Download or read book Missionary Linguistics III Ling stica misionera III written by Otto Zwartjes and published by John Benjamins Publishing. This book was released on 2007-11-07 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This third volume on Missionary Linguistics focuses on morphology and syntax. It contains a selection of papers derived from the international conferences on missionary linguistics held in Hong Kong/Macau and Valladolid. As with the previous two volumes (2004, on general issues, and 2005, on orthography and phonology), this volume looks at methodology and descriptive techniques from a historical point of view, offering articles of interest to historiographers of linguistics, typologists, and descriptive linguists. It presents research into languages such as Tarasco (Pur’épecha), Massachusett, Nahuatl, Conivo, Sipibo, Guaraní, Vietnamese, Tamil, Southern Min Chinese dialects, Mandarin Chinese, Arabic, Tagalog and other Austronesian languages, such as Yapese and Chamorro.
Download or read book Missionary Linguistics II Ling stica misionera II written by Otto Zwartjes and published by John Benjamins Publishing. This book was released on 2005-12-08 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the second volume to be dedicated to the pioneering linguistic work produced by the religious missionaries who, within the scope of the European colonial enterprises along the period 1550–1850, described dozens of autochthonous languages, many of which are only known today thanks to their endeavours. The twelve papers joint in the present volume — which dedicated special attention to the orthographical and phonological dimension of their work — provide a comprehensive picture of the descriptive problems faced by these linguists avant la lettre, notably: the difficulties faced before the less familiar features of these languages, such as vowel quantity, accentuation, tonality, nasalization, glottalization, ‘gutturalization’; the building of (re)definitions and the creation of a new metalanguage, like ‘saltillo’, ‘guturaciones’, etc.; The book elucidates the creativity and innovations proposed by individual missionaries and the instructive and pedagogical dimension of their work.
Download or read book A Language of Empire a Quotidian Tongue written by Robert C. Schwaller and published by Ethnohistory. This book was released on 2012 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This special issue of Ethnohistory highlight new aspects of the use of Nahuatl as a lingua franca during the colonial period. The language of the Aztecs, Nahuatl was also spoken by mestizos, mulatos, and Spaniards. By emphasizing interethnic communication in largely quotidian contexts, this issue breaks new ground in the examination of colonial language, investigating the many ways in which Nahuatl shaped the lives of all inhabitants of New Spain. One essay shows how the bilingual ability of many mestizos and mulatos, which resulted from acculturation to both indigenous and Hispanic society, facilitated cultural and linguistic transfer across ethnic boundaries. One contributor considers the use of Nahuatl by clerics, including early colonial creole clergy, while another uses inquisitorial records to argue that the Church frequently lacked the translators required to conduct its investigations. The issue also reproduces a unique Nahuatl language sermon, demonstrating the influence of Nahua aides in modifying the messages conveyed by catechistic documents. Another contributor argues that classical Nahuatl's utility as an imperial lingua franca was limited and influenced by Pipil, a form of Nahuatl spoken in the region prior to the Nahua-Spanish invasions of the sixteenth century. Robert C. Schwaller is Assistant Professor of History at the University of Kansas. Contributors: Mark Z. Christiansen, Laura E. Matthew, Martin Austin Nesvig, Caterina Pizzigoni, Sergio Romero, John F. Schwaller, Robert C. Schwaller, Yanna Yannakakis
Download or read book Narrative Threads written by Jeffrey Quilter and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2010-07-05 with total page 394 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Inka Empire stretched over much of the length and breadth of the South American Andes, encompassed elaborately planned cities linked by a complex network of roads and messengers, and created astonishing works of architecture and artistry and a compelling mythology—all without the aid of a graphic writing system. Instead, the Inkas' records consisted of devices made of knotted and dyed strings—called khipu—on which they recorded information pertaining to the organization and history of their empire. Despite more than a century of research on these remarkable devices, the khipu remain largely undeciphered. In this benchmark book, twelve international scholars tackle the most vexed question in khipu studies: how did the Inkas record and transmit narrative records by means of knotted strings? The authors approach the problem from a variety of angles. Several essays mine Spanish colonial sources for details about the kinds of narrative encoded in the khipu. Others look at the uses to which khipu were put before and after the Conquest, as well as their current use in some contemporary Andean communities. Still others analyze the formal characteristics of khipu and seek to explain how they encode various kinds of numerical and narrative data.
Download or read book The Decipherment of Ancient Maya Writing written by Stephen D. Houston and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2001 with total page 584 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Decipherment of Ancient Maya Writing is an important story of intellectual discovery and a tale of code breaking comparable to the interpreting of Egyptian hieroglyphs and the decoding of cuneiform. This book provides a history of the interpretation of Maya hieroglyphs. Introductory essays offer the historical context and describe the personalities and theories of the many authors who contributed to the understanding of these ancient glyphs.
