked by macrons. All forms except the third-person forms have long vowels on the endings. However, even in a more conservativ language like Spanish, there is no difference between the vowels in <i>cantas </i>and in <i>cantan </i>that would suggest the change in vowel length in classical Latin.<br />
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To do<br />
p# French Italian Portuguese Romanian Spanish Latin<br />
1S fais faccio faço fac hago faciō<br />
2S fais fai fazes faci haces facīs<br />
3S fait fa faz face hace facit<br />
1P faisons facciamo fazemos facem hacemos fácimus<br />
2p faites fate fazeis? faceţi hacéis fácitis<br />
3P font fanno fazem fac hacen fáciunt<br />
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AN obvious question that arises from the modern language forms is, just how regular was this verb in the proto-language? Italian and French give us the impression that it's pretty irregular. Is there a consonant in the verb stem? It looks like there might be, sometimes, but only scattered through a few forms. In Spanish and Portuguese, however, the verb seems very close to a regular <i>-er</i> verb. It's not quite there, but it's close. Spanish has this slightly bizzare alternation between a voiced velar stop or fricative and a voiceless dental or alveolar fricative, but apart from that little oddity, it does what one would expect if one were familiar with the language. In Romanian, as well, the verb seems fairly ordinary. It does help us understand this rather unsettling alternation of the medial consonant in Spanish. Seems as though it may have been the result of palatalization. Observe that Romanian makes a similar alternation with /t/ in the verb 'to sing'. Precisely how this palitalization led eventually to dental and alveolar fricatives in Spanish, French, and Portuguese is interesting, but beyond the scope of this article. In our small sample, more of the languages treat this verb as approximately regular, than very irregular, as in French and Italian. If the balance were tipped the other way, we might be tempted to attribute the more regular froms to regularization based on analogy. However, if we did this, we would have to ask why these languages opted for waht seems to be the rarer form when making the analogy. If, instead, we assume that the verb was more regular in Latin, but became irregular in French and Italian, we must come up with an explanation as to why they became so irregular. In order to answer this question, we would need more cognates, to see if this consonant disappeared in other words.<br />
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One thing to note about this verb is that the French forms shed some more light than they did for 'to sing'. In both the third person singular and plural, we see the final <i>-t</i>. While in citation form, this "t" is not pronounced, it appears on occasion, especially when followed by a vowel. We also see the remnants of the intervocalic <i>t</i> in the second-person plural, which had vanished without a trace from 'to sing'. Finally, French is the only language that hints at the back vowel in the third-person plural. Admittedly, it's not a very good hint, since a front high vowel was converted to the same back close-mid vowel in the first-person singular, but it is worthy of note nonetheless.<br />
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An obvious criticism of this exercise is that I should not expect the modern Romance languages to echo classical Latin. The Roman empire was, after all, a large one, and it may be that some of the features of classical Latin, such as vowel length, or the final <i>t</i> in the third person, never existed at all in Gaul or Iberia or Eastern Europe. To these naysayers, I say, you're absolutely right. However, this is one of the points of the exercise. Applying the comparative method to the Romance languages, especially if you use more than just the languages named after nation states, can tell you a lot about the historical ancestor of those languages. However, it can only take you as far as those modern languages allow. Imagine, if you will, construction Proto-Romance from only the modern Romance languages, Proto-Germanic from the extant GErmanic languages, Proto-Hellenic from modern Greek and maybe a few minority languages, and so forth. It would be much more difficult to reconstruct Proto-Indo-European. The reason we've been so successful at that enterprise is that we have ancient languages available, that were much more similar to each other than their modern descendants. However, this is the same reason that we have to stop comparison at Proto-Indo-European. It may be possible that Indo-European is related with other languages in its region, but it would be incredibly difficult to find them if all we have for inputs to the comparative method are outputs from a previous cycle. There is simply too much lost in transmission.<br />
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* Verbix does not list any verb forms for the second-person plural in Portuguese. This is likely because Portuguese, like many varieties of Spanish, has done away with the original forms from Latin in favor of newer pronouns. The forms shown here are from Wiktionary, and have not been confirmed in any other source.Asya Pereltsvaighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06111831062274618509noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26940535958457173.post-7007095140369610152011-12-12T11:53:00.000-08:002011-12-12T11:53:06.237-08:00On the Southeast Asian SprachbundBY MIGUEL SAN PEDRO ("Languages of the World")<br />
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Over the past few decades, the fields of contact linguistics and historical linguistics have been enriched thanks to linguistic areas, regions where languages share common features regardless of whether they originated from a single proto-language. In a linguistic area, also called a <i>Sprachbund</i>, neighboring languages exhibit similar grammatical, syntactic, and phonological characteristics. Every inhabited continent contains at least one <i>Sprachbund</i>; linguistic areas lie in Ethiopia, the Balkans in southeastern Europe, and northern California. N. J. Enfield (2005) writes extensively about the <i>Sprachbund</i> of Mainland Southeast Asia (“MSEA”) and its characteristics. He notes how this region is particularly remarkable for two reasons. Unlike Ethiopia and the Balkans, it did not have a centralized sociopolitical structure governing its entire area [1]. Moreover, its languages’ structural changes over time have provided evidence to overturn traditional theories about historical and contact linguistics.<br />
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Enfield defines MSEA as a region containing Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, eastern Burma, northwestern Malaysia, and southwestern China. Within the area, lowlanders, particularly speakers of Tai languages like Thai, have traditionally displaced populations in neighboring areas while searching for and settling in suitable farmland in plains and rivers. These native populations, who spoke Sino-Tibetan or Mon-Khmer languages, either were assimilated into Tai-speaking cultures or retreated to higher-altitude areas. Those that were absorbed had to learn the language of the dominating peoples. Contemporarily, Tai-speakers have exerted linguistic and cultural influence over highlanders through education, literature, and mass media. Meanwhile, from outside, Chinese culture has penetrated present-day Vietnam, while Indian artistic and religious elements found their way into present-day Thailand, Cambodia, and Laos. In both spheres of influence, foreign cultures fused with native cultural elements rather than replacing them altogether. Moreover, a few centuries ago, Hmong-Mien speakers migrated from China into countries in MSEA, coming into contact with the dominant cultures of the area. No single geopolitical unit has dominated the entire region. As a result, MSEA has become a patchwork of languages that have influenced each other lexically and grammatically thanks to population movements, cultural diffusion and hegemony, and most importantly, the presence of multiple spheres of influence (Indic, Tai, Chinese) and centers of government rather than a single one (Enfield 2005). <br />
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MSEA contains languages from five families, all of which, except the Hmong-Mien family and excluding modern-day overseas immigration, are found both inside and outside MSEA. Some examples of these languages are (Enfield 2005; Clark 1989; Lyovin 1997):<br />
<br />
<ul><li>Tai-Kadai: Thai, Lao, Nung (N Vietnam, S. China) in MSEA; Zhuang outside</li>
<li>Austronesian, Cham (S Cambodia, Vietnam) in MSEA; Indonesian and Hawaiian outside </li>
<li>Sino-Tibetan: Lisu, Akha, Yi, Naxi (N Laos) in MSEA; Mandarin and Burmese outside</li>
<li>Mon-Khmer: Khmer (Cambodia) and Vietnamese in MSEA; Khasi outside, in NE India</li>
<li>Hmong-Mien: Hmong in SW China, Laos, and N Thailand; Mien languages outside, in S China</li>
</ul><br />
All the families mentioned,. Hence, languages in each of these families in MSEA can be compared to their linguistic relatives outside MSEA; if an MSEA language shares significant linguistic features (other than vocabulary) with other genealogically unrelated languages in MSEA but not with related languages outside MSEA, we have compelling evidence that this language belongs to a <i>Sprachbund</i> in MSEA (Enfield 2005). Indeed, we can demonstrate this is the case for a few languages, markedly in terms of phonology, syntax, and morphology.<br />
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The most obvious evidence for a linguistic area in MSEA is the similarities between vowel inventories of Khmer, of Lao, and of Cham. Below are the vowel systems of each of these languages (Enfield 2005).<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiN9Kw4vfY4Z38U8xrryZJ-FV7OBte3bWJ_VOi7yvHtdHZY7QQ9pBMIx4_RaDAZ2ArCANHtp6DvAQMAy3MExby1tDzBEC6KpAjO2AFPURRumQ7DPjrdYshKL64Z08PPEAOGblW9JlhxLYQ/s1600/miguel.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="82" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiN9Kw4vfY4Z38U8xrryZJ-FV7OBte3bWJ_VOi7yvHtdHZY7QQ9pBMIx4_RaDAZ2ArCANHtp6DvAQMAy3MExby1tDzBEC6KpAjO2AFPURRumQ7DPjrdYshKL64Z08PPEAOGblW9JlhxLYQ/s320/miguel.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
All three languages here contain at least the same nine vowel qualities (Khmer additionally has [ɑ]), most or all of which additionally have a length distinction. Cham is particularly remarkable for being unlike its Austronesian relatives, which typically have much fewer vowels; for instance, while it still has vowel length, Hawaiian has only five vowel qualities, [i e a o u] (Lyovin 1997, p. 259). <br />
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Moreover, MSEA languages typically have complex diphthongs but few possibilities for syllable-final consonants. Words are mainly monosyllabic, but some are disyllabic with an initial syllable with a neutral vowel quality. Many of these languages also distinguish vowels with tone, phonation (creaky or breathy), or both.<br />
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Regarding syntax, many MSEA languages exhibit parallel constructions. For instance, sentence-final particles can express a speaker’s attitude in a statement, as in the following examples from Clark (1989, p. 182):<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgm2CyQG8279WW7YL4uxG8lIfWIYE15eiv1hQce-pjjuy6vj3GsuuQdW9xo8nfUWZnrye6k5YhEByfOGxsDCqAXwxccil8TxIMCd4879tGO-YwFB1Zrn3hFqxuDu8ZPMcPSpN9ug7YAUog/s1600/miguel2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="259" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgm2CyQG8279WW7YL4uxG8lIfWIYE15eiv1hQce-pjjuy6vj3GsuuQdW9xo8nfUWZnrye6k5YhEByfOGxsDCqAXwxccil8TxIMCd4879tGO-YwFB1Zrn3hFqxuDu8ZPMcPSpN9ug7YAUog/s320/miguel2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
Moreover, some verbs, called “locus verbs,” can doubly act like prepositions with a related meaning. The glosses translate the same words differently to reflect the words’ dual usage (Clark 1989, pp. 190-93):<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMl5acR6jSz90bxlhLKWMIO78WX3Ponld2e9rDnoW_estOtiTVwbIFJaWAt4NZQ9bW8mam2xWKAmRKaEQVQdfdn8LVjzzhHtkZ7JQ_WjrQn2BI1sc1JgNAbcy84b3g4niSGjbsTtIjeFo/s1600/miguel3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMl5acR6jSz90bxlhLKWMIO78WX3Ponld2e9rDnoW_estOtiTVwbIFJaWAt4NZQ9bW8mam2xWKAmRKaEQVQdfdn8LVjzzhHtkZ7JQ_WjrQn2BI1sc1JgNAbcy84b3g4niSGjbsTtIjeFo/s320/miguel3.jpg" width="279" /></a></div><br />
The examples above show clear influence, if not striking coincidence, between the languages presented. Given that these languages belong to several different families, it seems unlikely that these similar syntactic constructions developed independently. Rather, it is possible that speakers of each of these languages dominated over peoples who spoke languages of a single family that had syntactic devices like those above. As these conquered peoples learned to speak the dominating people’s languages, they used their native syntactic rules to form sentences with their newly-learned vocabulary. This type of linguistic influence has already been observed in Russian, a Slavic language that contains Finnic grammatical qualities not present in other Slavic languages that had no contact with Finnic-speaking peoples (Pereltsvaig 2011); this phenomenon may have feasibly occurred in the languages of MSEA also.<br />
<br />
Besides syntactic and phonological affinities, many MSEA languages contain similar morphological qualities. They are isolating: verbs do not take affixes for tense, aspect, or subject agreement, and nouns are not marked for case or number. These shades of meaning are handled syntactically and pragmatically. Derivational morphology does exist but is limited and unproductive. Khmer can form nouns from some verbs: <i>cuəl</i> 'to rent' > <i>cnuəl</i> 'rent'; Thai acts similarly: <i>truat</i> 'to inspect' > <i>tamruat</i> 'police officer' (Enfield 2005, p. 188).<br />
<br />
MSEA languages and their history offer evidence to contradict traditional theories of language. In the Mon-Khmer family, Vietnamese employs tones, while Khmer does not. Comparisons between these and other languages in the Mon-Khmer family suggest that Vietnamese developed tones from foreign-language contact. Enfield (2005) recounts that before this discovery, Maspero (1912) thought Vietnamese could not possibly have been a Mon-Khmer language because he assumed a language cannot exhibit tone if it did not inherit tone from an ancestor language. At this time, languages were perceived as having a “genetic code,” as Enfield describes (p. 193); languages acquired grammatical qualities only from their progenitors. Hadricourt (1954) overturned this finding in demonstrating how Vietnamese could have developed tones independently. This conclusion led Li (1986) and Thurgood (1996) to suggest that language contact could have driven this tonogenesis. Taking this idea one step further, Thomason and Kaufman (1988, p. 12) asserted, “Any linguistic feature can be transferred from any language to any other language.” While this last claim are still under debate and require a more solid base of sociolinguistic and historical data across languages, as Enfield points out, Vietnamese contact-induced tonogenesis provides supporting evidence.<br />
<br />
Though Enfield provides a rich overview of the astonishing similarities between unrelated MSEA languages, he still points out that many of the region’s languages await further substantial study and that a proper investigation of areal linguistics in MSEA calls for experiments and working models of historical-sociolinguistic phenomena and the diffusion of linguistic characteristics. For Enfield, social dynamics is crucial to understanding how exactly linguistic variants, especially foreign ones, spread across populations. However, it is also crucial to find examples of linguistic characteristics found in MSEA languages but not in related languages outside the area. A more in-depth look from this perspective is necessary, especially for Hmong-Mien and Mon-Khmer languages, for which languages outside MSEA and their speakers are few in number (Enfield 2005; Lyovin 1997). If studies were carried out on these outside languages and we discover precisely to what extent they are different from their MSEA relatives, we could find far clearer evidence on how strong the linguistic affinities actually are within the MSEA <i>Sprachbund</i>. Should the evidence for a <i>Sprachbund</i> be more rigorous, we may arrive at new and fascinating conclusions in linguistics across the board.<br />
<br />
[1] The Balkans were ruled by the Ottoman Empire from the 15th century to the 19th (Encyclopædia Britannica 1997).<br />
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<b>References</b><br />
Clark, Marybeth. “Hmong and Areal South-East Asia.” In <i>South-East Asian Syntax</i> in <i>Papers in South-East Asian Languages</i> in <i>Pacific Linguistics</i> 1989, David Bradley, ed. <b>11</b>:175-230. Canberra: The Australian National University, 1989.<br />
Encyclopædia Britannica. <a href="http://%20www.naqshbandi.org/ottomans/maps/">“Decline of the Ottoman Empire.”</a> 1997. <br />
———. <a href="http://www.naqshbandi.org/ottomans/ maps/">“Expansion of the Ottoman Empire.”</a> 1997. <br />
Enfield, N. J. <a href="http://nickenfield.org/files/ annurevanthro34081804120406.pdf">“Areal Linguistics and Mainland Southeast Asia.”</a> In <i>Annual Review of Anthropology</i> 2005. <b>34</b>:181-206. <br />
Hadricourt, A.-G. « De l’origine des tons en viêtnamien. » <i>J. Asiat.</i> 1954, <b>242</b>:69-82.<br />
Li, C. N. “The rise and fall of tones through diffusion.” <i>Berkeley Linguist. Soc.</i> 1986, <b>12</b>:173-85.<br />
Lyovin, Anatole V. <i>An Introduction to the Languages of the World</i>. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997.<br />
Maspero, H. Phonétique historique de la langue annamite: les initiales. Bull. Ecole Fr. Extrême-Orient.<br />
Pereltsvaig, Asya. <a href="http://languages-of-the-world.blogspot.com/2011/02/lost-middle-finns.html">“The Lost ‘Middle Finns.’”</a> <br />
Thomason, S. G., and T. Kaufman. <i>Language Contact, Creolization, and Genetic Linguistics</i>. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988.<br />
Thurgood, G. <i>From Ancient Cham to Modern Dialects: Two Thousand Years of Language Contact and Change</i>. Hawaii: University of Hawaii Press, 1996.Asya Pereltsvaighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06111831062274618509noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26940535958457173.post-79393915028408695002011-12-11T16:26:00.000-08:002011-12-11T16:26:47.370-08:00Dangling Participle: Grammatical Error Or Bad Writing Style?<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">BY </span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">KATERYNA SHILOVA (Stanford Continuing Studies Program, "The Glamour of Grammar") </span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><br />
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</style> <![endif]--> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><span lang="EN-US">The idea to research the subject of a dangling participle came to me after an unsuccessful attempt to amuse my English-speaking husband with the well-known (in Russia) joke from Chekhov’s short story “The Complaints Book”, specifically one purported entry in the railroad complaints book:</span></div><blockquote class="tr_bq"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US">- “<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Approaching</b> the station and admiring the scenery, my <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">hat</b> blew off”<span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[i]</span></b></span></span></span>.</span></i></div></blockquote><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span lang="EN-US">My listener did not find the phrase funny or confusing. When I insisted there are two possible meanings<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(one of them humorous) – he did not agree.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I thought then that the problem might be more apparent to a reader rather then listener. Upon reading the passage himself, my interlocutor felt that the humorous interpretation (the rider’s hat was apparently admiring the scenery) was too contrived to present itself to a reader. Two other people (one was a teacher of English) to whom I subsequently tried to explain the problem with the passage had similar reactions.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><span lang="EN-US">Yet in the modern English language there exists an explicit prescriptive rule against such use of a participle (commonly called dangling participle). The online <span class="definition">Oxford English Dictionaries</span> describes it as “<span class="definition">a participle intended to modify a noun that is not actually present in the text”</span><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[ii]</span></span></span></span><span class="definition">. The example given by the Oxford English Dictionaries</span> <span class="definition">to demonstrate the </span>dangling participle<span class="definition"> is, ironically, very similar to the phrase from “The Book Of Complaints“: </span></span></div><blockquote class="tr_bq"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><span class="definition"><span lang="EN-US">-“</span></span><strong><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US">Arriving</span></i></strong><em><span lang="EN-US"> at the station, </span></em><strong><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US">the sun</span></i></strong><em><span lang="EN-US"> came out</span></em><span class="definition"><span lang="EN-US">”</span></span><span lang="EN-US">. </span></div></blockquote><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span lang="EN-US">According to Merriam-Webster's “Dictionary of English Usage” the rule declaring dangling participle a grammatical error was introduced in the 19<sup>th</sup> century<span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[iii]</span></span></span></span> – at the same approximate time when many arbitrary prescriptive grammatical rules (such as the rule concerning split infinitive) were established. The typical reasoning behind the rule that one can find in many grammar books is that dangling participles are “illogical”, “ambiguous” or “confusing”, with examples such as: </span></div><blockquote class="tr_bq"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US">- After <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">winning</b> the Peloponnesian war, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Athens</b> was ruled briefly by the Spartans.</span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US">- After <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">being whipped</b> fiercely, the <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">cook</b> fried the egg. </span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US">- Considering</span></i></b><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US"> the Assyrians' brutal policies toward foreigners, their catastrophic <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">fall</b> in 612 BCE comes as no surprise.<span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[iv]</span></b></span></span></span></span></i></div></blockquote><div style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Yet despite the claimed confusion, the same sources that decry the use of the dangling participle, admit that it’s use is very widespread amongst “lay people” and “men of letters” alike, including such figures as Jane Austen, Alexandetr Pope, Arthur Miller, and even Shakespear:</span></div><blockquote class="tr_bq"><div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">- Sleeping</span></i></b><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> in mine orchard, a <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">serpent</b> stung me. (</span></i><em><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12.0pt; font-style: normal; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Hamlet</span></em><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">)</span></i></div></blockquote><div style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of English Usage summarases the subject of dangling modifier thus:</span></div><blockquote class="tr_bq"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US">-“Dangling modifiers are common, old and well-established in English literature.”</span></i></div></blockquote><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span lang="EN-US">Considering all of the above, I found myself questioning the rule. Just how ambiguous a sentence, guilty of employing a dangling participle, really is? Do English speakers recognize such a sentence as grammatically incorrect?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span lang="EN-US">In order to get answer this question, I decided to conduct a little experiment, which is described below:</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><span lang="EN-US">Materials:</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span lang="EN-US">Five sentences, all but one of which (# 4)<span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[1]</span></span></span></span> containing a dangling participle:</span></div><blockquote class="tr_bq"><div class="ListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="line-height: 200%; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -.25in;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">1.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US">After winning the Peloponnesian war, Athens was ruled briefly by the Spartans.</span></i><span lang="EN-US"></span></div><div class="ListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -.25in;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">2.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US">After being whipped fiercely, the cook fried the egg. </span></i><span lang="EN-US"></span></div><div class="ListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -.25in;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">3.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US">Considering the Assyrians' brutal policies toward foreigners, their catastrophic fall in 612 BCE comes as no surprise.</span></i><span lang="EN-US"></span></div><div class="ListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -.25in;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">4.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US">Barring bad weather, we plan to go to the beach tomorrow.</span></i><span lang="EN-US"></span></div><div class="ListParagraphCxSpLast" style="line-height: 200%; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -.25in;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">5.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US">Approaching the station and admiring the scenery, my hat blew off.</span></i><span lang="EN-US"></span></div></blockquote><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span lang="EN-US">First four sentences were borrowed from the Utah State University college writing guide website<span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[v]</span></span></span></span>. The last sentence is the aforementioned Chekhov’s quote.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span lang="EN-US">Each sentence was presented on the separate piece of paper.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><span lang="EN-US">Subjects:</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span lang="EN-US">16 college educated English speakers, of them 2 non-native, 5 female and 11 male.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span lang="EN-US">Experiment:</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span lang="EN-US">Each subject first listened to a given sentence and evaluated the clarity and grammaticality of the sentence. After that he/she read the sentence from the sheet of paper and assessed the same points again. This process was repeated for all sentences in the study. The participants were interviewed one-on-one and had no the knowledge of other subject’s opinion or answers. When all the sentences were evaluated, if the subject found some but not all sentences with dangling participle ambiguous or/and erroneous, he/she was asked to contrast the sentences.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span lang="EN-US">Results:</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span lang="EN-US">The results of the experiment are presented in the table below.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span lang="EN-US">The left column represents numbered sentences, while columns on the right lists the number of people who found a given sentence ambiguous or/ and ungrammatical.