Notes and Studies related to Anthropological Linguistics, will include notes from Linguistics courses and learning aides for Arabic and Persian. For a thorough study of the concepts of the BUPC one should have the ability to understand Arabic, Persian, Hellenistic Greek, and Hebrew since it is a religious tradition which regularly references the spiritual traditions attached to these languages.

Map of areas with Persian Language dominance

Chapter Summaries from "Introduction to Languages" (Fromkin et al, 2008)

Notes from Renee Morel Linguistics class at City College of San Francisco

INTRODUCTION:

1. WHAT IS ANTHRO?

All aspects of human beings.

Four subfields : (a) physical / biological anthro

(b) cultural / social anthro

(c) archeology

(d) linguistic anthro

2. WHAT IS LINGUISTICS ?

All aspects of human language

TOPICS : psycholinguistics

socio / ethnolinguistics

neuro

developmental

applied

comparative / historical (diachronic perspective)

descriptive (synchronic)

structural

3. WHAT IS LANGUAGE ?

A. DEFINITION :

· Form of everyday behavior with basis in human physiology and great significance for com-munication and interpersonal relationships (cognitive, social, affective functions)

· Links expression (voice) and meaning (content)

· Concept of symbol (arbitrary signs or indicators of something else vs. representational/iconic symbols)

B. LANGUAGE VS. OTHER SYSTEMS OF COMMUNICATION

(GESTURES, WRITING) :

· Importance and advantages : exploits devices such as intonation and voice pitch, gestures, posture (body language ; proxemics and kinesics)

· Vs. limitations (transitoriness, need to be within hearing distance, awkwardness)

4. MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT LANGUAGE :

Ethnocentrism (sacred language ; superiority ; purity)

5. WHY STUDY LANGUAGE ?

Carrier of cultural traditions (identity as a human being)

[enculturation = socialization within one's culture]

[acculturation = process of adopting another culture]

I. WRITING SYSTEMS :

NOTE : Millions of people in the world speak languages with no written form.

[cave drawings (at least 35,000 years ago) : pictorial art rather than linguistic message]

I. PICTOGRAMS (PICTURE WRITING) :

pictus [Latin : painted] and graphein [Greek : to write]

1. DEFINITION :

A. Symbol (sum-bolon ; primary symbolization)

B. Nonarbitrary (representational or iconic : pictures of entities as they exist in the world ; direct relationship between form and meaning of symbol)

C. Language-independent ; non-phonological (signs represent objects, not sounds)

2. EXAMPLES :

In our modern culture : restroom symbols, left turn only, telephone

II. THE EVOLUTION FROM PICTOGRAMS TO WRITING SYSTEMS:

(from non-phonological to phonological systems)

1. PHONETICIZATION OF PICTOGRAPHY :

Signs begin to refer to sounds rather than objects (cf. the rebus principle)

--® secondary symbolization

2. EXAMPLES :

A. Cuneiform writing [from cuneus = nail/wedge] :

Sumerians-Akkadians in Mesopotamia (over 6,000 years ago ; earliest writing system known)

B. Egyptian hieroglyphs (hiero = sacred ; glyphikos = carving)

III. THE THREE WRITING SYSTEMS :

1. LOGOGRAPHIC WRITING = WORD (MORPHEME) WRITING :

A. Chinese characters or ideograms (“idea writing”)

B. Advantages vs.inconveniences :

written communication possible among different “dialects ” (or languages) ; calligraphy = art form) vs. well over 70,000 written symbols)

2. SYLLABIC WRITING = SYLLABLE WRITING :

A. Advantages (more economic/efficient) and inconveniences (not suitable for languages with consonant clusters)

B. Examples :

Japanese (hiragana & katakana : 46 characters each) : C + V

Cherokee syllabary (85 symbols) devised by Sequoyah (1821)

3. ALPHABETIC WRITING = SOUND WRITING :

A. Definition : ideally, one grapheme (sign, letter) = one sound (based the phonemic principle)

B. Advantage : maximally efficient

C. Greek (alpha-beta)

D. Roman (derived from Greek ; also used for Turkish, Swahili, Vietnamese, etc.)

E. Cyrillic (Slavic languages)

F. Arabic and Hebrew = consonantal writing (simpler/systematic syllabic structure of Semitic languages) rather than fully syllabic

IV. ENGLISH ORTHOGRAPHY (SPELLING) :

diacritic marks (“accents”) ; digraphs (two letters for a single sound)

Summary on Writing Systems (Ch. 12):

II. THE NATURE OF HUMAN LANGUAGE

I. LINGUISTIC KNOWLEDGE :

abstraction process --® set of rules

What capacities do speakers have ? --® 3 subsystems of language

1. PHONOLOGICAL SYSTEM (SOUNDS) :

Finite and unique set of phonemes (sounds)

A. Inventory

B. Grouping

C. Evidence from : acronyms ; interferences ; involuntary cries ; slips of the tongue ; word coinage ; stress

D. -etic vs. -emic distinction

2. SEMANTIC SYSTEM (SOUND-MEANING CORRESPONDENCE) :

A. Arbitrariness of sign vs. iconicity (conventional vs. mimetic)

(a) Signifier vs. signified (word vs. meaning)

(b) Levels of structure

B. Features (components) of meaning

C. Semantic competence (ambiguity)

D. Sound symbolism :

(a) onomatopoeia (echoic words)

(b) phonesthemes ; vowel “coloring”

1. SYNTACTIC SYSTEM (ORDER OF WORDS) :

A. Bound vs. free syntax [John loves Mary]

[Marcus amat Marciam]

B. Creativity of language

C. Knowledge of ungrammatical sentences

[It is easy to please Kim /* It is eager to please Kim]

4. CULTURAL / SITUATIONAL KNOWLEDGE

(COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE) :

II. COMPETENCE VS. PERFORMANCE :

1. DEFINITION (abstract rules vs. language in action)

2. ILLUSTRATION OF THE DIFFERENCE: slips of the tongue and spoonerisms

III. WHAT IS GRAMMAR ? (for laypersons; for linguists)

1. PRESCRIPTIVE GRAMMARS :

A. Bishop Robert Lowth (18th c.)

B. Role of Academies

C. Prescriptions in English

2. DESCRIPTIVE GRAMMARS :

Panini (400 BCE) and Sanskrit

IV. LANGUAGE UNIVERSALS (see book)

V. ANIMAL COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS :

1. Intrinsic (biologically conditioned)

2. Qualitatively different from human language because : closed system (no room for creativity) ; stimulus-bound

3. The case of Clever Hans (subtle cues)

4. Three ways of communicating (can be combined) :

A. Sound : “talking” parrots and mynah birds

bird calls and songs

dolphins and porpoises

B. Smell : ants

C. Body movements (invariant gestures) :

dance of the bees ; wolves ; fiddler crabs ; etc.

VI. THE UNIQUE (?) FEATURES OF HUMAN LANGUAGE :

1. DISPLACEMENT (in time and/or space)

2. PRODUCTIVITY (creativity ; open-endedness ; synonyms)

3. INTERCHANGEABILITY (between receiver/sender)

4. CULTURAL TRANSMISSION (for each generation)

5. SPECIALIZATION (in the course of evolution)

6. DUALITY OF PATTERNING (two types of segmentation) :

A. Phonological

B. Morphological

7. ARBITRARINESS

8. PREVARICATION ?