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="EN-US">Sentence<span> </span>Found<span> </span>Found<span> </span>Found<span> </span>Found</span></span></div><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="EN-US">Number<span> </span>ambiguity<span> </span>error<span> </span>ambiguity<span> </span>error</span></span></div><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="EN-US"><span> </span>After<span> </span>after<span> </span>after<span> </span>after</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>#1<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>2<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>0<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>6<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>0</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span># 2<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>10<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>0<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>12<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>0</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>#3<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>0<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>0<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>0<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>0</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>#4<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>0<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>0<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>0<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>0</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span># 5<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>4<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>0<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>3<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>0</span><span lang="EN-US"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: -4.5pt;"><span lang="EN-US">This table presents interesting results: </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: -4.5pt;"><span lang="EN-US">The majority of the participants found only one sentence ambiguous – #2. Sentence #2 was an intentionally contrived, “unreal” phrase. When asked why this sentence was found ambiguous as opposed to question #5, the participants gave following answers:</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: -4.5pt;"><span lang="EN-US">“It’s funny”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>- 3 people</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span lang="EN-US">“It’s actually possible for the cook to be whipped, but not for the hat to look out the window” – 9 people.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span lang="EN-US">It might be concluded that the rate of identifying sentence #2 as ambiguous was the highest because it’s potential comical effect was augmented by the lexical ambiguity of the verb “whipped”. People seemed to focus on it rather then on the structural ambiguity of the dangling participle.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span lang="EN-US">The rest of the sentences were found to be pretty clear by most of the participants. The somewhat elevated number of perceived ambiguity in sentence #1 after reading<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(but not after listening) might be due to 2 reasons:</span></div><div class="ListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="line-height: 200%; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo3; text-indent: -.25in;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">1.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span lang="EN-US">Use of a passive voice. The passive voice is usually discouraged in academic writing and the use of it could have been a trigger to examine the sentence more thoroughly.</span></div><div class="ListParagraphCxSpLast" style="line-height: 200%; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo3; text-indent: -.25in;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">2.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span lang="EN-US">The voice cues (cadence, intonation) may aid understanding when people are listening.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span lang="EN-US">It’s worth noting that none of the subjects deemed any sentences erroneous.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span lang="EN-US">Discussion.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .25in;"><span lang="EN-US">We can suppose from this admittedly limited research that the reasoning behind the prescriptive rule declaring any dangling participle a grammatical error must be flawed. Only a few actual phrases featuring dangling participle are confusing or ambiguous. But even for those cases, does their ambiguity automatically render them ungrammatical? In general, does grammatical equal comprehensible or unambiguous? The answer is, most emphatically, “no”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In fact, the very possibility of a world play and puns is due to perfectly “legal” lexical or structural ambiguity as demonstrated by the following comical exchange from Jack London’s novel:</span></div><blockquote class="tr_bq"><blockquote class="tr_bq"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .25in;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US">- "My father, sir, your grandfather, old Isaac Bellew, killed a man with a blow of his fist when he was sixty-nine years old. "The man?" "No, your--you graceless scamp!”<span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[vi]</span></b></span></span></span></span></i></div></blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .25in;"><span lang="EN-US">(Either Isaac Bellew was sixty-nine years old when he killed a man, or Isaac Bellew killed a sixty-nine year old man.)</span></div></blockquote></blockquote><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><strong><span lang="EN-US" style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.5pt;">Fowler’s Modern English Usage in the article on linguistic ambiguity lists following examples, both grammatically correct:</span></strong></div><blockquote class="tr_bq"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US">- We did not go to the shops because we were expecting visitors</span></i><span lang="EN-US">. </span><strong><span lang="EN-US" style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.5pt;">(Either we did not go out at all, or we did go out although not because we were expecting visitors)</span></strong><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US">.</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US">- If the children don't like their toys, get rid of them</span></i><span lang="EN-US"> </span><strong><span lang="EN-US" style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.5pt;">(either get rid of toys, or children).</span></strong><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.5pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.5pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[vii]</span></span></span></span></span><strong><span lang="EN-US"></span></strong></div></blockquote><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><strong><span lang="EN-US" style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.5pt;">So far we’ve demonstrated that:</span><span lang="EN-US"></span></strong></div><div class="ListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: 0in;"><span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.5pt;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">1)<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span lang="EN-US">The use of the dangling participle is very widespread.</span><span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.5pt;"></span></div><div class="ListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: 0in;"><strong><span lang="EN-US" style="font-weight: normal; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">2)<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></strong><span lang="EN-US">Most cases of dangling participle do not seem ambiguous to the English speakers.<strong></strong></span></div><div class="ListParagraphCxSpLast" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: 0in;"><strong><span lang="EN-US" style="font-weight: normal; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">3)<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></strong><span lang="EN-US">The ambiguity of a sentence does not render it ungrammatical.<strong></strong></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span lang="EN-US">Should then the use of the dangling participle be considered a grammatical mistake or a question of style? Is it one of the “real” grammatical rules that are learned at a very young age and are internalized, or is it just an artificial prescriptive rule that is imposed on the speakers by the higher language authority (akin to the rule against multiple negative)? </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><span lang="EN-US">I would like to answer these questions and to conclude this paper by quoting <strong></strong></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span lang="EN-US">Geoffrey K. Pullum, the head of linguistics and English language at the University of Edinburgh and a co-author of “The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language”:</span></div><blockquote class="tr_bq"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US">” I don't regard danglers as grammatical mistakes; that is, I think the syntax of English does not block them. ... A dangler is an error in a domain that I have compared (for want of a better way to put it) to courtesy or manners. I regard danglers as minor offenses against communicational etiquette, but not against grammar.</span></i><span lang="EN-US">”<span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[viii]</span></span></span></span></span></div></blockquote><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div style="mso-element: footnote-list;"><br clear="all" /> <hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" /> <div id="ftn1" style="mso-element: footnote;"> <div class="MsoFootnoteText"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=26940535958457173#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[1]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN-US"> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">While “barring” in sentence #4 seems to be a dangling participle, in reality it is an</span><span lang="EN-US"> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">absolute clause and is considered grammatical.</span></div></div></div><div style="mso-element: endnote-list;"><br clear="all" /> <hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" /> <div id="edn1" style="mso-element: endnote;"> <div class="MsoEndnoteText"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=26940535958457173#_ednref1" name="_edn1" style="mso-endnote-id: edn1;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[i]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN-US"> The Complaints Book, Chekhov, The Comic Stories, translated from Russian by Harvey Pitcher isbn 1- 56663-242-0.</span></div></div><div id="edn2" style="mso-element: endnote;"> <div class="MsoEndnoteText"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=26940535958457173#_ednref2" name="_edn2" style="mso-endnote-id: edn2;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[ii]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN-US"> <a href="http://oxforddictionaries.com/page/oec">http://oxforddictionaries.com/page/oec</a>.</span></div></div><div id="edn3" style="mso-element: endnote;"> <div class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=26940535958457173#_ednref3" name="_edn3" style="mso-endnote-id: edn3;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[iii]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN-US"> <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Merriam-Websters-Dictionary-English-Usage-Merriam-Webster/dp/0877791325/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1323049704&sr=1-1">Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage</a> <span class="ptbrand">by Merriam-Webster</span> <span class="bindingandrelease">(</span><span class="binding">Hardcover</span><span class="bindingandrelease"> - 27 Apr 1995)</span>, page 314.</span></div></div><div id="edn4" style="mso-element: endnote;"> <div class="MsoEndnoteText"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=26940535958457173#_ednref4" name="_edn4" style="mso-endnote-id: edn4;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[iv]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN-US"> <a href="http://www.usu.edu/markdamen/WritingGuide/10dangpt.htm">Utah State University writing guide</a>.</span></div></div><div id="edn5" style="mso-element: endnote;"> <div class="MsoEndnoteText"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=26940535958457173#_ednref5" name="_edn5" style="mso-endnote-id: edn5;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[v]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN-US"> <a href="http://www.usu.edu/markdamen/WritingGuide/10dangpt.htm"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 18.0pt;">A Guide To Writing In History And Classics”,</span> Department of history, Utah State University website</a>..</span></div></div><div id="edn6" style="mso-element: endnote;"> <div class="MsoEndnoteText"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=26940535958457173#_ednref6" name="_edn6" style="mso-endnote-id: edn6;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[vi]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN-US"> <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>London, Jack (2004-05-01). Smoke Bellew (p. 6), Public Domain Books, Kindle Edition.</span></div></div><div id="edn7" style="mso-element: endnote;"> <div class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=26940535958457173#_ednref7" name="_edn7" style="mso-endnote-id: edn7;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[vii]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN-US"> - </span><strong><span lang="EN-US" style="font-weight: normal; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.5pt;">Oxford Pocket Fowler’s Modern English Usage, edited by Robert Allen, Oxford University Press.</span></strong><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size: 9.5pt;"></span></div></div><div id="edn8" style="mso-element: endnote;"> <div class="MsoEndnoteText"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=26940535958457173#_ednref8" name="_edn8" style="mso-endnote-id: edn8;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[viii]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN-US"> Geoffrey K. Pullum’, “Language Log” blog.</span></div></div></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><br />
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</span></div>Asya Pereltsvaighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06111831062274618509noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26940535958457173.post-13243409280568094512011-12-11T16:16:00.000-08:002011-12-11T16:16:57.507-08:00Malagasy and the Austronesian Language FamilyBY STEVEN BURNETT ("Languages of the World")<br />
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Located 250 miles off the coast of East Africa, the island of Madagascar is home to over 20 million people and comprises an area roughly the size of France. However, many might be surprised to hear that despite its close proximity to the East African coast—home to the birthplace of humanity—Madagascar was one of the last major landmasses on the planet to be settled by humans (“About Madagascar”). Archeological evidence indicates that the first wave of settlers to Madagascar likely did not arrive before 0 AD, while the main wave of migrants to the island did not arrive until around the 7th century AD. Furthermore, the inhabitants of Madagascar are not solely African, but are also descended from Asian ancestors that crossed the Indian Ocean by boat (Adelaar 1-2). This fact manifests itself linguistically, as the language spoken in Madagascar—called Malagasy—is generally considered to be a member of the Malayo-Polynesian branch of the Austronesian language family (Blust 31).<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v403/n6771/images/403709aa.2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="135" src="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v403/n6771/images/403709aa.2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>The Austronesian Language Family </b></span></div><br />
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The linguistic similarities between Malagasy and other Austronesian languages were already recognized in the first half of the 16th century, not long after Portuguese sailor Diogo Dias became the first European to discover the island in 1500 AD (Allibert 8). However, the first formal proposal of a genetic link between Malagasy and Austronesian was presented by Otto Dahl in 1951. Dahl would later argue that Malagasy was specifically a member of the Southeast Barito subgroup of the Austronesian language family. The SE Barito subgroup exists in the Southeast corner of Kalimantan—the Indonesian portion of the island of Borneo. Of the SE Barito languages, Dahl (and many other contemporary linguists) argues that the language known as Maanyan is most closely related to Malagasy, based on lexicostatistical data (Dahl 11). <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://epress.anu.edu.au/austronesians/austronesians/images/c04m001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://epress.anu.edu.au/austronesians/austronesians/images/c04m001.jpg" width="215" /></a></div><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: x-small;">Southeast Barito Languages in Indonesia</span></b></div><br />
The linguistic relationship between Malagasy and the Austronesian language family becomes apparent through the use of the comparative method. Using the comparative method, one can demonstrate that Malagasy and other members of Austronesian possess a correspondence of sounds in cognates (words of the same meaning). This implies that the words in both languages come from a common ancestor language (a proto-language), and then separately underwent different sound changes as the languages broke off from that ancestor. For example, consider the following table, which contains translations of words in both Malagasy and Malay (also known as Bahasa Indonesia)—the most widely spoken member of the Austronesian family:<br />
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<br />
<div class="MsoCaption" style="page-break-after: avoid;"><span lang="EN-US">Table </span><span lang="EN-US">1</span><span lang="EN-US"> - Malagasy and Malay (“Chapter 7”)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"> <span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">Malagasy</span></span><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: x-small;"> </span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">Malay</span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; margin-left: 0.5in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: x-small;">1.<span style="-moz-font-feature-settings: normal; -moz-font-language-override: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: x-small;">‘fire’ /afu/ /api/</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; margin-left: 0.5in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: x-small;">2.<span style="-moz-font-feature-settings: normal; -moz-font-language-override: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: x-small;">‘ten’ /fulu/ </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: x-small; line-height: 115%;">/s</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: x-small;">ə-puluh/</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: x-small;"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; margin-left: 0.5in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: x-small;">3.<span style="-moz-font-feature-settings: normal; -moz-font-language-override: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: x-small;">‘four’ </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: x-small; line-height: 115%;">/efat</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: x-small;">ʃ</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: x-small; line-height: 115%;">a/ /</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: x-small;">əmpat/</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: x-small;"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; margin-left: 0.5in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: x-small;">4.<span style="-moz-font-feature-settings: normal; -moz-font-language-override: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: x-small;">‘feather’ /vulu/ /bulu/</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: x-small;"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; margin-left: 0.5in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: x-small;">5.<span style="-moz-font-feature-settings: normal; -moz-font-language-override: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: x-small;">‘fruit’ /vua/ /buah/</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: x-small;"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; margin-left: 0.5in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: x-small;">6.<span style="-moz-font-feature-settings: normal; -moz-font-language-override: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: x-small;">‘new’ /vau/ /baru/</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: x-small;"></span></div><br />
<br />
<br />
In table 1, one can see several sound correspondences between the two languages. For instance, every time a /b/ appears in Malay, a /v/ appears in Malagasy. The same holds true for their unvoiced equivalents /p/ and /f/. This clearly demonstrates that Malagasy and Malay share sound correspondences and thus likely derive from a common ancestor. <br />
<br />
But once we have concluded that Malagasy is a member of the Austronesian family, how can we hypothesize about which language it is most related to? In order to attempt this, one must search for subgroups of languages in the Austronesian family tree that have undergone the same phonetic innovations as Malagasy. Luckily, Dahl has already done this for us and concluded that, as previously mentioned, Malagasy is a member of the Southeast Barito language family. In order to see evidence of this, we examine in the following table the sound correspondences between Malagasy, Maanyan (its SE Barito sibling), and Malay, which is not a member of the SE Barito subgroup. Additionally, forms have been provided of each word in reconstructed Proto-Austronesian, the theoretical ancestor of all Austronesian languages.<br />
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<br />
<div class="MsoCaption" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; page-break-after: avoid;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: small;">Table </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: small;">2</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: small;"> - Words in PAN, Malagasy, Maanyan, and Malay (“Austronesian Basic Vocabulary Database”)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: x-small;"> <span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">Proto-Austronesian</span><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">Malagasy</span><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">Maanyan</span><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">Malay</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; margin-left: 0.5in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: x-small;">1.<span style="-moz-font-feature-settings: normal; -moz-font-language-override: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: x-small;">‘rope’ *CaliS </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: x-small; line-height: 115%;">/tády/ /tadi/ /tali/</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; margin-left: 0.5in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: x-small;">2.<span style="-moz-font-feature-settings: normal; -moz-font-language-override: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: x-small;">‘to buy’ *beli </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: x-small; line-height: 115%;">/mi-vídy/ /midi/ /mem-beli/</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; margin-left: 0.5in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: x-small;">3.<span style="-moz-font-feature-settings: normal; -moz-font-language-override: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: x-small; line-height: 115%;">‘five’ *lima /dimy/ /dimy/ /lima/</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: x-small;">4.<span style="-moz-font-feature-settings: normal; -moz-font-language-override: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: x-small; line-height: 115%;">‘ear’ *Caliŋa /tadíny/ / siluʔ/ /teliŋa/</span></div><br />
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<br />
In this table, there are many examples of sound changes that occurred in the development of Maanyan and Malagasy to the exclusion of Malay. In forms 1 through 3, the /li/ in Proto-Austronesian becomes /di/ in both Malagasy and Maanyan, but remains as /li/ in Malay. (The /i/ must be included, as we will later see that the phoneme /d/ alone undergoes a separate change). <br />
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The following table provides a few additional examples of sound changes that must have occurred after the split between the ancestors of Bahasa Indonesia and the SE Barito subgroup.<br />
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<br />
<div class="MsoCaption" style="page-break-after: avoid;"><span lang="EN-US">Table 3 - PAN, Malagasy, Maanyan, and Malay #2 (“Austronesian Basic Vocabulary Database”)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"> <span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">Proto-Austronesian</span></span><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: x-small;"> </span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">Malagasy</span></span><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: x-small;"> </span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">Maanyan</span></span><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: x-small;"> </span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">Malay</span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; margin-left: 0.5in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: x-small;">1.<span style="-moz-font-feature-settings: normal; -moz-font-language-override: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: x-small;">‘two’ *duSa /</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: x-small; line-height: 115%;">róa/ /rueh/ /dua/</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; margin-left: 0.5in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: x-small;">2.<span style="-moz-font-feature-settings: normal; -moz-font-language-override: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: x-small;">‘water’ *daNum </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: x-small; line-height: 115%;">/ráno/ /ranuʔ/ /air/</span></div><div style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: x-small; line-height: 115%;">3. ‘ten’ *sa-puluq /folo/ /sa-puluh/ /se-puluh/</span></div><br />
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Now one can see why it is necessary to include the /i/ in the previously discussed rule, as in forms 1 and 2 the phoneme /d/ on its own changes to /r/ in SE Barito languages (but not in Malay). These forms all also demonstrate the sound change /u/ > /o/ in Malagasy, which must have occurred after the SE Barito speakers left Borneo for Madagascar, as /u/ remains unchanged in the other Barito languages. <br />
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The examples provided thus far have shown with a high degree of certainty that Malagasy is more closely related to the SE Barito subgroup of the Austronesian family than it is to Malay. If we were to continue using this comparative method with other Austronesian languages and Malagasy as several linguists have done, we wound find that the set of changes shared by Malagasy and the SE Barito languages distinguishes them in some way from all other Austronesian subgroups—not just Malay (Dahl 12). <br />
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The story does not end there, however. By continuing to analyze linguistic data, which we unfortunately lack the time to discuss here, historical linguists have been able to piece together much more about the history of the Malagasy language and people. For example, a current postulate is that sometime around the 7th century AD, as the Srivijayan kingdom was expanding throughout Indonesia, a group of Maanyan speakers was transported by Malay seafarers from Borneo to the East African coast, with which Southeast Asians had already possessed some form of contact for over half a millennium. After mixing with the local Bantu population, the Southeast Asians proceeded to Madagascar, systematically settling the island in the 8th century AD (Adelaar 18-19). While this reconstructed history of Madagascar is only hypothetical and involves some degree of speculation, the fact that one can lay the foundations for such a detailed and far-reaching history simply by employing linguistic analysis speaks to the power and importance of the field. Hopefully, linguists will continue their reconstructive work among the world’s lesser-studied language families, reconciling their theories with newly emerging non-linguistic evidence in the pursuit of recounting our past. <br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Works Cited</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">"About Madagascar." Madexperience.com. 2009. Web. 30 May 2011.</span><br />
<http: mad-xperience_008.htm="" www.madxperience.com=""><span style="font-size: x-small;">Allibert, C. "Austronesian Migration and the Establishment of the Malagasy Civilization: Contrasted Readings in Linguistics, Archaeology, Genetics and Cultural Anthropology." Diogenes 55.2 (2008): 7-16. Print.<br />
Adelaar, Alexander. "The Indonesian Migrations to Madagascar: Making Sense of the Multidisciplinary Evidence. in Adelaar, Austronesian Diaspora and the Ethnogenesis of People in Indonesian Archipelago, LIPI PRESS." Austronesian Diaspora and the Ethnogenesis of People in Indonesian Archipelago. Melbourne: LIPI, 2006. Web. </span><http: 6="" 6d="" events="" images="" indonesianmigrations.pdf="" tuvalu.santafe.edu="" workshops=""><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
Blust, R. A. The Austronesian Languages. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National University, 2009. Print.<br />
Dahl, Otto Chr. Migration from Kalimantan to Madagascar. Oslo: Norwegian Univeristy, 1991. Print.<br />
"Maanyan, Malagasy, Proto Austronesian, and Indonesian." Austronesian Basic Vocabulary Database. 2011. Web. 30 May 2011. </span><http: austronesian="" language.psy.auckland.ac.nz=""><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
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</http:></http:></http:>Asya Pereltsvaighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06111831062274618509noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26940535958457173.post-65837252179380016682011-12-11T16:06:00.000-08:002011-12-11T16:06:37.911-08:00Language of the “Mountain Tribe”: A Closer Look at HazaragiBY ROBERT RYAN ("Languages of the World")<br />
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The Hazara are an intriguing people, with a rich culture and mysterious origins. Their history is one fraught by religious persecution and political oppression. Yet they have managed to keep their language and culture relatively intact for thousands of years. Hazaragi is currently spoken by about 2.21 million people, mainly in Afghanistan (about 1.77 million) but also in Iran and Pakistan. (<i>Hazaragi: A Language of Afghanistan</i>, 2009) Some linguists believe this number to be declining as Hazaragi speakers are adopting standard Persian. Relatively few studies have been published in English to enhance our understanding of the Hazara people and their language. In this analysis, I will first take a closer look at the linguistic characteristics of the language, followed by an analysis of the history that has shaped it in order to provide reasons for a decline in speakers and possibilities for the future of Hazaragi.<br />
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<b><u>The Language</u></b><br />
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With this background in mind, let us now examine the state in which the language is currently. As previously mentioned, few studies have been published in English regarding the specific characteristics of Hazaragi that make it distinct from other Persian dialects. That being said, here are a few. (Note: these linguistic characteristics come primarily from the work of Charles M. Kieffer as published in the <i>Encyclopedia Iranica</i> of 2003. Other sources will be cited in-text.)<br />
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As an eastern Persian variety, Hazara has retained the voiced fricative [γ] and the bilabial articulation of [w]. Also it has borrowed many words from other languages, which has in turn introduced new sounds, including the retroflexes [ṭ] and [ḍ.], e.g. <i>buṭ</i> meaning 'boot' (English loan word) vs. <i>but</i> meaning 'idol' (Persian <i>bot</i>); <i>ḍal </i>meaning 'group'<br />
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In addition, [h] is rarely articulated in spoken Hazaragi. The following Table 1 shows the consonants of Hazaragi.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEGll5l-1V9KRJ0ZgEWDj55PEVENExoDBMEQakHR-yzV-0QPbBKEMqJFfScy6ojphRMJCZlU8XVrZhPBHBdS6Uii_qm68ovCMmqXhQxH9thRlQdxzHXXsGIR8o_VDE60B6rt1EEvctfPA/s1600/image002.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="147" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEGll5l-1V9KRJ0ZgEWDj55PEVENExoDBMEQakHR-yzV-0QPbBKEMqJFfScy6ojphRMJCZlU8XVrZhPBHBdS6Uii_qm68ovCMmqXhQxH9thRlQdxzHXXsGIR8o_VDE60B6rt1EEvctfPA/s320/image002.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
Hazaragi also has several diphthongs, with two adjacent vowel sounds occurring in the syllable. These include <i>ay</i>, <i>aw</i>, and <i>ēw</i> (< <i>-ab/-āb/-ûw</i>). The vocalic system is otherwise typical of eastern Persian. Vowels in Hazaragi are characterized by the loss of length distinction and the retention of the midvowels. Table 2 from Kieffer gives a good picture of how the vowel system of Hazaragi has changed over time from early Persian. <br />
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</div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQ8YUkzrcpOdA3Yvj5UqRGESy34Y4kzRMIC7Pvme0mH5JcmfhAHZWG9dkAit647ntBmRNEMbvjOVOQl2C5OVjr23OqGeWg3q0XvQXNaJlXS3DgEcXdiHu0LwODFWDmmpGRFvx90wa3Pkk/s1600/image004.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="132" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQ8YUkzrcpOdA3Yvj5UqRGESy34Y4kzRMIC7Pvme0mH5JcmfhAHZWG9dkAit647ntBmRNEMbvjOVOQl2C5OVjr23OqGeWg3q0XvQXNaJlXS3DgEcXdiHu0LwODFWDmmpGRFvx90wa3Pkk/s320/image004.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
As in Dari, stress is dynamic and usually falls on the last syllable of a nominal form, including derivative suffixes. (Farhadi, 1975, pp. 64-67). In addition, insertion of epenthetic vowels in consonant clusters is typical, e.g. <i>pašm</i> > <i>póšum</i> 'wool'. We also see final devoicing, as in [Khod (ḵût)] meaning 'self, own'. <br />
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The grammatical structure of Hazaragi is practically identical to Dari, giving further credence to the notion that it is a dialect of Dari, itself also being a dialect of Farsi. (Farhadi, 1975)<br />
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Verb tenses, mood and aspect are all very different from western Persian. The basic tense system contains present-future, past and pluperfect, with some recent developments in modal paradigms. For more information regarding grammar, G. K. Dulling provides a deeper look, beyond the scope of this essay. (Dulling, 1973, pp. 35-37) <br />
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The most interesting feature of Hazaragi, and the one that distinguishes it from other eastern Persian dialects, is the lexicon. The origin of many items in the lexicon is still unclear. Dulling considers the present dialect to consist of “three strata: (1) pre-Mongol Persian, with its own substratum; (2) the Mongolian language; and (3) modern <i>tājiki</i>, which preserves in it elements of (1) and (2).” Dulling considers Hazaragi a dialect of modern Tajik, or rather modern Dari, but finds it “lexically distinctive enough to merit [its] local special name of Hazaragi.” (Dulling, 1973). A few examples of the vocabulary are:<br />
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Turkic: <i>ata</i> meaning 'father'; <i>kaṭa</i> meaning 'big, large', and <i>qara</i> meaning 'black';<br />
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Mongolian: <i>bêri</i> 'bride', <i>alaḡa</i> 'palm (of hand)', <i>qulaḡay</i> 'thief' (Kieffer, 2003)<br />
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Studies have should that the Turco-Mongolian lexical component makes up about 10% of the lexicon, setting it apart from all other eastern Persian dialects.<br />
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To sum up, the differences between Hazaragi and other eastern Persian dialects are few but certainly not dismissable.<br />
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<u><b>The People</b></u><br />
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The region most known for having a high density of Hazaragi speakers is the central mountains of Afghanistan situated between Kabul and Herat. This is the Hazarajat province. There is much debate over whether Hazaragi is a language by itself or whether it is a dialect of Farsi (even among native speakers). However it is undoubtedly part of the Indo-Iranian branch of the larger Indo-European language family.<br />
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The Hazara people are mainly comprised of Shi’a Muslims, with small minority (5%) of Sunni Muslims. This fact is critical to understanding Hazaragi’s history and more importantly its future. The Hazara people are commonly believed to have ties to the Mongolian empire, due to genetic and physical similarities as well as strong lexical connections. Some scholars, namely linguist Sayed Askar Mousavi, have found compelling evidence that a strongly Mongol-Turkic community, closely resembling modern Hazaras, already inhabited the area long before the Genghis Khan and his armies invaded. (Mousavi, 1998) The term <i>hazāra</i> is derived from the Persian word <i>hazār</i> (thousand), which was originally translated from the Mongolian term <i>ming</i> ('thousand') which referred to a military unit of the Mongol armies. (Kieffer, 2003) This term took on new significance in Persian around the 15th century to mean 'mountain tribe' after the Hazara were forced to retreat to the mountains of Hazarajat due to persecution by other groups, mainly Sunni Pashtun tribes. Originally used by outsiders, the name was eventually adopted as the self-designation of the Hazara tribes.<br />
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As a religious minority in the region, the Hazara have always faced persecution. They are constantly oppressed by the Pashtun tribes, particularly those in political power. They have attempted to revolt multiple times, each leading to death and more oppression, even to the point of entire tribes being annihilated in jihads ('holy war') against the Sunni Hazaras. (Mousavi, 1998) Based on the Shi’a—Sunni relations, the persecution has continued to this day in the Taliban regime. Even into the 1970’s, some Suuni Pashtun clerics taught that “killing Hazaras was a religious service.” (Canfield, 2002) <br />
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As one would expect, Hazaragi is therefore spoken by many refugees. Most of these refugees are seeking asylum in Iran and Pakistan from Pashtun and Taliban persecution. This oppression has driven as many as 4 million Hazaragi-speaking refugees into neighboring countries. On top of this, severe droughts between 1998 to 2001 led to a spike in refugees in these countries, so much so that Iran had to enact strict regulation in order to control the influx of Hazara people. (Canfield, 2002) This increasing retreat of Hazaragi speakers undoubtedly has led to the steady decline in the number of native speakers. As refugees arrive in new their new homes, they must adapt to survive. Suddenly the people around them speak a different language, and so they must sacrifice their own. This leads to convergence and desertion of the native tongue. It is interesting that persecution first drove the Hazara into the mountains, which in turn protected the integrity of the language. Now persecution compels them to descend and flee, thereby jeopardizing it.<br />
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On top of the increasing outflow of Hazaragi speakers from the Hazarajat region, those who stay have an increased incentive to also adopt the language of the majority. Hazaragi is considered by many, both speakers and non-speakers, to be a low-prestige language. The Ethnologue reports that the majority of Hazaragi speakers today are laborers, civil servants, tradesmen, shopkeepers and traders. (<i>Hazaragi: A Language of Afghanistan</i>, 2009) We can easily expect people, whether by choice or by coercion, to learn a presumably more prestigious dialect and in turn converge with it. One student states in his response to a blog question asking whether Dari or Hazargi is the language of the Hazara, “Dari is the language we have to learn in order to interact with other Afghan and Persian speakers.” (What is our Real Language: Hazaragi or Dari???, 2008) <br />
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One interesting study has already shown a convergence of the [u] sound with other Persian dialects. It reports that the subjects tested showed consistent patterns of convergence, particularly in words ending in /-an/, which are realized with final [-u], e.g. ميدان /maydān/ meaning 'plaza' pronounced [maydu]. (Miller & Strong, 2011)<br />
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<u><b>Final Thoughts</b></u><br />
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Yet there may be hope! Another recent study showed that about half of the educated Hazaragi speakers surveyed considered it to be a language (rather than a dialect of Dari). When asked if these speakers want their children to understand Hazaragi, about 92% said “Yes.” Slightly fewer reported that they want their children to speak Hazaragi. Overall, the majority of participants demonstrated a commitment to maintain Hazaragi and to speak it throughout their lives. With regards to domains of use, Hazaragi was considered “most suitable for casual settings and with friends” while Dari is best for formal contexts, such as university lectures or a government office. (Jamal, 2010)<br />
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Hazaragi, though the language of the oppressed, appears to still have devoted speakers who hope to maintain their “mountain tribe” heritage, even in the face of asylum-seeking, on the one hand, and education on the other. Time will tell if this fascinating language will withstand the new obstacles it now faces.<br />
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<b>Works Cited</b><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Canfield, R. L. (2002). "Hazara", from Encyclopedia of World Cultures: Supplement. Retrieved from Gale Virtual Reference Library.: http://myclass.peelschools.org/sec/11/34287/Resources/Hazaras Gale Virtual Reference Library.doc</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Dulling, G. (1973). The Hazaragi Dialect of Afghan Persian: A Preliminary Study. London: Central Asian Monograph.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Farhadi, A. R. (1975). The Spoken Dari of Afghanistan: A Grammar of Kāboli Dari (Persian), Compared to the Literary Language. Kabul.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Hazaragi: A Language of Afghanistan. (2009). Retrieved from Ethnologue: Languages of the World: http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=haz</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Jamal, A. (2010, April 5). Attitues Toward Hazaragi. Retrieved from http://opensiuc.lib.siu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1224&context=theses</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Kieffer, C. (2003). Hazara iv. Hazaragi dialect. Retrieved from Encyclopedia Iranica: http://www.iranica.com/articles/hazara-4</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Miller, C., & Strong, R. (2011). Mapping Convergence on [u] in several dialects of Persian. Retrieved from https://www.fbcinc.com/LEARNPersian/presentations/convergence.pdf</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Mousavi, S. A. (1998). The Hazaras of Afghanistan: An Historical, Cultural, Economic and Political Study. Richmond, NY: St. Martin's Press.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">What is our Real Language: Hazaragi or Dari??? (2008, June 18). Retrieved from Hazara Network: http://www.hazaranetwork.com/forum/topics/1992280:Topic:57851?id=1992280%3ATopic%3A57851&page=4#comments</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Windfuhr, G. L. (n.d.). Persian Phonology. In A. (. Kaye, Phonologies of Asia and Africa, Vol. 2 (pp. 675-689). Winona Lake, IN.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span>Asya Pereltsvaighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06111831062274618509noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26940535958457173.post-89637602423735990782011-12-09T09:23:00.000-08:002011-12-09T09:28:18.102-08:00Linguistic Nationalism Among the BasquesBY <span class="email">CONNOR EVERETT KELLEY ("Languages of the World")</span><br />
<span class="email"> </span> <br />
On the 20th of October, 2011, Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA), an organization of Basque freedom fighters, announced a complete termination of their “campaigns of bombings and shootings” – in the group’s own words, a “definitive cessation.” This follows half a century of violent clashes against the Spanish government for the cause of Basque nationalism and establishment of a specific and free Basque state, completely separate and independent from Spain. What, then, causes this level of animosity and strong sense of national pride among the Basque people such that they would rise up continually against the Spanish government?<br />
<br />
For the Basques, the answer to this question is inextricably intertwined with their language, Euskara. One might believe that Spain is a land of monolingualism, but in reality Spain is gifted - or plagued - depending on one’s perspective, with an amalgam of cultures and languages from each corner of its landmass: The Gallegos directly north of Portugal; the Andalusians near the Strait of Gibraltar; the Catalans of Barcelona; and of course the Basques bordering France and the Bay of Biscay. Each region contains its own customs, but is somehow “united” under the language of Castilian, or Castellano (what is referred to as Spanish by the majority of the world).<br />
<br />
The Basque people inhabit the extreme north of Spain, bordering the Pyrenees Mountains to the east and Bay of Biscay to the north. In the past, the Basques inhabited a much larger range of Spain, but were forced back into the present hostile landscape known as <i>Eskual Herri</i>, or Basque Land. The history of the Basques is slightly more obscure, as they are an almost completely separate ethnic group and fully insular linguistic group. <i>Euskara</i> has no existing or known linguistic relatives, making it a perfect isolate, and is an incredibly difficult language to learn unless brought up in the language itself, as evidenced by the fact that French religious leader and polyglot of the 16th Century, Joseph Scaliger, had to stop learning Basque because of its difficulty – after teaching himself Hebrew, Aramaic, Arabic, and Persian. It is believed that Basque predates the Indo-European language surge, which would indicate it being the oldest surviving language in Europe. As of yet, there have been no successful inquiries into the history of the Basque language.<br />
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Because of their linguistic isolation from the other languages on the Iberian Peninsula, as well as the physical isolation of Euskal Herria, the Basque people have consistently felt a sense of separating and remoteness during the modern era. Basques were especially persecuted partly due to the diametrically opposed nature of Euskara and Castilian. Leaders of the Basque National Party (PNV) were especially partial to the thought that their language was a rallying point and one of the main causes behind their separate nature as a nation. Language is accepted to be one of many bases for cultural or national identity as well as a pseudo-answer to the question: “To which group do I belong?” Catalan nationalist leader Prat de la Riba used language as an overarching likeness between Catalans as a way of proponing a sense of nationalism for his people. As a connection to this primordial thought that language is a main cause for one’s national identity, the PNV was created by Sabino Arana on July 31, 1895 to fully promote Basque independence if not outright secession from Spain because of ethnic and linguistic reasons. Besides the obvious linguistic differences between Euskara and the remainder of the languages on the Iberian Peninsula, multiple officials of the PNV’s stance was that without Euskara there was no <i>Euskadi</i>. As we see in interviews in Alfonzo Perez-Agote’s book <i>The Social Roots of Basque Nationalism</i> - “For me, monolingualism sounds the same as independence. I’m not at all sure I’ll ever see it. As an agreed aim or objective,” and “The only possible [linguistic picture] for an abertzale [nationalist] is that throughout Euskadi, both north and south, Euskara is spoken and that it’s the only national language”.<br />
<br />
This does differ slightly from the significantly more radical ETA, as we saw with the ending of their reign of violence. The ETA was founded July 31, 1959 by several previous members of the PNV who didn’t believe that the leadership of the PNV was being harsh enough against the Franco regime’s policies against the Basque - instead of parliamentary procedure, they were proponents of radical and revolutionary violence; they also wanted to unite the seven traditional provinces under one federation of Basque provinces, and remove the governmental structure France and Spain had over them. However, despite the more radical approach, they too agreed on the importance of language for the Basques. As Mark Kurlansky states in his book <i>The Basque History of the World</i> - “Euskara is the quintessence of Euskadi. So long as Euskara is alive, Euskadi will live”. Euskara for the ETA was their only source of togetherness, and if anyone who could speak Euskara became a Basque.<br />
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Seeing the ways in which these two Basque nationalist organizations incorporate the importance of Euskara into their claims and battles for Basque nationalism, it becomes clearly apparent that language to the Basques is similar to music to musicians. They are codependent; one requires the existence of the other in order to survive and thrive. Language, especially common language, is a point of reference for all peoples from which they can decide where they fit in the world. As long as the Basques keep speaking Euskara, the Basques will survive and remain fighting for their individual national rights.<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: x-small;">Works Referenced</span></b><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">BBC News. “Basque group ETA says armed campaign is over.” October 20, 2011. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-15393014. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Deutscher, Guy. <i>The Unfolding of Language: An Evolutionary Tour of Mankind’s Greatest Invention</i>. New York: Metropolitan Books / Henry Holt and Company, 2005.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Hofstede, Geert and Gert Jan Hofstede. <i>Cultures and Organizations: Software of the Mind</i>. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2005.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Kurlansky, Mark. <i>The Basque History of the World</i>. New York: Penguin, 1999.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Mar-Molinero, Claire. “The Iberian Peninsula: Conflicting Linguistic Nationalisms.” In <i>Language and Nationalism in Europe</i>. Edited by Stephen Barbour and Cathie Carmichael. 83-104. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2000.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Payne, Stanley G. <i>Basque Nationalism</i>. Reno: University of Nevada Press, 1975.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Pérez-Agote, Alfonzo. <i>The Social Roots of Basque Nationalism</i>. Translated by Cameron Watson and William A. Douglass. Reno: University of Nevada Press, 2006.</span>Asya Pereltsvaighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06111831062274618509noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26940535958457173.post-10255434377118397482011-12-08T16:26:00.000-08:002011-12-08T16:26:00.979-08:00On official languages of sub-Saharan AfricaBY ADETOLA LAWAL ("Languages of the World")<br />
<br />
Many sub-Saharan countries kept former colonial languages as their official language in order to “to avoid some of the ethnic and linguistic quagmires” since these languages belonged to none of the countries’ native ethnic groups. However, the past 50 years since official decolonization of Africa has shown that few countries in sub-Saharan Africa have avoided ethnic strife. This can be at least partially attributed to the borders drawn up by former colonizers, which combined sizable ethnic groups with their own distinct languages and cultures together. Examining sub-Saharan countries where native languages have more government recognition compared to those where solely European languages hold official status may yield further insight. Specifically, perhaps defaulting to European languages has the surprising effect of actually increasing conflict as opposed to decreasing it.<br />
<br />
Nigeria represents a prime example of colonizers creating a country without regards to cultural boundaries. Africa’s most populous country is home to hundreds of different ethnic groups. It should come as no surprise then, that like most West African countries, Nigeria possesses many speakers of diverse languages. However the majority of Nigerians are Yoruba, Igbo or Hausa with the groups representing 21%, 18%, and 29% of Nigeria’s population respectively. The aforementioned groups also each speak different native languages, Yoruba, Igbo, and Fulani, all Niger-Congo languages. <br />
<br />
When Nigeria gained its independence in 1960, to appease the Northerners (Hausa) the country had to be divided up in order to give them a majority. However, the official language of education, government, and business, to avoid conflict was English. Nigeria’s fragile democracy was marked by competing interests between the dominant ethnic groups, rampant corruption, and frequent military coups. <br />
<br />
The political process was so weak that the country descended into civil war not long after receiving independence from the British. The South-easterners (Igbo) seceded from Nigeria due to electoral fraud as well as a desire to protect control of the oil-rich lands. The defeat was very costly to the Igbos both during the war and after. The post war consequences included government officials embezzling money meant for reconstruction of Igbo lands as well as seizing Igbo property and businesses. <br />
<br />
In recent times other African countries whose boundaries were created without regards to ethnic, linguistic, and religious differences have had to make difficult political decisions. Kenya, like Nigeria, is a country with many different ethnic groups comprised of several dominant ones. Also like Nigeria, Kenya is linguistically diverse, with the country home to over sixty different languages.<br />
<br />
Kenya, however is different in several respects. Unlike Nigeria, Kenya has two official languages, Swahili and English. However, not all members of Kenya know either or both languages and most Kenyans prefer to speak their mother tongue. This is even more material because Swahili is a Bantu (and thus Niger-Congo) language. Although Swahili is not the native language for most Kenyans, the Kikuyu language (with the Kikuyu people being the largest individual ethnic group in Kenya) is also a Bantu language. Furthermore, a significant minority of ethnic groups in Kenya have native languages that are not Bantu or even Niger-Congo, but instead Nilo-Saharan languages or Afroasiatic languages. As a direct result of Kenya’s language policy, speakers of Bantu languages, which are similar in structure to Swahili, generally speak better Swahili providing a distinct advantage in professional circles. <br />
<br />
In 2009, the Kenyan government issued a census that asked the question “What is your tribe?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This was very controversial as it came shortly after the widely disputed 2007 Presidential elections. As is the case in most of Africa, in Kenya voting is primarily on ethnic lines, and the Kikuyu President, Mwai Kibaki won the dubious election. Adding to the fire is the widespread belief amongst most ethnic groups that the Kikuyu have been advantaged in post-colonial Kenya, and that these elections were just another example of this privilege. <br />
<br />
The fraudulent elections combined with the fact that the corrupt politician is a member of the more privileged ethnic group, resulted in violence and rioting against the Kikuyu elite by members of rival ethnic groups. To resolve the crisis, the government created a new position of Prime Minister, filled by Kibaki’s opponent. In Kenya’s case simply designating an indigenous language as an official language did not stop ethnic violence. However, even though this system of having a language native to the region as well as English as official languages may naturally be said to favor one ethnic group over another, Kenya has escaped the brunt of the ethnic violence that compared to the standards of most sub-Saharan African nations. <br />
<br />
In addition Kenya’s neighbors, Tanzania and Uganda, have also adopted Swahili as an official language in conjunction with English, while also avoiding ethnic conflict. In Uganda the decision was particularly interesting, since Swahili is not the most popularly spoken indigenous language, while the most popularly spoken language, Luganda, was not selected as the nation’s second official language. It is fascinating however, that both non-native speakers and native speakers of Luganda disagreed on making it the country’s official language. The former group feared diminished political influence, while the latter group predicted eventual bastardization of the language. <br />
<br />
One of the few countries in sub Saharan Africa with a large population to avoid civil war between members of different ethnic groups is South Africa. South Africa is unique in many respects when compared to its neighbors. In addition to typically leading sub-Saharan countries by most economic indicators, it is also the only nation in the region to have eleven official languages, most of which comprise native languages. The reasoning for this is outlined in the Constitution of South Africa:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>"Recognising the historically diminished use and status of the indigenous languages of our people, the state must take practical and positive measures to elevate the status and advance the use of these languages."</blockquote><br />
The eleven languages were chosen well, (nine Bantu along with English and Afrikaans, a nod to the country’s colonial past) comprising over 99% of the first languages spoken in South Africa. This is even more remarkable when we consider South Africa has over 50 million people, while also possessing an ethnic diversity representative of this population by sub-Saharan Africa standards. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Although in practice some of these official languages are used more often than others, and English is the <i>lingua franca </i>of education, politics, and business, this policy has significantly eased potential ethnic tensions. Such a policy reflects South Africa’s motto of “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">ke e: ǀxarra ǁke</i>”, meaning “Unity in Diversity” in IXam, an extinct South African language. <br />
<br />
Of course to pin ethnic strife, or the lack thereof, solely on a country’s political decisions regarding language supremacy is incomplete. However, when analyzing a nation’s political history in a region as diverse and as challenging as sub-Saharan Africa, a country’s language policy cannot be overlooked. On one side of the spectrum, Nigeria, like most West African nations, has selected a colonial language as the official language and these nations have typically fared the worst when it comes to civil war. Several East African nations have chosen Swahili as a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">lingua franca</i>, concurrently recognizing the status of an indigenous language while not necessarily representing a language of the majority. This has served to cool, but not eliminate ethnic tension in the region. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>South Africa’s policy of granting virtually every natively spoken language official status has worked the best in this regard: preserving the language and culture of the people, while simultaneously working to prevent one native language from being dominant over the rest.<br />
<br />
In the future, political leaders of other sub-Saharan nations will be forced to evaluate the existing framework surrounding their nation’s language policy. These leaders should consider South Africa’s plan as an example to preserve ethnic pride while avoiding debilitating conflict.Asya Pereltsvaighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06111831062274618509noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26940535958457173.post-91911193978903753322011-12-08T15:52:00.000-08:002011-12-08T15:52:33.676-08:00The Decline of the Celtic Languages<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:OfficeDocumentSettings> <o:AllowPNG/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> </w:Compatibility> <w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style>
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<div class="msonospacing" style="line-height: 200%;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">BY NATALIE KARL ("Languages of the World")</span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The cultures of the Celts and Anglo-Saxons have been at odds in the British Isles since medieval times, and the Celtic language family has suffered because of it. This family, comprising Breton, Gaelic, Irish, Welsh, and the extinct languages Cornish and Manx, has been slowly declining for centuries (Durkacz, 214).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Today there are approximately 1.3 million speakers of these languages, but the numbers are going down. The most widely spoken Celtic language is Welsh with 508,000 speakers, but the vast majority of them also speak English (“Languages of United Kingdom”). Cornish, on the other hand, went extinct in 1777 but has been undergoing a small revival recently and has a few speakers again (“Cornish”). By examining some of the causes of the decline of the Celtic languages and how greatly they affected Welsh and Cornish, it is possible to see how Welsh survived, but Cornish did not. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>One of the earliest factors contributing to the decline of the Celtic languages was the disunity of the Celtic people during the Middle Ages. Each group had its own kingdom, and they were constantly fighting one another. They even helped foreigners, including the English monarchs, fight other Celts, effectively hurting the survival of their own culture. Thus, the need to unify to protect their heritage was thwarted by internal fighting, and the far more unified Anglo-Saxons were able to expand at their expense (Gregor, 284-291). This lack of unity helped set the stage centuries ago for the slow decline of the Celtic languages. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">One consequence of this disunity was a loss of status of the Celtic languages in favor of the languages of their conquerors, particularly English. This began in the Middle Ages when the Celtic groups defeated by Anglo-Saxons—partly due to the disunity previously discussed—learned the language of their conquerors rather than keeping their own. As the small kingdoms disappeared in the face of a larger, increasingly unified British crown, English became the language of the government and ruling elite. Anything that tied a Celtic population to the government further eclipsed their culture, as it became more closely tied to the monarchy and the language and culture that went with it (Gregor, 294-297).</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Loss of status also occurred in the minds of the speakers of the Celtic languages and has continued into modern times. English is a world language linked to success and the higher classes, whereas Celtic languages have become increasingly associated with the countryside, social inferiority, and poverty. Children grow up knowing this, and so are ashamed of the Celtic languages and do not want to speak them. Even if they did, parents do not always teach their language to their children. In Cornwall, after English was decreed the official language of the court in 1362, parents stopped speaking Cornish to their children. It has only been the Welsh, in the reaches of the country untouched by the English, who still sometimes bring up their children speaking their language (Gregor, 292-304). Hence, Cornish lost its status to a much greater degree than Welsh ever did. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>This loss of status allowed English to take over in a variety of ways. For example, English replaced some, but not all, of the Celtic languages in religious life. Queen Elizabeth I allowed the Book of Common Prayer, the Psalms, and the New Testament to be printed in Welsh because she thought this would help the Welsh learn English, but it actually helped Welsh survive. These texts provided a standard for written Welsh, which would later prove beneficial (Gregor, 311-323). The Cornish, on the other hand, were explicitly prohibited from using their native language for religious purposes (Wardhaugh, 75-77). There was never a Cornish translation of the bible, which would hinder the development of Cornish literature (Gregor, 324-325). Consequently, although Cornish was widely spoken in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the lack of Cornish in religious services or texts contributed greatly to its rapid decline, whereas Welsh survived because of its presence in religion (Durkacz, 214). </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">It follows that there would be a shortage of reading material in the Celtic languages. Although there is some literature in these languages, it generally has not been printed, has been out of print for years, or is written in very old forms of the languages that are less accessible to modern readers. Welsh has the greatest amount of available literature, partly due to the standardization the religious texts provided, and Welsh poets have been instrumental in keeping a sense of national pride (Gregor, 304-312). Cornish, on the other hand, never had a Bible to spur the creation or preservation of its literature. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Finally, there is a lack of instruction of Celtic languages in schools and universities. The English Education Act of 1870 made English the sole language of education, and students heard speaking another language were punished (Gregor, 314-317). As with religion, the Welsh were given some leniency with their language, and Welsh was allowed in classrooms as a means of teaching English, but it was intended to die out after the students learned English. Although now it is required that children in Wales are given the opportunity to learn Welsh in schools, this requirement is not often fulfilled (Wardhaugh, 81-86). Those children who are able to learn a Celtic language at home will often lose that language in the face of the English they learn and are taught in at school. This is particularly true for students who leave the area they are originally from to go to boarding school or university farther away where Celtic languages are unspoken (Gregor, 314-317). The newer education policies will hopefully help Welsh, but they came hundreds of years too late for Cornish. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">In conclusion, the Celtic languages have been declining for hundreds of years. It began in the Middle Ages when the Celts refused to unify in the face of the Anglo-Saxon invaders. The domination of the Anglo-Saxons at the expense of the Celts put the Celtic languages on the bottom of the social hierarchy, and this loss of status has continued through to modern times. English displaced many Celtic languages in religious life, literature, and education. This is particularly true for Cornish, which had no place in any of these areas and quickly went extinct. However, Welsh was granted a degree of leniency that no other Celtic language received and managed to survive precisely because of this. Hopefully, although it is somewhat doubtful, the newfound appreciation of Celtic languages, as evidenced by the attempts to revive Cornish, will allow them to maintain their presence in the British Isles, even if they are unable to grow significantly. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span lang="EN-US">********************************************************************** </span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="EN-US">Works Cited</span></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in; text-indent: -0.5in;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="EN-US">Durkacz, Victor Edward. <i>The Decline of the Celtic Languages: a Study of Linguistic and Cultural Conflict In Scotland, Wales and Ireland From the Reformation to the Twentieth Century.</i> Edinburgh: J. Donald, 1983.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in; text-indent: -0.5in;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="EN-US">“Cornish.” Lewis, M. Paul, ed. <i>Ethnologue: Languages of the World</i>. 16<sup>th</sup> ed. Dallas, Tex.: SIL International, 2009. <strong><span><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-weight: normal;">Web. <span> </span></span></span></strong>http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=cor</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in; text-indent: -0.5in;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="EN-US"></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in; text-indent: -0.5in;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="EN-US">Gregor, D. B. <i>Celtic: a Comparative Study of the Six Celtic Languages, Irish, Gaelic, Manx, Welsh, Cornish, Breton, Seen Against the Background of Their History, Literature and Destiny.</i> Cambridge, Eng.: Oleander Press, 1980.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in; text-indent: -0.5in;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="EN-US"></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in; text-indent: -0.5in;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="EN-US">“Languages of United Kingdom.” Lewis, M. Paul ed. <i>Ethnologue: Languages of the World</i>. 16<sup>th</sup> ed. Dallas, Tex.: SIL International, 2009. <strong><span><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-weight: normal;">Web. <span> </span></span></span></strong>http://www.ethnologue.com/show_country.asp?name=GB</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in; text-indent: -0.5in;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="EN-US"></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: -.5in;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="EN-US">Wardhaugh, Ronald. <i>Languages In Competition: Dominance, Diversity, and Decline.</i> Oxford, UK: B. Blackwell, 1987.</span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"></span></div>Asya Pereltsvaighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06111831062274618509noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26940535958457173.post-10862947571492107392011-12-08T15:39:00.000-08:002011-12-08T15:39:55.017-08:00A Brief History of the Language Laws of QuebecBY CHIP SCHULMAN ("Languages of the World")<br />
<br />
Ever since the British took control of Canada from France in 1763, the governing bodies in Canada have had to deal with a populace that spoke both English and French in large numbers. In the early days of British North America, the British policy towards French language speakers was that of gradual assimilation. Though there were attempts to convert the area to an English speaking majority, they all ultimately failed, and the British were forced to accept bilingualism in the area.<br />
<br />
Because of the large populations of English and French speakers, the British North America Act of 1867, part of Canada’s new Constitution, specified that both French and English would be used in government operations; under this new law, English and French were of equal status with respect to the government. All government documents would be produced in both languages and both would be accepted in courts of law. While both languages were equal under the eyes of the law, they were not equal with respect to economic power.<br />
<br />
In the following decades, the status of French Canadians in their society was falling quickly. English Canadians and English-speaking immigrants dominated the newer industrial society, and the French Canadians soon found themselves poorer and less powerful than their English-speaking counterparts. During the 1960s, Francophones had a 35% lower income than Anglophones. French Canadians outside of Quebec could find little support to help their socioeconomic status due to their small numbers. The province of Quebec presented a rare opportunity, however, for French Canadians to change their economic fortune, since they constituted a strong majority of the population.<br />
<br />
The Quiet Revolution of the 1960s caused a huge transformation in Quebec’s society. The political world became a battle between federalists and separatists as French Canadian nationalism intensified. As the Quiet Revolution strengthened French Canadians’ resolve to improve their own economic plight, it brought new attention to the differences in linguistic status between the French and English languages in Quebec. The will of the French Canadian majority caused the government to form the <i>Office de la Langue Francaise</i>, whose task it was to find ways to rejuvenate the French language in the province. This commission was the first of several actions taken to strengthen the status of the French language in Quebec.<br />
<br />
The first legislation introduced to deal with the growing linguistic conflict was Bill 85 in 1968. It was a reaction to the first big controversy of the Quiet Revolution regarding language practices. A Catholic school, which was in an immigrant community, had decided the phase out bilingual coursework, replacing it with French as the primary language of teaching. The parents of the students, many of whom were immigrants and strongly supportive of their children learning in English, protested the move by the school board. Bill 85 proposed that school boards had to teach in both languages if requested by the parents, though French language proficiency was still required of all students. Interestingly, the first legislative action regarding language proposed by the government during this time of French nationalism was one of protecting English language learning in schools. However, militant French nationalist groups soon protested the bill widely, and the bill was withdrawn.<br />
<br />
The first bill passed into law regarding language was Bill 63, which gave the Minister of Education of Quebec the responsibility of giving parents the choice of school language for their children. It also gave the <i>Office de la Langue Francaise </i>the task of suggesting ways to make the French language the preferred language of businesses in the area. Bill 63’s effect was minimal, and the French nationalist groups still were making noise regarding their low class status in Quebec’s society.<br />
<br />
The government’s response was Bill 22, the Official Language Act, which was passed by the legislature in 1974. The bill made French the only official language of Quebec, a clear effort to shift some of the power from the English-speaking minority to the French-speaking majority. Proficiency in French was now required for any public service job, and any professional such as a doctor or lawyer had to show proficiency in French in order to receive a permit for their work. French was also required on business signs and labels, though English could still be used alongside French. Furthermore, the bill created incentives for businesses to start converting their operations to French, such as government contracts and various benefits. The success of these attempts to increase the status of Francophones in the private workforce was limited, however. Despite the law’s action to strengthen the status of French in Quebec, the nationalists still saw the bill as not going far enough, especially with regards to business operations. Francization of businesses was still based mainly on the goodwill of the companies involved. In addition to the measures taken to increase the economic status of the French speaking workforce, more measures were taken on education in Bill 22. The <i>Office de la Langue Francaise</i> identified one of the reasons for the concentration of power in English speaking Canadians as immigrant assimilation to the English-speaking minority. As a response to this, Bill 22 now required minimum English proficiency as a prerequisite for attending a school with English as the language of instruction. Immigrant communities and English speakers predictably viewed the bill as discriminatory, though their political power was now limited by the more vocal French Canadian nationalists, who succeeding in having an even more radical bill passed in 1977, known as Bill 101, the Charter of the French Language.<br />
<br />
According to the new law, only French versions of legal documents were official. All public signs from business had to be exclusively in French. Business were not only incentivized to convert operations to French, but punished if they did not. In addition, the Charter of the French Language once again changed the laws surrounding the language of education in Quebec. Only students who had parents or siblings educated in English could attend English schools. This continued to achieve the main aim of the education policy, which was to increase non-English speaking immigrant assimilation into the French Canadian culture.<br />
<br />
As well to trying to increase the numbers of French speakers through education of immigrant children, the new policies resulted in the exodus of Anglophones from Quebec. From 1971-1991, the population of Anglophones in Quebec fell by 124,000. With regards to strengthening the socioeconomic status of French speakers in Quebec, the government’s policies were clearly successful. Income disparity between French and English speakers decreased. The proportion of public sector jobs held by French speakers became proportional to the general population. As a result, there has been little action on language policy since Bill 101, showing that the language policies of the government of Quebec in the 1960s and 1970s have reached a remarkable equilibrium with the Quebecois.Asya Pereltsvaighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06111831062274618509noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26940535958457173.post-77801406120601335222011-12-08T15:23:00.000-08:002011-12-08T15:23:55.520-08:00Standardization of BasqueBY MICHAEL JAMES LANCASTER ("Languages of the World")<br />
<br />
Until recently, Basque—the ancestral language of the people who inhabit the Basque Country of northeastern Spain and southwestern France—had neither a standardized form nor an official use in administrative capacities. In fact, unlike its neighboring Romance languages, Basque didn’t undergo a standardization process until the latter half of the twentieth century. Developed in the late 1960s by the Basque Academy, Euskara Batua, the standard form of the Basque language has become firmly rooted in Basque society in just a few decades. This post will explore the adoption of a standard Basque language, examining the initial challenges and attempts at standardization, successful standardization efforts of the 1960s, and subsequent implementation as the official language of the Basque region.<br />
<br />
Although Basque writers and scholars had long noted the need for the development and implementation of a unified form of Basque, concerted standardization efforts didn’t begin until the 1900s with the formation of the Basque Academy. The Basque Academy was founded in 1918 under the sponsorship of the governments of the four Basque provinces within Spain, with one of its main purposes being the standardization of the Basque language. Because no Basque dialect was regarded as a written standard for the whole of the Basque country at this time—and there was no true “socially dominant” dialect (the urban middle classes of Basque country preferred French or Spanish as their mode of expression)—the Academy faced the challenge of choosing a Basque dialect on which to base the standard form. <br />
<br />
Choosing such a base dialect was an immensely controversial task, and different members of the Academy had vastly different opinions as to which dialect should form the basis for standard Basque. R.M. de Azkue, the first president of the Basque Academy, favored the use of the northern Gipuzkoan dialect mixed with elements from other dialects, while other academicians preferred the Coastal Lapurdian dialect, a variety prominent in regions north of the Pyrenees. Others, such as Bizkaian writer B. Gaubeka, claimed the standard should be based on the Bizkaian dialect, as they felt this was Basque’s “oldest” and “richest” dialect. Further adding to the disagreement, some scholars were against the standardization effort altogether: writer Nikolas Ormaetxe worried that a unified Basque language would destroy the diversity of dialects of Basque speakers. Scholars like Ormaetxe stressed how a richness of Basque dialects allowed for the use of different dialects for different literary genres as in Ancient Greece. <br />
<br />
Ultimately, little progress was made during the first phase of the Basque Academy (1918-1936), and all Academy activities were eventually suspended with the onset of the Spanish Civil War of 1936-1939 and World War II. It wasn’t until 1945 that Academy activities resumed. The Academy saw further disagreement in the 1950s as to a dialectical basis for standard Basque. Finally, however, a combination of writers and linguists proposed a unified written standard based on the Classical Lapurdian dialect—a form used in Basque literature during the 17th century (especially by Basque author Axular)—but modernized with elements from the Basque region’s central dialects. Linguist Koldo Mitxelen supported the idea of a modernized Lapurdian standard and was responsible for drafting a proposal for the unification of the Basque language.<br />
<br />
With the presentation and adoption of Mitxelen’s proposal by the Basque Academy in 1968, the codification process quickly began. Mitxelen included guidelines for orthography, morphology, lexical variants and the adaptation of neologisms, but the Basque Academy had much to address in determining standard words, establishing a grammar, and eventually codifying pronunciation guidelines for the Euskara Batua standard.<br />
<br />
The determination of Euskara Batua’s standard words was a particularly challenging task, as the Academy was forced to grapple with whether a word is or is not a Basque word. Given centuries of language contact, Basque incorporates many words of Latin and Romance origin. Basque linguistic purists called for the purification of the Basque language, insisting on the exclusion of borrowings and foreign words from the Euskara Batua official lexicon. For example, purists insisted that <i>eliza</i>, the Basque word for 'church', shouldn’t be included in the official lexicon, as it was borrowed from Latin <i>ecclesia</i>. On the other hand, some scholars favored the opposite approach, demanding a liberal incorporation of Spanish and French words in the lexicon. The Academy ultimately ruled that a word would be considered “Basque” if it has a “tradition in Basque usage,” regardless of its etymology or the availability of “purer” (less foreign) synonyms. <br />
<br />
Though this has guided the Academy in its codification of Euskara Batua, scholars and linguists continue to debate the determination of what is a true Basque word. In 1991, linguists lamented the media’s heavy borrowings of French and Spanish words, with the Academy claiming that “those [words] that a Basque speaker would not be able to understand without knowing Spanish or French are not Basque words at all.”<br />
<br />
The development of a standard grammar for Basque was another feat for the Basque Academy. A special commission was founded for this purpose, which published a 500 page volume on the structure of the noun phase, followed by further volumes addressing the verb and the structure of the simple sentence, compound sentence, and connectors. In developing a standard grammar, the Academy turned to the language’s classics, using works like Axular’s Gero to compose a genuinely “Basque” grammar.<br />
<br />
Though initially developed as a written standard, Euskara Batua quickly gained spoken popularity, and in 1998 the Academy developed a codification of the proper pronunciation of standard Basque for formal contexts. The pronunciation of <j>, for example, was especially a point of contention, as pronunciations with [j-] were used in the north, while [x-] was favored in the south. Here, the Academy deviated from Mitxelen’s recommendation against inventing forms not found in traditions of the Basque language by suggesting that <j> be pronounced as a palatal. The controversy regarding the <j> pronunciation represents one of many debates surrounding the codification of Basque pronunciation.<br />
<br />
Though it has been criticized by some scholars, the development of a standard Basque language is generally regarded as a linguistic success. In the mid twentieth century, the future of Basque was in question: without any concerted effort to preserve the language, the “dying” language would likely soon be abandoned. Because of the determination and cultural consciousness of the Basque academy, however, the preservation of the Basque language (and culture) has been safeguarded. No longer do speakers of different varieties of Basque need to resort to Spanish or French to communicate—they can easily communicate in a standard language. No longer is Basque a language largely used in informal contexts—it is one that now permeates “all domains of social life,” including education, public administration, the press, and the media. No longer is Basque perceived as a “hodgepodge of dialects”—it is now respected and revered as a language that is deeply ingrained in the people and culture of the Basque region. It is for these reasons that linguists generally praise the standardization efforts of the Basque Academy for protecting a vulnerable, yet culturally essential, language.<br />
<br />
***********************************************************<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Sources:</b><br />
Haddican, William. "Standardization and Language Change in Basque." Penn Working <br />
Papers in Linguistic. NYU Department of Linguistics. Web. 18 Nov. 2011. </span><http: nwav33.pdf="" qcpages.qc.cuny.edu="" ~whaddican=""><span style="font-size: x-small;">. <br />
Hualde, Jose, and Koldo Zuazo. "The Standardization of the Basque Language." Language <br />
Problems and Language Planning. Web. 7 Nov. 2011. </span><https: hualde-zuazo_standardization%20of%20basque.pdf="" jihualde="" netfiles.uiuc.edu="" objects="" pubs="" www=""><span style="font-size: x-small;">. <br />
"The Protection of Cultural Diversity: Language Rights and Legal Pluralism." Center for <br />
Basque Studies. Web. 20 Nov. 2011. </span><http: 2011="" basque.unr.edu="" conferences="" languages.html=""><span style="font-size: x-small;">. </span><br />
<br />
</http:></https:></http:></j></j></j>Asya Pereltsvaighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06111831062274618509noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26940535958457173.post-30054704799837203712011-12-08T14:36:00.000-08:002011-12-08T14:38:11.713-08:00On tone genesis in VietnameseBY NIKHIL RAGHURAM ("Languages of the World")<br />
<div align="CENTER" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"></div><div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Even though there is a fairly well accepted model for the development of tones in Vietnamese, linguists still have questions about Vietnamese tonogenesis. One of the major remaining problems is the question of whether Vietnamese tones derive from Chinese tones or whether they developed independently. Scholars have traditionally argued that Vietnamese tones were borrowed from Chinese, and the parallels between Vietnamese and Chinese tones do support this idea. Yet evidence from the phonation features of tones also indicates that Vietnamese tonogenesis may have started before Chinese contact. These two conflicting views are both supported by strong linguistic evidence, making it difficult to definitively determine the source of Vietnamese tones. </div><div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Many point to the similarities between the tonal systems of Vietnamese and Middle Chinese (the older form of Chinese lasting from about the 5<sup>th </sup>to 12<sup>th</sup> centuries) as evidence that Vietnamese tones arose due to Chinese influence. In particular, Vietnamese tones seem to have developed in two splits (cf. Alves 1995). First, the loss of some final consonants and voice qualities created two non-level tones, resulting in three tone categories. A later split, based on whether initial consonants were voiced or voiceless, divided these three tone categories into the current six tones of Vietnamese (Thurgood 355). <br />
<br />
By examining loan words and other sources, linguists have found parallels between the three original Vietnamese tone categories and Middle Chinese tones, particularly when it comes to the non-level tones. Vietnamese's <i>hoi </i><span style="font-style: normal;">and </span><i>nga</i> <span style="font-style: normal;">tones correspond to Middle Chinese's departing tone, as all three tones<br />
correspond to a /s/ in the earlier forms of their respective languages (Tsu-lin 87). Meanwhile, the rising tone in Middle Chinese matches the </span><i>sac</i> <span style="font-style: normal;">and </span><i>nang</i> <span style="font-style: normal;">tones of Vietnamese; these tones come from dropping a final glottal stop (Tsu-lin 88). These similarities seem to be more than just coincidences. For instance, the earliest Chinese loan words in Vietnamese almost always match their Chinese counterparts in tone (Pulleyblank 74). This observation leads many scholars to argue that language contact played an important role in the development of tonal systems. If language contact played an important role in tonogenesis, then a natural next step is to determine how tones moved between languages. Linguists usually say that tones originated in Chinese and spread to Vietnamese and other languages. After all, Chinese has played a more dominant role in the region. Vietnamese borrowed several loan words from Chinese, and Chinese even served as Vietnam's literary language (Pulleyblank 69). <br />
<br />
But there is another argument that suggests tones spread from Chinese to Vietnamese: as Pulleyblank argues, tones seem to have developed first in northern China. For instance, Buddhist transcriptions dating from the 2</span><sup><span style="font-style: normal;">nd</span></sup> <span style="font-style: normal;">century AD from northern China still use a final /s/; as discussed earlier, this final /s/ was dropped, leaving the departing tone in Middle Chinese. Northern Chinese transcriptions from the 4</span><sup><span style="font-style: normal;">th</span></sup> <span style="font-style: normal;">century do not use a final /s/, indicating the shift to tones had occurred already. But southern Chinese transcriptions retain the final /s/ until the 6</span><sup><span style="font-style: normal;">th</span></sup> <span style="font-style: normal;">century. Tones therefore developed first in northern China and subsequently spread south. By extension, if tones moved across languages, it is more likely that they spread south from China to Vietnam than in the opposite direction (76). In summary, the similarities between Vietnamese and Middle Chinese tones have convinced many linguists that tones spread between languages. And given the relation between Vietnamese and Chinese as well as the spread of tones within China, it would seem likely that Vietnamese tones arose due to Chinese influence. </span><br />
<br />
</div><div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-style: normal;">But the complexity of Vietnamese tones has led some linguists to argue that Vietnamese tones arose independently of Chinese. While Vietnamese tones do match Chinese tones in pitch contour and height, they also have their own unique phonation features. These phonation features are often linked to the way the tones developed. For instance, the </span><i>sac</i> <span style="font-style: normal;">and </span><i>nang</i> <span style="font-style: normal;">tones often have a 'creaky' quality; more specifically, the vocal folds are tightly compressed for these tones, thereby producing a lower pitch and creating the 'creaky' quality. In fact, this 'creaky' quality derives from a special 'creaky voice' that existed in Proto-Vietic. In Vietnamese, words with this creaky voice developed into an almost separate tone category that merged with </span><i>sac</i> <span style="font-style: normal;">or </span><i>nang</i> <span style="font-style: normal;">tones (Thurgood 336). So the creaky voice played an active role in the development of tones. Just as nearby consonants create a vowel sound change that leads to some tones, the creaky voice contributed directly to tonogenesis. There are indications that the creaky voice dates back to Proto-Mon-Khmer. Both the Katuic and Pearic languages, which belong to the Mon-Khmer family, show evidence of a creaky voice. For instance, words with certain final consonants can have vowels with or without creakiness in the Katuic language Talan, indicating an earlier creaky voice (Diffloth 140). With evidence of the creaky voice in various Mon-Khmer languages, the creaky voice is likely a feature of Proto-Mon-Khmer (Diffloth 139). However, if the creaky voice was present in Proto-Mon-Khmer, then the creaky voice should have impacted Vietnamese prior to the spread of tonal systems through the region. In other words, the process that transformed the creaky voice into tones was already under way by the time tones supposedly spread from Chinese to Vietnamese (Alves 4). So a significant part of Vietnamese tonogenesis would have occurred prior to Chinese influence, suggesting that Vietnamese tones developed independently of Chinese. </span></div><div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-style: normal;">Based on this discussion, the source of Vietnamese tones remains unclear. The Vietnamese tonal system does share many similarities with that of Middle Chinese, making it likely that language contact played an important role in tonogenesis. And if tones did spread between languages, the presence of Chinese loan-words in Vietnamese as well the development of tones within China indicate that Vietnamese borrowed tones from Chinese. At the same time, many of the features associated with Vietnamese tones, particularly the 'creaky' quality of the </span><i>sac</i> <span style="font-style: normal;">and </span><i>nang</i> <span style="font-style: normal;">tones, appear to have been present prior to Chinese contact. As a result, the process behind Vietnamese tonogenesis may have started without Chinese influence, which would make Vietnamese tones an independent innovation. Without further evidence, the question of whether Vietnamese tones came from Chinese or developed independently will likely stay unanswered. </span></div><div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
*****************************************</div><div class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><b>Sources</b></div><div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-style: normal;">Alves, Mark. “Tonal Features and the Development of Vietnamese Tones.” </span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>Working Papers in<br />
Linguistics: Department of University of Hawaii at Manoa </i></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">27 (1995): 1-13. Web.<br />
<</span></span></span><a href="http://www.geocities.ws/malves98/alves_vietnamese_tones_features.pdf"><span style="color: navy;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="zxx"><span style="font-style: normal;"><u>http://www.geocities.ws/malves98/alves_vietnamese_tones_features.pdf</u></span></span></span></span></a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">?</span></span></span></div><div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">Diffloth, Gerard. “Proto-Austroasiatic Creaky Voice.” </span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>Mon-Khmer Studies</i></span></span><span style="color: black;"> </span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">15 (1989): 139-154. Web. </span></span></span></div><div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><</span></span></span><a href="http://www.irsprogram.org/archives/mks/pdf/15:139-154.pdf"><span style="color: navy;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="zxx"><span style="font-style: normal;"><u>http://www.irsprogram.org/archives/mks/pdf/15:139-154.pdf</u></span></span></span></span></a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">></span></span></span></div><div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">Pulleyblank, Edwin G. “Tonogenesis as an Index of Areal Relationships in East Asia.” </span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>Linguistics<br />
of the Tibeto-Burman Area</i></span></span><span style="color: black;"> </span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">9.1 (1986): 65-82. Web. <</span></span></span><a href="http://sealang.net/sala/archives/pdf8/pulleyblank1986tonogenesis.pdf"><span style="color: navy;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="zxx"><span style="font-style: normal;"><u>http://sealang.net/sala/archives/pdf8/pulleyblank1986tonogenesis.pdf</u></span></span></span></span></a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">></span></span></span></div><div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">Thurgood, Graham. “Vietnamese and Tonogenesis: Revising the Model and the Analysis.” </span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>Diachronica</i></span></span><span style="color: black;"><br />
</span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">19.2 (2002): 333-363. Web. <</span></span></span><a href="http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/jbp/dia/2002/00000019/00000002/art00003"><span style="color: navy;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="zxx"><span style="font-style: normal;"><u>http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/jbp/dia/2002/00000019/00000002/art00003</u></span></span></span></span></a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">></span></span></span></div><div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">Tsu-lin, Mei. </span></span></span><span style="color: black;">“</span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Tones and Prosody in Middle Chinese and The Origin of The Rising Tone.</span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;">” </span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">Harvard<br />
Journal of Asiatic Studies. </span></i></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">30 (1970): 86-110. Web. <</span></span></span></span><a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/2718766"><span style="color: navy;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="zxx"><span style="font-style: normal;"><u><span style="font-weight: normal;">http://www.jstor.org/stable/2718766</span></u></span></span></span></span></a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">><br />
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</div>Asya Pereltsvaighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06111831062274618509noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26940535958457173.post-36389012344520003052011-12-08T14:10:00.000-08:002011-12-08T14:10:30.416-08:00Swahili<div class="Section1"><div style="text-align: left;">BY TYLER JAMISON ("Languages of the World")<br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="font-family: Times;">Swahili is spoken by more than 60 million people (5 million people speak it as their mother tongue) and is the most widely known language in Africa after Arabic. It is used as a vehicular language in much of East Africa and is the official language of five nations: Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, the Comoros, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Even though the language is spoken in Burundi and Rwanda, it is only used in major city centers and is not widely present in the countryside. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Times;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Times;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Swahili is a Bantu language, a sub-branch of the Niger-Congo languages, of the Sabaki subgroup of the Northeastern Coast Bantu languages. It is most related to Ilwana, Pokomo, and Mijikenda of which are all Kenyan Bantu languages and are spoken along the Kenyan coast. Swahili is also most related to Comorian of the Comoro Islands. Bantu languages are spoken as primary languages in sub Saharan Africa by approximately a third of Africa’s population. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Times;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Times;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>In countries that surround areas where Swahili serves as the main language of communication, the language can be found in small communities along main transportation routes. For example, the Swahili language can be found in northern Mozambique, northern Zambia, and southern Ethiopia.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Times;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Times;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Despite the large number of Swahili speakers and the generally large area that this language is spoken in, Swahili has fewer than two million native speakers. Most of these native speakers live along the east African coast of northern Mozambique, Tanzania, Kenya, southern Somalia, and on the islands of Lamu, Pemba, and Zanzibar. Many speakers in Tanzania and Kenya use the Swahili as a secondary language because they are native speakers of other African languages. A lot of those who speak Swahili in the interior of Africa speak two or more other languages.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, there are a growing number of first language speakers who live in urban areas of East Africa. These East African urban communities are where many of the inter-ethnic Swahili communities flourish. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Times;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Times;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>An interesting aspect of the Swahili language is that it has a very straightforward pronunciation when compared to other languages. It is not a “click” language like IsiXhosa, which relies a lot on clicking noises. Swahili is also not a “tone” language like Chinese in which pitch changes are as important as vowels and consonants. The Swahili alphabet is simple and does not have any accented characters. The formation of Swahili words can be intricate, however, because the language relies heavily on the use of morphemes rather then the periphrastic approach of English. A morpheme is the smallest semantically meaningful unit of a language and the periphrastic approach is characterized by using more words along with greater reliance on sentence syntax. </span><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.0pt;"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Languages may use inflection to change the meaning of words by adding or changing morphemes. For example, the word <i>walk </i>in English can be modified to <i>walkable</i>, <i>walked</i>, <i>walking</i>, etc. However, English does not use this approach that much and uses the periphrastic approach more often. For example, the Swahili word <i>nimekisoma </i>needs four words when it is translated into the English sentence 'I have read it'.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 16.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>There are eight classes of nouns, named after their most common prefixes, which can be generally grouped as follows: M/WA for people (<span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><i>mtu</i>=man</span>); M/MI for 'things' that includes trees and plants (<span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><i>mgomba</i>=banana plant</span>); N for animals, fruit and foreign words (<span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><i>ndege</i>=bird</span>); KI/VI for objects (<span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><i>kisu</i>=knife</span>); MA for 'things' that include pluralized nouns (<span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><i>maziwa</i>=milk</span>); U for abstract and uncountable nouns (<span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><i>ukubwa</i>=size</span> and <span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><i>unga</i>=flour</span>); KU for infinitives (<span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><i>kusoma</i>=to read</span>) and MA for place (<span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><i>mahali</i>=place</span>). The class name indicates the usual prefix for singular/plural nouns, so example plurals would be: <span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><i>watu </i>(men)</span>, <span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><i>migomba </i>(banana plants)</span>, <span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><i>ndege </i>(birds)</span>, <span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><i>visu </i>(knives)</span>, <span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><i>mayai </i>(eggs)</span>. Therefore, N class nouns often have the same singular and plural prefix and MA class nouns only take their prefix in plural form. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 16.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Adjectives usually agree with their noun. For example, <i>kisu kikali</i> means 'sharp knife' (-<i>kali</i>=sharp). In addition, <i>mtu mdogo</i> means 'small man' (-<i>dogo</i>=small). However, an important rule is that people as well as animals should take the M/WA noun class even if they belong to another noun class. For example, <i>paka </i>means 'cat' and would seem to follow the N noun class but 'small cats' actually translates to <i>paka wadogo</i>. In addition, Swahili uses “prefixation” to cause agreement by making an addition to the beginning of the adjective <span class="GramE">stem which</span> is demonstrated in <i><span class="SpellE">ki-kubwa</span></i> and <i>ki-moja</i>. Possessive adjectives take the stems –<i>angu </i>(my), -<i>ako </i>(your), -<i>ake </i>(his/her/its), -<i>etu </i>(our), -<i>enu </i>(your pl.), <span class="GramE">-<i>ao</i></span><i> </i>(their). <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 16.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Swahili verbs are particular words that take action (bring, run) or a state of being (exist, stand). Verbs take the prefix –<i>na</i>- to form the present tense. For example, <i>a-na-enda</i> <span class="GramE">means</span> 'she/he is going'. The infinitive verb in the previous example is <i>enda </i>which <span class="GramE">means</span> 'go'. Similar to English, Swahili in the past tense (imperfect) is used to describe past events. The prefix for past tense verbs is –<i>li</i>-. For example, <i>a-li-enda</i> <span class="GramE">means</span> 'she/he went'. For the future tense, one must use the infinitive verb and add the prefix –<i>ta</i>-. For example, <i>a-ta-enda</i> <span class="GramE">means</span> 'she/he will go'. Therefore, tenses in Swahili are determined by the prefix you put in front of the verb. This prefix usually comes after the prefix that stands for the noun. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 16.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Currently, approximately 90% of about 39 million Tanzanians speak Swahili in addition to their first languages. Kenya’s population is similar as well, with the larger portion of the country being able to speak the language. Kenyans who are the most educated are able to communicate very fluently in Swahili because it is a mandatory subject in school from 1<sup>st</sup> grade to high school; it is a separate academic discipline in many of their universities. Numerous institutions throughout the world have observed the growing influence of Swahili such as BBC World Service, which features the language on their radio station.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 16.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">****************************</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 16pt;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><u><span style="font-family: Times;">Online Sources</span></u></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 16pt;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Times;">http://www.masai-mara.com/mmsw2.htm</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 16pt;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Times;">http://www.lmp.ucla.edu/Profile.aspx<span class="GramE">?menu</span>=004&LangID=17</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 16pt;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Times;">http://mylanguages.org/swahili_verbs.php</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 16pt;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Times;">http://www.glcom.com/hassan/swahili_history.html</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 16pt;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Times;">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swahili_language</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 16pt;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><u><span style="font-family: Times;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><br />
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</div></div>Asya Pereltsvaighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06111831062274618509noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26940535958457173.post-72649301817208238352011-12-08T13:56:00.000-08:002011-12-08T13:56:19.995-08:00"A Lost Germanic Sister": The Gothic LanguageBY ERIC TUAN ("Languages of the World")<br />
<br />
Although it has not been spoken as a living language in over a millenium, the Gothic language is a vital part of the linguistic heritage of modern-day Germanic speakers. Among historical linguists, Gothic holds a special status as providing the oldest written records of any Germanic language, making it of particular use for the reconstruction of Proto-Germanic; furthermore, Gothic is the only attested member of the East Germanic sub-branch of the Germanic language family, of which there are currently no surviving members.[1] Both of these characteristics ensure that Gothic, while no longer a spoken language, remains “the foundation of Germanic linguistics.”[2]<br />
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Who spoke Gothic, and where did they come from? Current research places the homeland of the Gothic people in the region of the lower Vistula, near the Baltic coast in what is now eastern Germany.[3] As they migrated southeast into what is now southwestern Russia, conquering other East Germanic peoples along the way, the Goths came to occupy a vast swathe of territory; by the end of the third century, Gothic lands extended from the mouth of the Danube in the West to the Crimea in the East.[4] After being substantially weakened by a Hun invasion during the late fourth century, the Gothic people (and their language) were dealt a fatal blow by Roman forces during the sixth century.[5] There is tantalizing evidence that Gothic survived in some form into the sixteenth century, based on the reports of a Flemish diplomat; however, the veracity of the speech he reported, as well as the accuracy of the report itself, are still in question.[6] <br />
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Nearly all modern knowledge about Gothic stems from a fourth-century Gothic translation of the Bible; what remains is primarily of the New Testament. The translation is attributed to the Gothic bishop Wulfila, perhaps one of the main proponents of the Arian doctrine, who proselytized the East Germanic peoples with “missionary zeal and industry.”[7] What remains of the translation survives to varying degrees in a number of codices, most notably the so-called <i>Codex Argenteus</i>. Named for its silver ink on purple (now faded to red) parchment, the codex retains over half of its 336 original leaves, which contain the four Gospels of the New Testament.[8]<br />
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As the only member of the now-extinct East Germanic sub-branch of the Germanic family, Gothic shares a variety of distinctive phonological and morphological features not found in any surviving Germanic language. Perhaps the most unusual feature of Gothic is the complete absence of umlaut as a morphological process. Umlaut refers to the process by which a back vowel (e.g., [a]) is fronted when followed by a suffix with a front vowel (e.g., [i]); since the proto-Germanic plural suffix contained a front vowel, this process led to the eventual development of such English irregular plurals as <i>mouse/mice</i> and <i>man/men</i>.[9] Strikingly, this process is completely absent in Gothic; while the English and German terms for 'feet' both derive their plural by umlaut (<i>foot/feet</i> and <i>Fuss/Füße</i> respectively), the Gothic term lacks any vowel shift (<i>fotus/fotjus</i>).[10] Similarly, Gothic lacks the rhotaicism, or “r-coloring,” that is prevalent in other Germanic languages; while /z/ in proto-Germanic became “r” in all surviving Germanic languages, it remained /z/ or /s/ in Gothic. This distinctive phonological feature appears in words such as “were” (Gothic <i>wesūn</i>, compare Old High German <i>wārun</i> and Old Norse <i>váru</i>) and “learn” (Gothic <i>láisjan</i>, compare Old High German <i>lēren</i> and Old English <i>laeran</i>).[11]<br />
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The linguistic conservatism apparent in the phonological lack of rhotaicism is also present in other areas.[12] Gothic, for example, retained dual number from Proto-Germanic, while all modern Germanic languages maintain only singular and plural number.[13] Similarly, Gothic was the only descendant of Proto-Germanic to retain a morphological passive; that is, the passive voice is inflected directly on the verb stem.[14] In all other Germanic languages, the passive is constructed with the help of an auxiliary verb; compare the Gothic <i>nasjada</i> ('is saved') with the English <i>He is saved</i> and the Modern German <i>Er wird gerettet</i>.[15] Notably, this form of inflectional passive was only permitted in the present tense, which Shay interprets as an indication of the decline of the inflectional passive in favor of a construction with auxiliary verb.[16] One of the only remnants of this inflectional passive in modern Germanic languages is perhaps the German verb <i>heißen</i>, 'to be called', with its corresponding counterparts in Old Norse (<i>heiti</i>) and Old English (<i>hatte</i>).[17]<br />
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Another of the most distinctive morphological features of Gothic is the use of reduplication to form the past tense of one class of strong verbs, in addition to the more common process of ablaut. Ablaut refers to the use of vowel alternation to form the past tense of the so-called strong verbs, a feature inherited from Proto-Indo-European and familiar to all speakers of modern Germanic languages (see the English <i>sing-sang-sung</i> or the Modern German <i>gehen-ging-gegangen</i>). Indeed, six of the seven classes of strong verbs in Gothic use ablaut to form their past tense forms.[18] Reduplication, however, involves repeating part of the verb stem itself to mark tense. The classical example of reduplication comes from the Austronesian language family, which is spoken across the Pacific from Madagascar to Hawai’i. In Tagalog, for example, the future tense is formed by repeating the first syllable of the verb stem; Pereltsvaig provides the example of <i>sulat</i> ('write') and <i>susulat</i> ('will write').[19] As a morphological process in Gothic, reduplication is inherited from Proto-Indo-European, although the majority of strong verbs had switched from reduplication to ablaut by the time Gothic broke off from Proto-Germanic.[20]<br />
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For this reason, only the so-called “seventh class” of strong verbs in Gothic uses reduplication rather than ablaut to produce the preterite past tense form.[21] The reduplicating syllable typically consists of the vowel <i>aí</i>, prefaced by one or more consonants depending on the verb stem; for example, the preterite form of the verb 'to tempt', <i>fráisan</i>, is <i>faífráis</i>.[22] Similarly, a verb that we have already encountered, <i>háitan</i> ('to be called'), takes a preterite form of <i>haíháit</i>.[23] Interestingly, one subset of “seventh class” verbs makes use of both reduplication and ablaut in combination, with the verb 'let', <i>lētan</i>, taking the unusual preterite form of <i>laílōt</i>.[24]<br />
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These differences from modern Germanic languages emphasize Gothic’s distinctive place on the Germanic family tree as the only surviving member of the East Germanic sub-branch. As the “lost Germanic sister,” Gothic serves as a cornerstone of Germanic linguistics,[25] and provides unique insights into the evolution of other Germanic languages, including English. Rather than simply being another dead tongue, Gothic can provide new insight into our own linguistic heritage. <br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Works Cited</span><br />
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</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Bennett, William H. An Introduction to the Gothic Language. New York: Modern Language Association of America, 1980. Print.</span><br />
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</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Campbell, Lyle. Historical Linguistics: An Introduction. 2nd Edition. Cumberland: MIT Press, 2004. Print (through Google Books)</span><br />
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</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Helfenstein, James. A comparative grammar of the Teutonic languages, being at the same time a historical grammar of the English language. London: Macmillan and Co., 1870. Print (through Google Books)</span><br />
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</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Jasanoff, Jay H. “From Reduplication to Ablaut: The Class VII Strong Verbs of Northwest Germanic.” Historische Sprachforschung 120 (2007), 241-284. Web (from author’s website)</span><br />
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</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Krause, Todd B. and Jonathan Slocum. Gothic Online: Series Introduction. Linguistics Research Center, University of Texas at Austin. 11 August 2011. Web. 6 December 2011.</span><br />
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</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Lehmann, Winifred P. A Grammar of Proto-Germanic. Ed. Jonathan Slocum. Linguistics Research Center, University of Texas at Austin. 19 April 2007. Web. 6 December 2011. </span><br />
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</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Pereltsvaig, Asya. Languages of the World: An Introduction. Forthcoming from Cambridge University Press, 2012. Print (through Coursework)</span><br />
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</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Rauch, Irmengard. The Gothic Language: Grammar, Genetic Provenance and Typology, Readings. New York: Peter Lang, 2003. Print. </span><br />
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</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Shay, Scott. The History of English: A Linguistic Introduction. San Francisco: Wardja Press, 2008. Print (through Google Books)</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Endnotes</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">1. Bennett, 1; Pereltsvaig, Chapter 2; Krause and Slocum, Introduction; Rauch, 10.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">2. Bennett, 1. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">3. Bennett, 14.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">4. Rauch, 1.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">5. Bennett, 19.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">6. Bennett, 27; Rauch, 12.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">7. Quote from Bennett, 22-23; Rauch, 2-3. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">8. Bennett, 30-31. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">9. Campbell, 239; Shay, 52. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">10. Helfenstein, 2; Krause and Slocum, 2.1.2</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">11. Shay, 51.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">12. Bennett, 18.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">13. Bennett, 17; Lehrmann, 3.2.1.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">14. Shay, 53; Lehmann, 5.5; Krause and Slocum, 2.1.2.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">15. Shay, 53.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">16. Ibid. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">17. Krause and Slocum, 2.1.2.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">18. Bennett, 17; Krause and Slocum, 2.1.2.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">19. Pereltsvaig, Chapter 8.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">20. Jasanoff, 241-244, esp. 243.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">21. Bennett, 25; Jasanoff, 241-244.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">22. Bennett, 25.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">23. Shay, 52; Krause and Slocum, 2.1.2.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">24. Bennett, 25. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">25. Bennett, 1.</span>Asya Pereltsvaighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06111831062274618509noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26940535958457173.post-75990058751412508022011-12-08T13:10:00.000-08:002011-12-08T13:10:58.377-08:00The Purification of the Icelandic LanguageBY JONATHAN POTTER ("Languages of the World")<br />
<br />
Languages borrow words from each other all the time. If you are not convinced, try ordering food from an Italian restaurant without saying any words borrowed from Italian. (Hint: it’s impossible.) Some language communities, however, do not look favorably upon this process, and they do their utmost to reverse and prevent it. Nationalism, especially in politically dominant nations or nations yearning for independence, often motivates <i>linguistic purism</i> – the eradication of foreign words from a language. Iceland is one such nation. From the 18th to 20th centuries, Iceland worked diligently to keep its language pure of internal drift and external influence. Using different methods, the Icelandic people have substituted words based on native roots for words borrowed from foreign languages.<br />
<br />
Before delving into the process by which Iceland worked towards linguistic purism, let us first foray into some of Iceland’s history in order to obtain a clearer idea of why Iceland might assert the need to purify its language and what the barriers to this process might be. Iceland was first settled by people from the Scandinavian region in the late 9th century. For most of its existence to date, Iceland has been more or less under Danish control. As one can imagine, the Icelandic and Danish languages are very closely related as a result. However, the geographic separation did cause the two languages to differentiate from each other. In addition to Danish, English has had a significant influence on Icelandic. This influence dates back to 11th century missions conducted by British missionaries. It became particularly acute during World War II, when Britain occupied Iceland. In the late 20th and early 21st centuries, the pervasiveness of English has made it the most commonly learned second language in Iceland over Danish.<br />
<br />
During the 12th and 13th centuries, Iceland had a sort of Renaissance in its writing. At the forefront of this Renaissance were <i>The Sagas</i>, a compilation of historically based tales written from the late 12th century to the end of the 13th century. Publications during this time were a significant factor in Iceland’s later resistance to linguistic change. Since this period, the written word has continued to hold high importance in Icelandic culture. According to the Bureau of European and Eurasian affairs, Iceland currently has a 99.9% literacy rate as well as the highest number of publications per person in the world. A country so devoted to literature would understandably want to take whatever measures necessary to preserve the accessibility of the texts written during its golden age.<br />
<br />
The notion of actively purifying the Icelandic language did not actually arise until 1780, when a collection of Icelandic students proposed a language policy geared towards keeping the Icelandic language pure. The policy effectively said that an active effort should be made to remove foreign words from Icelandic and replace them with newly coined words built from native Norse roots. It allowed the exception of foreign words found in 13th or 14th century Icelandic writings. This proposal was followed shortly by a claim by Danish linguist Rasmus Rask that Icelandic would not have long to live in the absence of institutionalized enforcement on its behalf. Since the proposal was made, the Icelandic government has strived to enforce it. This was demonstrated most notably by the establishment of two institutions: the Icelandic Language Council in 1964 and the Icelandic Language Institute in 1985. The former primarily works on language planning, the process by which policies surrounding Icelandic language purification are constructed. The latter concentrates more on educating people about these policies via consultation.<br />
<br />
We can see from the 1780 proposal why linguistic purism in Iceland is generally considered more “pure” than purism in other languages. Some languages tend to abide by an “evolutionary purism,” where the rigor of the purism is concentrated in the period of initial standardization, and evolution thereafter is permitted. Icelandic, by contrast, has undergone “stable purism,” where the effort to maintain linguistic purism continues well beyond the time at which a language is standardized.<br />
<br />
How exactly do language institutions go about finding replacements for foreign words? Iceland has made use of a few different methods. The first of these is <i>calquing</i>, or combining native roots into a compound word in order to imitate the same compound word in another language. An example is the Icelandic word <i>rafmagn</i>, meaning “electricity” and coming from the Icelandic translations for the Greek roots for “amber” and “power.” The second method is <i>formal hybridity</i>, in which words combine both native and foreign roots. The third method is <i>phonosemantic matching</i>, in which both a word’s structure and its roots can come from either the native language or a foreign language and the resulting word sounds and looks similar to its foreign counterpart. An example of this is the Icelandic word for AIDS, <i>eyδni</i>. While the word looks like it may have come directly from its English translation, it is actually derived from the Icelandic word for “to destroy,” <i>eyδa</i>. The last method is the rejuvenation of old words with new meanings. For example, Icelandic uses the old word <i>tolva</i> to mean “computer.”<br />
<br />
Linguistic purism in Iceland is still confronted by many challenges today. One of the most significant is the prevalence of English in a wide variety of media. This is not to say that Iceland resists the use of English; to the contrary, most Icelanders become fluent in English as a second language. In spite of the global phenomenon of linguistic osmosis, however, Iceland has been reasonably successful at maintaining its own language. It is recognized as a uniform language, one that does not have any dialects. In addition, texts from the heyday of Icelandic literature can still be comprehended by readers in the present day.<br />
<br />
***************************************<br />
<center><div style="text-align: left;"> <span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Works Cited</b><br />
“Background Note: Iceland.” <i>Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs</i>. 8 Nov. 2011. 7 Dec. 2011. <a href="http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/3396.htm">http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/3396.htm</a>.<br />
<br />
“The Icelandic Language.” </span> <span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Nordic Adventure Travel</i>. 2011. 7 Dec. 2011. <a href="http://www.nat.is/travelguideeng/icelandic_language.htm">http://www.nat.is/travelguideeng/icelandic_language.htm</a>.<br />
<br />
“List of Calques.” </span> <span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Wikipedia</i>. 27 Oct. 2011. 7 Dec. 2011. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_calques">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_calques</a>.<br />
<br />
Sapir, Yair and Ghil’ad Zuckermann. “Icelandic: Phonosemantic Matching.” </span> <span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Globally Speaking: Motives for Adopting English Vocabulary in Other Languages</i>. Ed. Judith Rosenhouse and Rotem Kowner. Clevdon – Buffalo - Toronto: Multilingual Matters, 2008. 296-325. Online. <a href="http://www.zuckermann.org/pdf/icelandicPSM.pdf">http://www.zuckermann.org/pdf/icelandicPSM.pdf</a>.<br />
<br />
Thomas, George. </span> <span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Linguistic Purism</i>. Longman, 1991.</span><br />
</div></center>Asya Pereltsvaighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06111831062274618509noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26940535958457173.post-90957984587912004482011-12-08T12:40:00.000-08:002011-12-08T12:40:50.960-08:00The Spanish Language in the American SouthwestBY <span class="email">JESSE ESPINOZA</span> ("Languages of the World")<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4m_rZK7QP7xim1RQnIdybSecSmDayl1gSBCqv20DJXLDQyN4yVS5hjfh0b-MSh9e98mDYwZwXST99NiOChGopQgsEoOGbnOFtw4bIvggGnLymO0evI8o-Y1E-ZjVCFJdx2pxzmdlc7cw/s1600/jesse2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="202" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4m_rZK7QP7xim1RQnIdybSecSmDayl1gSBCqv20DJXLDQyN4yVS5hjfh0b-MSh9e98mDYwZwXST99NiOChGopQgsEoOGbnOFtw4bIvggGnLymO0evI8o-Y1E-ZjVCFJdx2pxzmdlc7cw/s320/jesse2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"> <!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:DoNotShowRevisions/> <w:DoNotPrintRevisions/> <w:DoNotShowMarkup/> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> </w:Compatibility> <w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style>
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</style> <![endif]--><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">(Spanish language in the U.S. – U.S. Census Data 2007)<span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[i]</span></b></span></span></span></span></i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span></b></span></span></span></span></i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:DoNotShowRevisions/> <w:DoNotPrintRevisions/> <w:DoNotShowMarkup/> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> </w:Compatibility> <w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style>
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</style> <![endif]--> <div class="NoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Few countries in the world have such a diverse and accepted ethnic and cultural diversity that is found in the United States. Due to the historical origins of the modern United States and its ties to European colonial superpowers throughout its relatively brief history, there is a great deal of immigrant cultural and communities that have established themselves over the years. One of the most significant immigrant communities in the U.S. is that of Spanish speaking immigrants, a great number of which come from adjacent and nearby countries such as Mexico as well as many countries in Central America, South America and the Caribbean.<span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[i]</span></span></span></span> The Ethnologue pegs the Spanish language as having over 28 million speakers in the United States alone, with only a couple of major dialects (Chicano/Calo and Isleno).<span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[ii]</span></span></span></span> The relatively high concentration of Spanish speakers in the U.S. has resulted in an extensive level of cultural clash and integration, of which a great amount is evident in the American Southwest. A brief outline of the historical precedents of the American southwest and the influence of a colonial past will demonstrate how the modern American Southwest has become infused with the Hispanic culture and the difficulties, synergies and representations that have come to arise over the years.</span></div><div class="NoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="NoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>In order to understand how Spanish came to be such a prevalent minority language in the American Southwest, it is important to note how the Spanish colonial influence and subsequently Mexican presence south of the border came to be. The earliest traces of Spanish in what is now the U.S. pre-dates permanent English settlers as Ponce De Leon made his way across the Atlantic at the turn of the 16<sup>th</sup> century.<span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[iii]</span></span></span></span> Continuing on forward, large land grabs on behalf of the American expansion to the West further implicated the presence of Spanish speakers in territories that were acquired from Spain. For example, the Louisiana Purchase at the start of the 19<sup>th</sup> Century allowed the U.S. to gain control of the Spanish-governed, French Colony of Louisiana which contained many French and Spanish speaking inhabitants that became U.S. citizens with the purchase.<span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[iv]</span></span></span></span> This occurred again as the United States annexed the Mexican state of Texas in 1846 from the newly formed Mexican government, which also granted Spanish speaking Mexicans U.S. citizenship upon annexation.<span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[v]</span></span></span></span> A few years later, the U.S. defeated Mexico in the Mexican-American War and absorbed much of the Spanish land that Mexico had gained from its war of independence from Spain.<span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[vi]</span></span></span></span> This land in the Southwest became parts of what we now know as the states of Texas, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, Wyoming, California, Nevada and Utah. Finally, one of the last major events to introduce a substantial amount of Spanish speakers occurred with the Spanish American War of 1898, which resulted in the U.S. control of Puerto Rico, which remains a territory today.<span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[vii]</span></span></span></span></span></div><div class="NoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="NoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Perhaps the most influential and significant source from which an increasingly larger amount of Spanish speakers in the U.S. is derived from is due to inflow of immigrants from south of the border in recent years. Modern migration patterns have included immigrants from Mexico, Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Nicaragua as well as from many other Spanish speaking countries from around the world. Modern socio-economic inequities across Mexico and Latin America, as well as the perceived promise of economic growth and availability of labor roles in the U.S. are among the many reasons why migrant workers and permanent immigrants have consistently relocated themselves to the United States.<span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[viii]</span></span></span></span> Among the many destinations, the American Southwest, due to its aforementioned Spanish-speaking roots among other reasons, has remained a popular territory for migrating Spanish-speakers. U.S. Census data from 2007 revealed that the top six U.S. states by number of Spanish speakers (by a rather large margin) are California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and Florida.<span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[ix]</span></span></span></span> Being that five of those six states comprise the majority of the American Southwest, it becomes obvious why the Southwest has become such an influential region for the culmination of Spanish-speaking culture and American culture. The integration of these two languages, taking into consideration that English is the official language in the U.S., often results in a colorful spectrum of Spanish-speaking communities. Such communities are highlighted in major cities across the Southwest that preserve a large Hispanic presence, such as Los Angeles, California, Phoenix, Arizona, and El Paso, Texas to name a few.</span></div><div class="NoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="NoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>As with most languages, Spanish in the American Southwest has also evolved and distanced itself from its European origins. The Ethnologue lists two dialects of Spanish present in the U.S., which are Chicano/Calo and Isleno.<span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[x]</span></span></span></span> Isleno is the smaller of the two dialects, existing as a form of Spanish that originates from the Canary Islands.<span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[xi]</span></span></span></span> Chicano/Calo is a more prevalent dialect consisting of slang and modern Spanish arising from a mixture of English and Spanish influences, as well as older Spanish roots.<span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[xii]</span></span></span></span> A significant example within Chicano culture where this language fits in is found in the Zoot-Suit Pachuco movement during the 1930’s and 1940’s, where the youth resultant from a migrant Hispanic population developed this particular subculture.<span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[xiii]</span></span></span></span></span></div><div class="NoSpacing"><br />
</div><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Overall, Spanish as an immigrant language is very prevalent in many parts of the United States. As mentioned previously, this is largely due to significant Spanish colonial presence that slowly found itself absorbed into the United States during the 18<sup>th</sup> and 19<sup>th</sup> Centuries. It is the American Southwest, however, that has fostered some of the most concentrated and unique Hispanic communities in the country. It is also in this region where the language and culture it has brought continues to clash and integrate with American society, and where traditional</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"> linguistic and social barriers continue to be redefined into the 21<sup>st</sup> century.</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"></span> <div style="mso-element: endnote-list;"><br clear="all" /> <hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" /> <div id="edn1" style="mso-element: endnote;"> <div class="NoSpacing" style="margin-left: 9.0pt; text-indent: -9.0pt;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[i]</span></span></span></span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt;"> US Census Bureau. "Hispanic Americans by the Numbers." Infoplease. Web. 06 Dec. 2011. <http: hhmcensus1.html="" spot="" www.infoplease.com="">.</http:></span></div></div><div id="edn2" style="mso-element: endnote;"> <div class="NoSpacing" style="margin-left: 9.0pt; text-indent: -9.0pt;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[ii]</span></span></span></span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt;"> Ethnologue. "Spanish." Ethnologue. Web. 06 Dec. 2011. <http: show_language.asp?code="spa" www.ethnologue.org="">.</http:></span></div></div><div id="edn3" style="mso-element: endnote;"> <div class="NoSpacing" style="margin-left: 9.0pt; text-indent: -9.0pt;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[iii]</span></span></span></span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt;"> "Ponce De León : Florida's First Spanish Explorer." Florida Center for Instructional Technology. University of South Florida. Web. 06 Dec. 2011. <http: de_leon1.htm="" de_leon="" fcit.usf.edu="" florida="" lessons="">.</http:></span></div></div><div id="edn4" style="mso-element: endnote;"> <div class="NoSpacing" style="margin-left: 9.0pt; text-indent: -9.0pt;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[iv]</span></span></span></span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt;"> "Louisiana Purchase: Historical Perspectives, 1682-1815." LSU Libraries. Web. 06 Dec. 2011. <http: history.html="" purchase="" special="" www.lib.lsu.edu="">.</http:></span></div></div><div id="edn5" style="mso-element: endnote;"> <div class="NoSpacing" style="margin-left: 9.0pt; text-indent: -9.0pt;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[v]</span></span></span></span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt;"> "Annexation of Texas." United States American History. Web. 06 Dec. 2011. <http: h302.html="" pages="" www.u-s-history.com="">.</http:></span></div></div><div id="edn6" style="mso-element: endnote;"> <div class="NoSpacing" style="margin-left: 9.0pt; text-indent: -9.0pt;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[vi]</span></span></span></span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt;"> "The Mexican-American War [ushistory.org]." <i>Ushistory.org</i>. Web. 06 Dec. 2011. </span><span lang="ES-MX" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: ES-MX;"><http: 29d.asp="" us="" www.ushistory.org="">.</http:></span></div></div><div id="edn7" style="mso-element: endnote;"> <div class="NoSpacing" style="margin-left: 9.0pt; text-indent: -9.0pt;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[vii]</span></span></span></span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: ES-MX;"> </span><span lang="ES-MX" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: ES-MX;">Ibid 44d.</span></div></div><div id="edn8" style="mso-element: endnote;"> <div class="NoSpacing" style="margin-left: 9.0pt; text-indent: -9.0pt;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[viii]</span></span></span></span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: ES-MX;"> </span><span lang="ES-MX" style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: ES-MX; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Rodriguez-Scott, Esmerelda. </span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">"Patterns of Mexican Migration from Mexico to the United States." <i>Pm.appstate.edu</i>. Web. 06 Dec. 2011. <http: proceedings="" rodriguez.htm="" www1.appstate.edu="" ~stefanov="">.</http:></span></div></div><div id="edn9" style="mso-element: endnote;"> <div class="NoSpacing" style="margin-left: 9.0pt; text-indent: -9.0pt;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[ix]</span></span></span></span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt;"> Shin & Kominksi.</span></div></div><div id="edn10" style="mso-element: endnote;"> <div class="NoSpacing" style="margin-left: 9.0pt; text-indent: -9.0pt;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[x]</span></span></span></span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt;"> Ethnologue, Spanish.</span></div></div><div id="edn11" style="mso-element: endnote;"> <div class="NoSpacing" style="margin-left: 9.0pt; text-indent: -9.0pt;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[xi]</span></span></span></span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt;"> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Coles, Felice. "The Authenticity of Dialect: Real Isleños Speak Yat, Too." <i>LAVIS</i>. University of Alambama. Web. 06 Dec. 2011. <http: abstracts="" coles.htm="" lavis="" www.as.ua.edu="">.</http:></span></div></div><div id="edn12" style="mso-element: endnote;"> <div class="NoSpacing" style="margin-left: 9.0pt; text-indent: -9.0pt;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[xii]</span></span></span></span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt;"> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Flemming, Laraine. "The Zoot Suit Riots." <i>Laraine Flemming - Textbook Author and Teacher</i>. Web. 06 Dec. 2011. <http: snippets="" www.laflemm.com="" zootsuitriots.html="">.</http:></span></div></div><div id="edn13" style="mso-element: endnote;"> <div class="NoSpacing" style="margin-left: 9.0pt; text-indent: -9.0pt;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[xiii]</span></span></span></span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt;"> Ibid</span></div></div></div> <i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"><br />
</span></b></span></span></span></span></i></div><br />
<div style="mso-element: endnote-list;"><br clear="all" /> <hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" /> <div id="edn1" style="mso-element: endnote;"> <div class="NoSpacing" style="margin-left: 9.0pt; text-indent: -9.0pt;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[i]</span></span></span></span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt;"> Shin, Hyon B., and Robert A. Kominski. "Language Use in the United States: 200." Census.gov. Census.gov. Web. 6 Dec. 2011. <http: 2010pubs="" acs-12.pdf="" prod="" www.census.gov="">.</http:></span></div><div class="NoSpacing" style="margin-left: 9pt; text-indent: -9pt;"><br />
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</div></div></div>Asya Pereltsvaighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06111831062274618509noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26940535958457173.post-79441864532198626592011-12-08T12:33:00.000-08:002011-12-08T12:33:24.059-08:00The Dené-Caucasian HypothesisBY <span class="email">JESSE ESPINOZA</span> ("Languages of the World")<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKWrhx0EKtwm0E2fNaMxtZ8W8K1-mVORKrwS1hAbwvFE_m1dy5ys2yc-J38M3_Sty22s0Bkhj12l4L1icimaocpU8qAb1hhsbrks37vRrJhUiDh7ZtTFFYUyewyAT2nZhBEEYF8v1_-ww/s1600/jesse.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="151" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKWrhx0EKtwm0E2fNaMxtZ8W8K1-mVORKrwS1hAbwvFE_m1dy5ys2yc-J38M3_Sty22s0Bkhj12l4L1icimaocpU8qAb1hhsbrks37vRrJhUiDh7ZtTFFYUyewyAT2nZhBEEYF8v1_-ww/s320/jesse.jpg" width="320" /></a></div> <br />
<div class="NoSpacing" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">The Dené-Caucasian Hypothesis (or Proposal) is a large scale language family connection that is purported to include languages from a wide geographic area, stretching from Asia and Europe to parts of North America. This particular language proposal is made increasingly interesting and controversial in that it connects several language isolates that mainstream linguistic theory has had trouble placing into a larger proto language.<span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">[i]</span></span></span> Languages placed into this proposal, through several iterations of the original idea, include languages from the Caucasian, Yeniseian, Burushaski, Basque, Sino-Tibetan and Na-Dené language families. Due to the established locations and origins of these language families, the Dené-Caucasian proposal implicates a rather grand and far-reaching progression of language as a single language family. As to be expected from such a large and complex proposal, there are many opponents to the theory. Many of the arguments opposing the existence of such a super-family cite a lack of substantial, traditional linguistic evidence (such as substantial cognates and sound changes) to reasonably connect the languages implicated in this theory.<span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">[ii]</span></span></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span></span></span> </span></div><div class="NoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;"> The origins of this theory date back to separate but related schools of linguistic thought involving Native American languages and a proposed connection across the pacific. One of the schools of thought surfaced in the early 1900’s via the work of a linguist and scholar known as Edward Sapir. Sapir originally proposed a Native American language family based off of languages spoken mostly in the Northeast of the U.S. and Canada, as well as the U.S. Southwest.<span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">[iii]</span></span></span> The Na-Dené family, as it is known, was proposed to include the Athabaskan, Eyak, Tlingit and Haida language families. Sapir had originally expressed doubts that the Na-Dené family he had come to construct was actually related to other Native American languages.<span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">[iv]</span></span></span> Further research on the matter had led Sapir towards a belief that Na-Dené was actually related to the Sino-Tibetan language family, effectively establishing early connections across the Pacific Ocean.</span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;"></span><br />
</div><div class="NoSpacing" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Further expanding the basis of this theory, during the 1980’s a Russian linguist and scholar by the name of Sergei Starostin explored a language family connection between North Caucasian, Sino-Tibetan and Yeniseian languages families via traditional linguistic methods.<span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">[v]</span></span></span> The emerging language family would be known as Sino-Caucasian. Starostin’s work validated previous speculation towards the subject in that his methods scientifically demonstrated notable similarities between the languages. Shortly after, a linguist by the name of V.A. Chirikba further expanded the family by demonstrating evidence connecting Basque to the Caucasian (and therefore Sino-Caucasian) family.<span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">[vi]</span></span></span> The proposed Sino-Caucasian family would establish the additional framework to later support a larger theory implicating both the Na-Dené and Sino-Caucasian families.</span><br />
<br />
</div><div class="NoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;"> In 1986, Sergei Nikolayev developed the final connection that went on to become the Dené-Caucasian hypothesis. Nikolayev proposed that the Na-Dené language family, based in parts of Southwest and Northwest of North America, is linguistically related to the Caucasian language family.<span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">[vii]</span></span></span> This provided the basis for the far-reaching implication that Na-Dené, based in North America, is related to the Sino-Caucasian language family by way of its proposed Caucasian roots. The resulting proposal, supported by the characteristic of transitivity between languages, is the Dené-Caucasian hypothesis, which implicates a large geographic area and extensive differentiation between proposed language families.</span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;"></span><br />
</div><div class="NoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;"> Due to its unconventional scale, complexity, and lack of traditional linguistic evidence, the Dené-Caucasian hypothesis is widely held as a non-mainstream proposal which has faced extensive controversy. Although it is mostly based on established and widely-accepted linguistic families, such as the Na-Dené, Caucasian and Sino-Tibetan families, the overall suggestion that these families are closely related enough to construct an umbrella language family is strongly debated. The arguments against the proposal cite a lack of conclusive genetic evidence, as well as lack of extensive traditional comparative analysis among all the proposed components of the super family.<span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">[viii]</span></span></span> A much more historical and structured approach is sought in proving the existence of such a large scale language family. Nevertheless, the Dené-Caucasian proposal continued to find support in the developing work of other linguists such as John Bengston. During the 1990’s, Bengston further expanded the hypothesis by taking a “multilateral” approach to provide supporting evidence and similarities between its constituent languages.<span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">[ix]</span></span></span> In addition, Bengston’s research led him to believe that Basque, Burushaski and Sumerian are also connected and included in the overall hypothesis.<span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">[x]</span></span></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"></span></span></span></span><br />
</div><div class="NoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;"> Overall, the Dené-Caucasian hypothesis implicates a large number of distant language families across a large part of the world. This inescapable fact makes the proposal both innovative and controversial. A notable lack of support from the linguistic community, as well as insufficient levels of traditional linguistic or genetic evidence, detract from the strength of the proposal. Nevertheless, linguists over time have repeatedly revisited the subject and have continued to show increasingly convincing similarities that implicate a larger language family that connects many language groups that were thought to be isolates (such as Basque). Lastly, it is important to note that the Dené-Caucasian proposal is not on its own in terms of scale and complexity amongst proposed language families. In fact, Starostin’s work (as well as that of linguist Harold C. Fleming) has continued on to propose that the Dené-Caucasian language family exists within a larger macro-family called the Dené-Daic family, which also includes Austric languages.<span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">[xi]</span></span></span> The hypothesis telescopes even further to propose a larger family comprised of Dené-Daic and Nostratic language families, called the Borean language family.<span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">[xii]</span></span></span> In the continuing effort to understand the origins and evolution of language, these theories are often discredited and yet sometimes reborn, innovating with a hope that humanity is able to more accurately understand its linguistic beginnings.</span></div><div style="mso-element: endnote-list;"><br />
<hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" /><div id="edn1"><div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin-left: 4.5pt; text-indent: -4.5pt;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference" style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; line-height: 115%;">[i]</span></span></span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: x-small;"> "Evolution of Human Languages." The Tower of Babel. Web. 04 Dec. 2011. <http: denecauc.htm="" ehl.santafe.edu="">.</http:></span></div></div><div id="edn2"><div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin-left: 4.5pt; text-indent: -4.5pt;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference" style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; line-height: 115%;">[ii]</span></span></span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: x-small;"> Ibid</span></div></div><div id="edn3"><div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin-left: 4.5pt; text-indent: -4.5pt;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference" style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; line-height: 115%;">[iii]</span></span></span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: x-small;"> Ruhlen, Merritt. On the Origin of Languages : Studies in Linguistic Taxonomy. Stanford: Stanford UP, 1994. Print.</span></div></div><div id="edn4"><div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin-left: 4.5pt; text-indent: -4.5pt;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference" style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; line-height: 115%;">[iv]</span></span></span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: x-small;"> Ibid</span></div></div><div id="edn5"><div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin-left: 4.5pt; text-indent: -4.5pt;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference" style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; line-height: 115%;">[v]</span></span></span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: x-small;"> Starostin, Sergei A. (1991), "On the Hypothesis of a Genetic Connection Between the Sino-Tibetan Languages and the Yeniseian and North Caucasian Languages", in SHEVOROSHKIN, Vitaliy V., Dene–Sino-Caucasian languages: materials from the First International Interdisciplinary Symposium on Language and Prehistory, Ann Harbor: Bochum: Brockmeyer, pp. 12–41</span></div></div><div id="edn6"><div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin-left: 4.5pt; text-indent: -4.5pt;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference" style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; line-height: 115%;">[vi]</span></span></span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: x-small;"> Ruhlen 25.</span></div></div><div id="edn7"><div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin-left: 4.5pt; text-indent: -4.5pt;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference" style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; line-height: 115%;">[vii]</span></span></span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: x-small;"> Ibid</span></div></div><div id="edn8"><div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin-left: 4.5pt; text-indent: -4.5pt;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference" style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; line-height: 115%;">[viii]</span></span></span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: x-small;"> Current Issues in Linguistic Taxonomy, Peter A. Michalove, Stefan Georg and Alexis Manaster Ramer</span></div><div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin-left: 4.5pt; text-indent: -4.5pt;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: x-small;">Annual Review of Anthropology , Vol. 27, (1998), pp. 451-472 (JSTOR).</span></div></div><div id="edn9"><div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin-left: 4.5pt; text-indent: -4.5pt;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference" style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; line-height: 115%;">[ix]</span></span></span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: x-small;"> Ruhlen 25.</span></div></div><div id="edn10"><div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin-left: 4.5pt; text-indent: -4.5pt;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference" style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; line-height: 115%;">[x]</span></span></span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: x-small;"> Ibid.</span></div></div><div id="edn11"><div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin-left: 4.5pt; text-indent: -4.5pt;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference" style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; line-height: 115%;">[xi]</span></span></span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: x-small;"> Van Driem, George. "SINO-AUSTRONESIAN VS. SINO-CAUCASIAN, SINO-BODIC VS. SINO-TIBETAN, AND TIBETO-BURMAN AS DEFAULT THEORY." Web. 05 Dec. 2011. <http: driem.pdf="" paper="" www.eastling.org="">.</http:></span></div></div><div id="edn12"><div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin-left: 4.5pt; text-indent: -4.5pt;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference" style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; line-height: 115%;">[xii]</span></span></span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: x-small;"> "Sergei Starostin." Nasa. Web. 05 Dec. 2011. <http: p-sergei_starostin="" www.nasa.dreab.com="">.</http:></span></div></div></div>Asya Pereltsvaighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06111831062274618509noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26940535958457173.post-54997977860057246602011-12-08T11:44:00.000-08:002011-12-08T11:44:47.147-08:00Turkish In GermanyBY NELLIE STOECKLE ("Languages of the World")<br />
<br />
On November 4, two members of the National Socialist Underground, a tiny neo-Nazi cell, were found dead in their motor home after evading police for well over a decade. Between 2000 and 2006 the group, composed of just three core members, killed nine people, eight of whom were of Turkish origin. This killing spree was dubbed the “Döner murders,” because many of its victims operated Döner kebab stands, selling a street food popularized by Turkish immigrants. The group claimed responsibility for a 2004 bombing that injured 22 people, mainly Turkish, and in 2007 shot a policewoman in the head. Germany, a country whose current attitude toward ethnic violence can be termed at least vigilant, seems an unlikely candidate for such occurances. Yet the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, the German domestic intelligence service which is roughly equivalent to the FBI, estimates that 25,000 people belong to far-right groups, and 9,500 of those could be violent (Economist).<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://medya.todayszaman.com/todayszaman/2010/04/09/doner-kebab-01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="167" src="http://medya.todayszaman.com/todayszaman/2010/04/09/doner-kebab-01.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Figure 1: German Chancellor Angela Merkel visits a typical Döner kebab stand. These can be found on any street corner, especially in the Neukölln district of Berlin, an area with many immigrants that has acquired the nickname of "Little Istanbul."</b></span></div><br />
Turkey and Germany seem, upon first glance, an unlikely pairing. Contact began, however, with the seventeenth-century siege of Vienna by the Ottoman Turks, and resumed when, faced with a post-WWII labor shortage, the Germans began a program to bring <i>Gastarbeitern</i>, or guest workers, into the country. Though the program was initially aimed at young men, entire families began migrating, and the Turkish population took on a much younger age profile because Turkish families tend to have more children than Germans. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, national dialogues emerged about what it meant to be truly German - traditional measures such as a passport meant the exclusion of the Ossis, or East Germans. (The word <i>Ossi</i> derives from <i>ost</i>, the German word for east.) As the two halves of a country struggled to become one again, relations across ethnic bounds became tense.<br />
<br />
German is a language of umpteen lengthy compound words - <i>Schadenfreude </i>(joy at the pain of others), and <i>Geschwindigkeitsbegrenzungschild </i>(speed limit sign) spring to mind - and the words for immigrants are no different. To be a foreign member of the workforce is to be an <i>ausländische Arbeitnehmer</i>. (Horrocks) While the meaning of the compound word is innocuous, a more literal translation reveals prejudice: it means an person from an out-country, one who is a work-taker. Because unemployment in the former DDR (East Germany) topped 20% in 2003 and has only recently fallen to 12.3% (as compared to 6.9% in West Germany), the idea of foreigners taking work that should belong to Germans was repugnant to the more conservative members of society (Weber, BBC).<br />
<br />
Germany has an interesting linguistic pattern. Because of the occasional mutual incomprehensibility of dialects, many Germans could be considered not to be home-background speakers of <i>Hochdeutsch</i>, or "High German," the standard form of the language taught in schools (Ironically, Hochdeutsch developed in southern Germany, and its name is a nod to the higher altitudes of mountainous regions like Bavaria). Children routinely toggle between the dialects spoken at home and the technically precise German of school beginning around age 9, upon entering middle school. In one elementary school in Hamburg, German acts as the <i>lingua franca</i>, but other immigrant languages play ever-growing roles. (Gogolin). Because the age distribution of the Turkish population is overwhelmingly skewed towards the young, Turkish functions as a peer group vernacular, especially in urban settings. (Gogolin). Turkish words also become intertwined with German phrases: "Komm her," meaning "come here," has acquired the Turkish suffix "lan," meaning man. This becomes "Komm her, lan," or "Come here, man," an amalgamation of languages forged in the furnace of teenage angst. (Horrocks)<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.your-me.com/unibz/debranding/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/Wirkoennenalles-500x290.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="145" src="http://www.your-me.com/unibz/debranding/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/Wirkoennenalles-500x290.jpg" width="250" /></a></div><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Figure 2: A popular bumper sticker from the southern German Bundesland, or province, of Baden-Württemburg; it translates to "We can do anything. Except speak Hochdeutsch." This attitude of regional rather than national pride is common in Germany.</b></span></div><br />
There is a sense of impermanence, of being caught between two worlds, in the rhetoric of second- and third-generation immigrants. An occasionally imperfect knowledge of both languages, combined with a tendency to switch languages situationally, leads to <i>Halbsprachigkeit</i>, or semi-lingualism. (Horrocks) To outsiders who do not speak both languages, this can be aggravating and seem like semi-competence, but others see it as providing a freedom of choice not available to monolinguists. Additionally, the standard term for an immgrant is <i>der Migrant</i>, which translates most literally to migrant. Though they may have been in Germany for generations, Turks are reminded by German rhetoric that they have to go home again - they are migrants and guest workers. (Horrocks)<br />
<br />
The xenophobia of the terror cell is merely an example of a disturbing pattern in contemporary German society. In 2010, Thilo Sarrazin, a former member of the board of the Deutsche Bundesbank (the central bank of Germany), wrote a book entitled "Deutschland schafft sich ab," or, Germany does itself in. It is an anti-immigration treatise which posits, among other things, that the growth of the Turkish will overwhelm the German population by "Eroberung durch Fertilität" - conquest through fertility. He even goes so far as to title a chapter "Poverty and Diversity,"linking the two states. This is by no means a fringe statement - as of May 2011, 1.5 million copies have been sold. As the linguistic interplay between their two languages shows, Turks and Germans have a lot of work to do. Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, readily admitted that the German attempt at a multicultural society has failed, and as such, it will be interesting to see how Turkish and German continue to interact in the future. (BBC). <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.limitstogrowth.org/WEB-Graphics/ThiloSarrazinBook.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="244" src="http://www.limitstogrowth.org/WEB-Graphics/ThiloSarrazinBook.jpg" width="330" /></a></div><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b><br />
</b></span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Figure 3: Thilo Sarazin poses in front of promotional art for his controversial book.</b></span></div><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Works Cited:</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">"A horror from the past: Angst over a ten-year killing spree by a neo-Nazi group." The Economist 19 Nov. 2011: n. pag. The Economist. Web. 26 Nov. 2011. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">BBC News. "Merkel says German multicultural society has failed." BBC News. N.p., 17 Oct. 2010. Web. 2 Dec. 2011. </span><http: news="" world-europe-11559451="" www.bbc.co.uk=""><span style="font-size: x-small;">.<br />
<br />
Gogolin, Ingrid. Linguistic Diversity and New Minorities in Europe. Strasbourg: Universität Hamburg, 2002. Print.<br />
<br />
Horrocks, David, and Eva Kolinsky. Turkish culture in German society today. Providence, RI: Berghahn Books, 1996. Print. <br />
<br />
Sarazin, Thilo. Deutschland schafft sich ab. Munich: Random House, 2010. Print. <br />
<br />
Weber, Tim. "Waiting for the East to flourish." BBC News. Web. 3 Dec. 2011. </span><http: 2="" 4225346.stm="" business="" hi="" news.bbc.co.uk=""><span style="font-size: x-small;">.</span><br />
</http:></http:>Asya Pereltsvaighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06111831062274618509noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26940535958457173.post-10168476439956980252011-12-06T14:50:00.000-08:002011-12-06T14:50:54.383-08:00Everyday Metaphor: An Argument Against PrescriptivismBY JULIE JIGOUR (Continuing Studies, "The Glamour of Grammar")<br />
<br />
Language prescriptivists attest that there is a correct way to speak and write, a standard form of language that is inherently better than nonstandard forms. They claim that standard language is clearer, more logical, and more precise than the language of nonstandard dialects (in the case of English, for example, African American vernacular English). Often attaching a sort of sanctity to standard language, they charge that nonstandard forms threaten to sully the standard and that these forms reflect a less intelligent and less articulate populace. The arguments prescriptivists use in favor of standard language, however, are flawed. We can see in English, for example, that the standard form is not clearer, more logical, or more precise. The lack of precision is particularly evident in the degree to which metaphor enters everyday use of Standard English. <br />
<br />
Metaphor, a figure of speech in which one concept is applied to another concept in order to indicate a comparison, is inherently imprecise in that it uses comparison rather than direct statement. We expect to encounter metaphor in poetry and other forms of literature, but we fail to recognize the more subtle shades of metaphor that arise in most of what we read, write, and say. Metaphor abounds, for example, in the news and in journalistic publications such as <i>The Economist</i>.<br />
<br />
The article <a href="http://www.economist.com/node/21541015">"Africa rising"</a> in the December 3, 2011, issue of <i>The Economist</i> exemplifies the pervasiveness of metaphor in Standard English. In this one-page article, we find numerous instances of metaphor, including specific forms of figurative language that can be considered subcategories of metaphor: personification, the attribution of humanlike qualities to the nonhuman or inanimate, and metonymy, the use of one word to refer to something associated with it. It is probably safe to assume that flaunting literary devices is not a primary concern of writers for <i>The Economist</i> as they report on global issues. All the more striking, then, is the frequency with which metaphor appears in the publication; this frequency reflects the degree to which metaphor occupies the everyday language of Standard English speakers, whose use of metaphor is often unconscious.<br />
<br />
Early on, the article "Africa rising" states, "Optimism about Africa needs to be taken in fairly small doses". Optimism is a concept that cannot be measured out as one measures doses of medicine, but by referring to optimism in this way, the writer helps us understand that too much optimism could be dangerous in this context. This metaphor is a common one in everyday language: "I can only take her in small doses", "I like that band but only in small doses", and so forth. The meaning of the metaphor is clear to speakers of Standard English, but that clarity does not come from the precision of the language, which if taken on a literal level would be quite confusing. The clarity of the message, in fact, rests on the inexactitude of the language and the associations that inexactitude offers. <br />
<br />
Metaphoric language appears again when the author states that Africa is "at last getting a taste of peace and decent government", that "Western governments should open up to trade rather than just dish out aid", and that "politicians need to keep their noses out of the trough and to leave power when their voters tell them to". Obviously, Africa is not a physical body that can taste, and peace and government cannot be tasted. Likewise, Western governments do not comprise a physical body dishing out aid as if it's food, and the author is not suggesting that politicians are actually face-down, eating from a trough. Readers of Standard English, however, readily understand the meaning these metaphors convey. We often use forms of these metaphors in casual conversation: "I hope he gets a <i>taste </i>of his own medicine, "She can <i>dish </i>it out, but she can't take it", and "Keep your <i>nose </i>out of my business".<br />
<br />
It is interesting to note that all of the previously mentioned metaphors make reference to taking something into the body or to the physical activity of eating or providing food. Many of the metaphors we use are based on our experiences as physical beings. We often try to understand and explain concepts by means of relating them to the immediacy and concreteness of our physical lives. In fact, as Ghomeshi writes, "Given that metaphors map one domain of experience onto another, we might ask where the starting point is. Researchers in this field claim that the ‘basic’ or non-metaphoric concepts are not ‘literal’ but rather concepts that are grounded in our physical experience" (62). <br />
<br />
There are yet more subtle uses of metaphor that not only pervade our language but also reveal how much we conceptualize the world around us based on our physical experience in space. In <i>Metaphors We Live By</i>, George Lakoff and Mark Johnson categorize this sort of metaphor as <b>orientational metaphor</b>. These metaphors deal with spatial orientation—"up-down, in-out, front-back, on-off, deep-shallow, central-peripheral"—and are based on our experiences as physical bodies (14). In our culture, for example, happiness is "up", and sadness is "down". We can see this in such expressions as "I'm feeling <i>up</i>" and "I'm feeling <i>down</i>". According to Lakoff and Johnson, the physical basis for this could be that we tend to exhibit a more erect posture when we are happy, while we may droop and appear physically weighed down when we are sad. In terms of up-down spatial orientation, our metaphors also indicate that conscious is "up" and unconscious is "down" ("I am an early <i>riser</i>" and "I <i>fell</i> asleep"), health is "up" and sickness is "down" ("I am at the <i>peak</i> of my health" and "I came <i>down</i> with a terrible cold"), more is "up" and less is "down" ("The amount of money I made went <i>up</i> that year" and "The time it takes me to run a mile keeps going <i>down</i>"), good is "up" and bad is "down" ("Things are looking <i>up</i>" and "Things have been going <i>downhill</i>"), virtue is "up" and depravity is "down" ("I am an <i>upright</i> citizen" and "I wouldn't <i>stoop</i> to that level"), having control is "up" and being controlled is "down" ("I have the <i>upper</i> hand in the situation" and "I am <i>under</i> your control"), and high status is "up" and low status is "down" ("I will <i>climb</i> the social ladder" and "That is <i>lowbrow</i> entertainment") (15).<br />
<br />
The title of the article from <i>The Economist</i>—"Africa rising"—uses an orientational metaphor. The title is not meant to indicate that Africa is physically levitating. The metaphor in "Africa rising" is based on how we spatially orient the relationship between having power and being controlled and between having a high status and having a low status. Having power and a high status is "up", while being controlled and having a low status is "down". As the economic and political state of Africa improves and Africa thereby gains more power and status, we see the continent as moving from "down" to "up". Thus, we understand the figure of speech used in "Africa rising".<br />
<br />
The article also exhibits more-less orientational metaphors. The author writes, "Food production per person has slumped since independence in the 1960s". There is less food production per person, and less is "down". Accordingly, readers understand what it means for food production per person to have "slumped". The physical basis of this orientational metaphor is especially clear as "slumping" is generally something we associate with a human body. More-less spatial orientation appears again when the author discusses the state of cross-border commerce "as tariffs fall". Here, the orientational metaphor "tariffs fall" communicates the idea that tariffs are lessening, not that tariffs are actually falling to the ground as leaves fall from a tree.<br />
<br />
Another specific form of figurative language that can be considered under the umbrella of metaphor is personification, or the attribution of humanlike qualities to the nonhuman or inanimate. The heading beneath the title "Africa rising" exhibits personification: "After decades of slow growth, Africa has a real chance to follow in the footsteps of Asia". Here, Africa is endowed with humanlike qualities—it is given a physical body to follow in the footsteps of Asia, which is also personified as having created footsteps. We know that Africa is not a physical human body and that it therefore cannot physically follow the footsteps of Asia, but personification allows us "to make sense of phenomena in the world in human terms—terms that we can understand on the basis of our own motivations, goals, actions, and characteristics" (Johnson and Lakoff 34).<br />
<br />
We see a similar use of personification within the article when the author writes, "The climate is worsening, with deforestation and desertification still on the march". Just as Africa cannot actually follow footsteps, deforestation and desertification are incapable of physically marching. The personification tells us, rather, that deforestation and desertification are significant problems without an immediate solution. Later, the author writes that "African countries threw off their colonial shackles". A clear example of personification, this figurative language conjures an image of slavery and describes African countries as slaves setting themselves free from the shackles that have bound their bodies. Read figuratively, this language enhances our understanding of the relationship between Africa and colonial powers.<br />
<br />
We employ metonymy, another form of metaphor, when we use one word to refer to something associated with it. In "Africa rising", the author states that "Zimbabwe is a scar on the conscience of the rest of southern Africa". Not only is it metaphoric to call Zimbabwe a "scar" and to personify southern Africa by giving it a "conscience"; it is also metaphoric to use "Zimbabwe" as the subject of the statement. The place "Zimbabwe" has not created the "scarring" effect to which the author refers. Here, we have a case of what Lakoff and Johnson call "place for the institution" metonymy (38). The name of a place is used to refer to the institution within it that is responsible for the action described in the sentence. Lakoff and Johnson provide such examples as "<i>The White House</i> isn't saying anything", "<i>Paris</i> is introducing longer skirts this season", and "<i>Hollywood</i> isn't what it used to be" (38). As Ghomeshi writes in <i>Grammar Matters</i>, "We use metonymy because it provides a kind of shorthand" (64). It would take too long and yield far less manageable sentences to refer always to the specific subject. In the absence of metonymy and in an effort toward greater precision, we could rewrite the sentence from "Africa rising" to refer not to "Zimbabwe" but to "the institution at work in Zimbabwe that has yielded negative results" or something similarly clunky. The shorthand of metonymy enables us to communicate more easily, but it relies on imprecision: It allows us to convey meaning by freeing us of the burden of being completely exact and specific with our words.<br />
<br />
The metaphoric language in "Africa rising" exemplifies the imprecision of Standard English. Thus, prescriptivists' argument that Standard English is precise fails, shall we use a metaphor, to hold water. According to Ghomeshi, "Precision, like many other concepts, can only be assessed in terms of how accurately a message has been conveyed, not in terms of the form the message has taken" (62). The prescriptivist’s argument is one of form, not of content. The form of Standard English is not precise because it is a form full of metaphor and metaphor is imprecise by nature. Nonstandard forms of English, like African American vernacular English, succeed in conveying clear messages because the language of these forms, and of the metaphors within the forms, have meaning in the cultural context of their speakers. We could easily find evidence of ambiguity in nonstandard forms, but as Ghomeshi states, to the chagrin of prescriptivists, "There is no such thing as ambiguity-free language" (65).<br />
<br />
WORKS CITED<br />
<br />
Ghomeshi, Jila. <i>Grammar Matters: The Social Significance of How We Use Language</i>. Winnipeg: Arbeiter Ring Publishing, 2010. Print.<br />
Johnson, Mark, and George Lakoff. <i>Metaphors We Live By</i>. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980. Print.Asya Pereltsvaighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06111831062274618509noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26940535958457173.post-45179032770729297262011-12-06T12:57:00.000-08:002011-12-06T12:57:37.540-08:00How to catch a Russian spyOne interesting way in which a person's (native) language reveals itself is the so-called Stroop effect, which can be illustrated with the image below (from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stroop_effect">Wikipedia</a>). If you look at the first set of words, it's not that difficult to say aloud the color of the letters that spell out each word: <i>green, red, blue, purple</i>, etc. But the task appears to be much harder with the second set of words. For most people it takes longer to complete the task with the second set of words, because the words spell out a different color than the actual color of the font used. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/stroop.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="218" width="250" src="http://boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/stroop.jpg" /></a></div><br />
But this difference in time needed for the two sets of words appears only if the task is performed by an English-speaker: someone who cannot read/understand the words themselves will not be slowed down by their meaning. In a similar fashion, if you look at the picture below (where the second set of words is in Russian), you will be likewise slowed down on the second set, but only if you speak Russian.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZNcnss6K0YT-8DbWxSRTEOIg2l4LF-3B1hMZ2dG_U2uNxzdEDzCuvbwCeHLEJNALP0b22Dp9lLjieMRo1cmtealS8LTsQLdcpk7I1pCN0SGfKPTovgeDQZic-F0VnQ_lRVwDWAfM5x6A/s1600/stroop_effect_Russian.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="124" width="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZNcnss6K0YT-8DbWxSRTEOIg2l4LF-3B1hMZ2dG_U2uNxzdEDzCuvbwCeHLEJNALP0b22Dp9lLjieMRo1cmtealS8LTsQLdcpk7I1pCN0SGfKPTovgeDQZic-F0VnQ_lRVwDWAfM5x6A/s320/stroop_effect_Russian.jpg" /></a></div><br />
According to Roy F. Baumeister and John Tierney's book called <i>Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength</i>, <br />
<blockquote>"the Stroop task became a tool for American intelligence officials during the cold war. A covert agent could claim not to speak Russian, but he'd take longer to answer correctly when looking at Russian words for colors."</blockquote><br />
According to the Wikipedia, the Stroop effect can also be used to diagnose certain psychological issues: <br />
<blockquote>"depressed participants will be slower to say the color of depressing words rather than non-depressing words. Non-clinical subjects have also been shown to name the color of an emotional word (e.g., 'war', 'cancer', 'kill') slower than naming the color of a neutral word (e.g., 'clock', 'lift', 'windy')." </blockquote><br />
And if the Stroop-effect doesn't work for some reason, you can always try to catch a Russian spy by asking him/her to do a simple arithmetic problem (people tend to do calculations in their native tongue), or to count "on the fingers" (unlike Americans, Russians count by bending fingers in, starting with the little finger).<br />
<br />
(The picture below is a famous Soviet WWII poster which reads: "Do not blabber on the phone, a big-mouth is a find for a spy")<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://statistic.su/_bl/3/26815456.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="242" width="162" src="http://statistic.su/_bl/3/26815456.jpg" /></a></div>Asya Pereltsvaighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06111831062274618509noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26940535958457173.post-90287699205978110872011-12-05T11:39:00.000-08:002011-12-05T11:39:30.835-08:00Vowels in irregular verbs in EnglishBY FREDERICK ARN HANSSON (Continuing Studies, "The Glamour of Grammar")<br />
<br />
One of the reasons I took this class was my confusion about what the grammar rules were. There seemed to be the set that my grade school taught, those that my friends used and finally a group of words that I always stumbled over even though I "knew" the rules. I managed to get through college (undergrad and post) without ever taking another English class, in part because I was so baffled by grammar that I avoided the subject. What I've learned over the past ten weeks has allowed me to make strides in my understanding of our language and its usage. Of the many things that baffled me through the decades, one that I have revisited many times is the usage of <i>-ed</i> to make verbs past tense. Why did some words add an <i>-ed</i> whilst others changed the vowel? Why was I taught <i>hang </i>was made past tense by spelling <i>hung </i>yet everyone around me said <i>hanged</i>? Why do we have "irregular" verbs?<br />
<br />
Our second, fourth and fifth classes covered parts of this problem for me. First was understanding the attempt to ‘Latinize’ English words. We talked about a Language Clock and how over a period of thousands of years all languages move from Fusional to Isolating to Agglutinative to Fusional. While English is more Isolating on the Language Clock, Latin, since it is a dead language, is perpetually stuck at Fusional. Fusional languages normally change the suffix to change tense or gender. The adding an <i>-ed</i> suffix to English grew during the Middle Ages, whereas prior to that English, or our Anglo-Saxon and other Nordic roots changed the vowel to change the tense. So how did we get there?<br />
<br />
The Roman Empire collapse of 476 left a power vacuum that would eventually be filled by the Catholic Church. By the eleventh century the Catholic Church had spread throughout Europe, made possible by the growth of the parish system. Everybody living in a town or village in Western Europe had a local church. Having a large system of churches spread over thousands of miles with differing languages required a common language to keep information in sync and religious practices consistent. The lingua franca for the church was Latin.<br />
<br />
The advent of the twelfth century was a time of translations of ancient volumes of books from the Arabic libraries. Particularly sought after was classical knowledge. Since the church clergy had the ability to read, write and communicate over distances, this responsibility fell to the church, as illiterate kings and princes relied totally on the clergy (Burke, 1995).<br />
<br />
The development of the printing press caused the western world to change again. Cities with presses published Bibles in their native tongue. Those first printing centers determined what version of the future national language would survive, giving the vernacular permanence. It also standardized spelling and grammar rules that were heavily edited by the few learned individuals who spent their lives steeped in Latin grammar. Because so much knowledge was regained from the Arabic translations of the old Roman Empire, there was wonder for all things Roman. So Latin was considered the model language for how proper grammar should function. If a vulgar language like English was to be standardized, Latin grammar rules were the ideal to help with standardization.<br />
<br />
Within Shakespeare's own writings <i>helpe/holp</i> "Our own hands have holp to make" (Henry IV, 1.3.12), evolved to <i>help/helped</i> a few years later. This helped explain how Latin was fused onto English but what are the tense rules for what we call today the "irregular" verbs?<br />
<br />
So "irregular" verbs preceded the standardization and resisted the transformation of fusionally adding an <i>-ed</i> to the end of the word to change the tense. What are the rules for our few hundred remaining nonstandard verbs if someone wants to<br />
change the tense? <br />
<br />
My first clue was in the "doubly words", as they exposed a pattern of sounds that move generally from the front of the mouth with the jaw open slightly (close/front) for the first vowel to the throat with the lips less rounded (open/back) for the second vowel. Using the IPA vowel chart the double words initial sounds starts in the upper left corner and migrates to the lower left, close/front to open/back. This pattern continues over the centuries from older combinations like <i>riff-raff</i> (1400s) and <i>tick-tack</i> (1550) to new words such as <i>ping-pong</i> (1900).<br />
<br />
Tick-tack: ˈtɪkˌtæk close/front, open/front<br />
Ping-Pong: ˈpɪŋˌpɔŋ close/front, open/back<br />
Riff-raff: ˈrɪfˌræf close/front, open/front<br />
Mish-mash: ˈmɪʃˌmɑʃ close/front, open/back<br />
Flim-flam: ˈflɪmflæm close/front, open/front<br />
Ding-dong: ˈdɪŋˈdɒŋ close/front, open/back<br />
Chit-chat: ˈtʃɪttʃæt close/front, open/front<br />
Rick-rack: ˈrɪkˌræk close/front, open/front<br />
Wing-ding: ˈwɪŋdɪŋ close/front, close/front<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrJ3B8_Yl3iUNamfDZIrJzjcNss0jawpdwM0fJnNX2SLmM7xFN8j-8GW9CQlGraQlJ1eGOETdP9nClRY39Hw9_l6ZKztUnmqdok38p4uv8LDzm9xFFN_3rly0LLClgACeTmeGq9i1C3lY/s1600/chart1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="246" width="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrJ3B8_Yl3iUNamfDZIrJzjcNss0jawpdwM0fJnNX2SLmM7xFN8j-8GW9CQlGraQlJ1eGOETdP9nClRY39Hw9_l6ZKztUnmqdok38p4uv8LDzm9xFFN_3rly0LLClgACeTmeGq9i1C3lY/s320/chart1.jpg" /></a></div><br />
There is also a very consistent pattern for words that connote 'me-here-now' that tend to have higher and more forward vowels than words than connote distance from 'me'. Again we see the same upper left (close/front) migration of vowels for the 'me-here-now' words to the lower right corner (open/back) of the IPA chart for the 'you-far-past/future' words:<br />
<br />
Me vs. you: Mi, ju close/front, close/back<br />
Friend or foe: frɛnd, fәʊ close/front, close/back<br />
This and that: ðɪs, ðæt close/front, open/front<br />
Near vs. far: nɪ(ә)r, fɑː(r) close/front, open/back<br />
Good, better, best: gʊd, ˈbɛtә(r), bɛst/ close/back, close/middle, close/front<br />
Present, past, future: ˈprɛzənt, pæst, ˈfjuːtʃə(r) close/front, open/front, close/back<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9G2ao4xHkEI2JZwG7Wf8aPm7cqZ5ESiTy3CG3GAttP4NXqhy6qxbxVXr1Df30OY7hxiq4rhYIP340zVmCD4OerZ4cc7rB5gnq3vm976H_DKe92vvQlaqu-KAYzDlOV5q8RxSIbYg9e_Q/s1600/chart2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="237" width="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9G2ao4xHkEI2JZwG7Wf8aPm7cqZ5ESiTy3CG3GAttP4NXqhy6qxbxVXr1Df30OY7hxiq4rhYIP340zVmCD4OerZ4cc7rB5gnq3vm976H_DKe92vvQlaqu-KAYzDlOV5q8RxSIbYg9e_Q/s320/chart2.jpg" /></a></div><br />
I expect we should find the same correlation in our irregular verbs with the present tense being more close/front and the past tense being more open/back. I started with a sample of 15 verbs that demonstrate two word tenses:<br />
<br />
Teach, taught: tiːtʃ, tɔːt close/front, open/back<br />
Fight, fought: faɪt, fɔːt close/front, open/back<br />
Say, said: seɪ, sɛd close/front, open/front<br />
Drive, drove: draɪv, drәʊv close/front, middle/back<br />
Dare, durst: dɛә(r), dɜːst close/front, open/central<br />
Fall, fell: fɔːl, fɛl middle/back, open/front<br />
Give, gave: gɪv, geɪv close/front, close/front<br />
Run, ran: rən, ræn middle/central, open/front<br />
Wind, wound: waɪnd, waʊnd close/front, close/back<br />
Speak, spoke: spiːk, spəʊk close/front, close/back<br />
Hang, hung: hæŋ, hʌŋ open/front, open/back<br />
Is, was: ɪz, wɒz close/front, open/back<br />
Lead, led: liːd, lɛd close/front, middle/front<br />
Work, wrought: wɜːk, rɔːt close/front, middle/back<br />
Sit, sat: sɪt, ˈsæt close/front, open/front<br />
<br />
Of my sample of two word tenses, the present tense was close/front 87% of the time and 93% being either close and/or front. The past tense selection wasn’t as high as I expected as only 20% were both open/back but fully 87% were either open and/or back. Like the "doubly" and 'me-here-now' words there is a clear pattern of migration of the vowel sound in the same direction; vowels are chosen to represent a movement of time away from us.<br />
<br />
I next looked at those irregular verbs that had three changes in tenses to see if the pattern continued. My sample:<br />
<br />
Do, did, done: duː, dɪd, dʌn close/back, close/front, open/back<br />
Bear, bore, borne: bɛɚ, bɔː(ɹ), bɔːn middle/front, open/back, open/back<br />
Swear, swore, sworn: ˈswɛәɻ, ˈswoɻ, ˈswoɻn middle/central, close/back, close/back<br />
Drink, drank, drunk: dɹɪŋk, dræŋk, drʌŋk close/front, open/front, open/back<br />
Fly, flew, flown: flaɪ, flʊə, ˈfloʊn open/front, middle/central, close/back<br />
Hide, hid, hidden: haɪd, /hɪd, ˈhɪd(ә)n open/front, close/front, close/front<br />
Tread, trod, trodden: tɹɛnd, tɹɑd, ˈtɻɔdəәn open/front, open/back, open/back<br />
Lie, lay, lain: laɪ̯, leɪ, lein open/front, close/central, close/front<br />
Stink, stank, stunk: stɪŋk, stæŋk, stɒŋk close/front, open/front, open/back<br />
Smite, smote, smat: smaɪt, smәʊt, smæt close/front, middle/back, open/front<br />
Sing, sang, sung: sɪŋ, sæŋ, sʌŋ close/front, open/front, open/back<br />
Swim, swam, swum: swɪm, swæm, swʌm close/front, open/front, open/back<br />
Steal, stole, stolen: stiːl, ˈstɔl, ˈstəʊlən close/front, open/back, middle/central<br />
Begin, began, begun: bɪˈɡɪn, bIˈɡæn, beˈgun close/front, close to open/front, middle to close/central to back<br />
<br />
The migration of the vowel sounds for <i>drink</i>, <i>drank</i> and <i>drunk</i>, /ɪ/ to /æ/ to /ʌ/ (green), and <i>stink</i>, <i>stank</i> and <i>stunk</i>, /ɪ/ to /æ/ to /ɒ/ (red) are illustrated below:<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEid8THxc-PRNEpLoqTamV6PQ78zn0SgebfZNXSUYmzS6B39CvZtyho1ogJTSTAS81PlypBvuiWYxT3jn_McoDSKUhL0BWk76S6yneNceOV2JPOw7udFUtKDYDsrW3ROm_Iahm5BHa35AOw/s1600/chart3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="234" width="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEid8THxc-PRNEpLoqTamV6PQ78zn0SgebfZNXSUYmzS6B39CvZtyho1ogJTSTAS81PlypBvuiWYxT3jn_McoDSKUhL0BWk76S6yneNceOV2JPOw7udFUtKDYDsrW3ROm_Iahm5BHa35AOw/s320/chart3.jpg" /></a></div><br />
There are far fewer thrice tenses. I could only find only fourteen combinations of present, simple past and past participle tenses. While the percentages do vary, they strikingly follow the same pattern. The present tense has the vowel being the predicted close/front sound occurs only 50% of the time; 93% being either close and/or front. The past participle vowel sound had a higher correlation than the previous chart, with 50% being open/back and 79% were either open and/or back. Also 50% of the simple past tense sat somewhere near the middle/central of the vowel chart.<br />
<br />
What also struck me was that there was a second qualifier that was being used, as nearly a third of the past tense words ended with either a <i>wn</i> or <i>n</i>, and another quarter ended with a <i>t</i>, when the present tense word originally didn't. I could only find 6 infinitives ending with an <i>n</i> out of 120 irregular verbs. One of those exceptions was <i>run</i> & <i>ran</i>, and those two were also counter to most other irregular verbs as the word migrates from middle/central to open/front. With time maybe those exception could be explained, since the tendency for close/front to open/back is very strong. If I look at <i>ru</i>n in the Oxford English Dictionary the spelling varies from the early Middle Ages <i>rayne</i>, <i>rine</i>, <i>ryne</i>, <i>rynn</i>, to the 1500s <i>rinne</i>, <i>rynne</i>, to the 1600s <i>rin</i>, <i>ryn</i>, suggesting that the vowel was originally pronounced closed/front. If the earlier version of <i>run</i> was pronounced closed/front then the migration pattern still holds.<br />
<br />
Finally I could find only 17 irregular verbs that have the same spelling regardless of tense. While there is a preference for closed 65% as opposed to open (11 to 6), front 71% to central & back (12 to 2 & 3), the striking observation is the <i>t</i> endings for 82% of the words and the only alternative ending is a <i>d</i>.<br />
<br />
Cut: kʌt open/back<br />
Hit: hɪt close/front<br />
Hurt: hɜːt open/central<br />
Let: lɛt open/front<br />
Bid: bɪd close/front<br />
Burst: bɜːst open/central<br />
Cast: kæst open/front<br />
Cost: kɔst open/back<br />
Fit: fɪt close/front<br />
Set: sɛt open/front<br />
Quit: kwɪt close/front<br />
Wet: wɛt open/front<br />
Slit: ˈslɪt close/front<br />
Shut: ʃʌt open/back<br />
Spread: spɹɛd open/front<br />
Shed: ʃɛd open/front<br />
Rid: ˈrɪd close/front<br />
<br />
This exercise has left me with a basic understanding how irregular verbs got to be considered as such, and what rules they seemed to be governed by.<br />
<br />
Considering that English is moving away from fusional, it would be fun to predict what sounds some words could transform into. So if I took <i>smile</i> and transformed it into <i>smale</i> or <i>smule</i> somehow I'm just not ready.<br />
<br />
Then again <i>smale</i> was already taken for 'small': c1450 Chaucer Bk. Duchess 296 Smale foules a gret hep..had affrayed [v.r. affrayed, afraied] me out of my slep Thorgh noyse and swetnesse of her song.Asya Pereltsvaighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06111831062274618509noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26940535958457173.post-30575655868519125122011-12-04T17:17:00.000-08:002011-12-05T10:53:45.438-08:00Student posts and other scheduling issuesDear Readers,<br />
<br />
This year I have asked my students to write blog posts instead of the more traditional term papers as an assignment for the undergraduate "Languages of the World" course and the Continuing Studies "The Glamour of Grammar" course at Stanford. I will be publishing those posts in the coming days. The topics range from tone genesis in Vietnamese to reconstructing Latin verb forms, from language policies in Quebec to the Dene-Caucasian hypothesis; languages covered will include Swahili, Gothic, Basque, Malagasy, Hazaragi and more... Please feel free to respond or comment on students' posts, as usual!<br />
<br />
Also, I am starting an overhaul project on this blog, which will mostly happen during the holiday break. The aim is to make the blog easier to read, easier to search, easier to comment on and more visually appealing. Comments and suggestions are solicited!<br />
<br />
I hope to resume my own posts in about a month or so, perhaps earlier.<br />
<br />
Have a nice winter break!<br />
<br />
Asya PereltsvaigAsya Pereltsvaighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06111831062274618509noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26940535958457173.post-14684711175053212712011-11-30T12:22:00.000-08:002011-11-30T12:22:34.248-08:00It's not all black and whiteAs was discussed in earlier postings, the cross-linguistic range of color terms is quite <a href="http://languages-of-the-world.blogspot.com/2011/03/grue-bleen-rellow.html">complex</a> and <a href="http://languages-of-the-world.blogspot.com/2010/06/all-colors-of-rainbow-and-beyond.html">languages differ</a> as to how the treat the color spectrum (e.g., see how <a href="http://languages-of-the-world.blogspot.com/2011/03/hanunoo-color-categories.html">Hanunoo</a> does it). But interestingly, not all uses of color terms are to denote color per se. <br />
<br />
One good example of "color that isn't really about color" is the use of color terms to denote races. Such racial thinking in terms of color was thought to be behind the colors selected for the Olympic rings: at least prior to 1951, the official Olympic handbook stated that each colour corresponded to a particular continent: blue for Europe, yellow for Asia, black for Africa, green for Oceania and red for America (North and South being considered as a single continent). While green for Oceania may be a reference to the greenery of (some of) the Pacific islands, the other colors are a clear nod to the use of color terms to denote racial groups (and is the blue for Europe a nod to the Europeans being of the "blue blood", as far as the Eurocentric early Olympic movement was concerned?).<br />
<br />
However, as Martin W. Lewis and Karen E. Wigen rightfully note in their <i>The Myth of Continents</i>, <br />
<blockquote>"It does not require an especially discerning eye to realize that there is nothing red about indigenous Americans or yellow about East Asians -- or that blacks are not really black and whites are far from white." (p. 120)</blockquote><br />
Moreover, using color terms metaphorically (in a way, <a href="http://languages-of-the-world.blogspot.com/2011/11/mataphor-synecdochy-and-language-change.html">"concealing the truth"</a>) goes far beyond racial descriptions discussed by Lewis & Wigen. For example, <i>white wine</i> is more yellow than white and <i>red wine</i> is more purple than red. Nor is <i>blue blood</i> truly blue, nor <i>yellow press</i> yellow, nor <i>black market</i> black. And of course, a <i>red herring</i> is neither red in color, not a kind of salted fish. In all these expressions, the color terms are stripped of their literal sense and are used metaphorically and idiomatically.<br />
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Furthermore, using color terms as descriptors of people, but to denote some property other than the literal (or even the racial) color is very common and can vary from language to language. Take, for example, the use of the term 'blue' to describe people in different languages. In several languages around the world 'blue' is used to describe Africans that we would refer to as "blacks". This was the case, for instance, in Old Norse and it is also true in Irish and the languages of several North African countries (e.g. in Sudan), where 'blue' describes black Africans and 'green' -- dark-skinned Arabs. Thus, for the Vikings, the Irishmen and the Sudanese the "Blue Man Show" has a completely different sense to it!<br />
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But in other languages, 'blue people' designates something other than race. For example, in Spanish and Italian <i>un principe azul</i> / <i>il principe azzurro</i> (literally 'the light-blue prince') means 'Prince Charming'. In Russian, on the contrary, referring to a man as 'light blue' would make him far from any girl's dream, as <i>goluboj</i> (literally 'light blue') also means 'homosexual'. If a German characterizes someone as <i>blau</i>, it means that the person is 'drunk or stoned'. In Serbian/Croatian <i>plava kosa</i> means 'blond (literally 'blue') hair'; in Hebrew saying that someone has a <i>rosh kaxol’</i> (literally 'blue head') means that they are 'obsessed with sex'.<br />
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And even though the idiomatic uses of color terms may seem rather idiosyncratic and language-specific, there are some interesting patterns to such metaphors. Take, for example, the following cross-linguistic set of color idioms that involve the word 'white'. For instance, in French <i>passer une nuit blanche</i> (literally 'to spend a white night') means 'to have a sleepless night' (this expression is also found in Spanish, Italian and Portuguese); a person characterized as <i>blanc-bec</i> (literally 'white beak') is 'an inexperienced but pretentious person'; and <i>avoir un examen blanc</i> (literally 'to have a white exam') means 'to take a practice/mock exam'. Spanish also has <i>cachetada con guante blanco</i> (literally 'slapping with a white glove') means 'responding to aggression in an elegant/non-violent manner'. In Russian <i>belyj stix</i> (literally 'white poem') means a 'poem without rhyme'. Italian provides a couple of additional examples: <i>mangiare in bianco</i> (literally 'to eat in white') meaning 'to eat lightly' and <i>andare in bianco</i> (literally 'to go in white') meaning 'to go without sex after a date'. While for an Italian 'a white week' designates a skiing vacation (a reference to the color of snow, perhaps?), for a Swede <i>vit vecka</i> is a week without any alcohol. See a pattern? The metaphoric use of 'white' in these different idioms denotes 'lacking, absence of some essential property'. This is also the sense we find in the English expression 'a white lie', which is a lie lacking in malicious intent.Asya Pereltsvaighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06111831062274618509noreply@blogger.com19