Download or read book Their Way of Writing written by Elizabeth Hill Boone and published by Dumbarton Oaks Research Library & Collection. This book was released on 2011 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Based on papers presented at the Pre-Columbian Studies Symposium Scripts, Signs, and Notational Systems in Pre-Columbian America held at Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, Washington, D.C., on October 11-12, 2008. The fifteen contributors to Their Way of Writing: Scripts, Signs, and Pictographies in Pre-Columbian America consider substantive and theoretical issues concerning writing and signing systems in the ancient Americas. They present the latest thinking about these graphic and tactile systems of communication. Their variety of perspectives and their advances in decipherment and understanding constitute a major contribution not only to our understanding of Pre-Columbian and indigenous American cultures but also to our comparative and global understanding of writing and literacy.
Download or read book Meaning in Mayan Languages written by Munro S. Edmonson and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2015-02-06 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Developmental Trends; Development in Typical Child; Conclusion; References; VII. Cultural Significance and Lexical Retention in Tzeltal-Tzotzil Ethnobotany; Introduction; The Comparative Inventory; Analytic Categories; Cognate Sets of Tzeltal-Tzotzil Plant Names; Cultural Significance and Lexical Retention; References; VIII. Compound Place Names in Chuj and other Mayan Languages; Introduction; Sources and Identification of Chuj Place Names; The Nature of Chuj Geographical Nomenclature; Compound Chuj Place Names; Comparative Data on Compound Mayan Place Names; References.
Download or read book Grammatical theory written by Stefan Müller and published by Language Science Press. This book was released on with total page 879 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book introduces formal grammar theories that play a role in current linguistic theorizing (Phrase Structure Grammar, Transformational Grammar/Government & Binding, Generalized Phrase Structure Grammar, Lexical Functional Grammar, Categorial Grammar, Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar, Construction Grammar, Tree Adjoining Grammar). The key assumptions are explained and it is shown how the respective theory treats arguments and adjuncts, the active/passive alternation, local reorderings, verb placement, and fronting of constituents over long distances. The analyses are explained with German as the object language. The second part of the book compares these approaches with respect to their predictions regarding language acquisition and psycholinguistic plausibility. The nativism hypothesis, which assumes that humans posses genetically determined innate language-specific knowledge, is critically examined and alternative models of language acquisition are discussed. The second part then addresses controversial issues of current theory building such as the question of flat or binary branching structures being more appropriate, the question whether constructions should be treated on the phrasal or the lexical level, and the question whether abstract, non-visible entities should play a role in syntactic analyses. It is shown that the analyses suggested in the respective frameworks are often translatable into each other. The book closes with a chapter showing how properties common to all languages or to certain classes of languages can be captured.
Download or read book Comparative Arawakan Histories written by Jonathan D. Hill and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 2002-08-07 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Before they were largely decimated and dispersed by the effects of European colonization, Arawak-speaking peoples were the most widespread language family in Latin America and the Caribbean, and they were the first people Columbus encountered in the Americas. Comparative Arawakan Histories, in paperback for the first time, examines social structures, political hierarchies, rituals, religious movements, gender relations, and linguistic variations through historical perspectives to document sociocultural diversity across the diffused Arawakan diaspora.
Download or read book Ethnicity in Ancient Amazonia written by Alf Hornborg and published by University Press of Colorado. This book was released on 2011-10-01 with total page 411 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A major contribution to Amazonian anthropology, and possibly a direction changer." -J. Scott Raymond,University of Calgary A transdisciplinary collaboration among ethnologists, linguists, and archaeologists, Ethnicity in Ancient Amazonia traces the emergence, expansion, and decline of cultural identities in indigenous Amazonia. Hornborg and Hill argue that the tendency to link language, culture, and biology--essentialist notions of ethnic identities--is a Eurocentric bias that has characterized largely inaccurate explanations of the distribution of ethnic groups and languages in Amazonia. The evidence, however, suggests a much more fluid relationship among geography, language use, ethnic identity, and genetics. In Ethnicity in Ancient Amazonia, leading linguists, ethnographers, ethnohistorians, and archaeologists interpret their research from a unique nonessentialist perspective to form a more accurate picture of the ethnolinguistic diversity in this area. Revealing how ethnic identity construction is constantly in flux, contributors show how such processes can be traced through different ethnic markers such as pottery styles and languages. Scholars and students studying lowland South America will be especially interested, as will anthropologists intrigued by its cutting-edge, interdisciplinary approach.
Download or read book New Tracks in North America written by William Abraham Bell and published by Legare Street Press. This book was released on 2022-10-27 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.
Download or read book Cave City and Eagle s Nest written by David Carrasco and published by UNM Press. This book was released on 2007 with total page 538 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The culmination of recent restoration and analysis, these richly illustrated essays examine the history and meaning of one of Mesoamerica's surviving documents dating from the 1540s.
Download or read book Grammars in Contact written by Aleksandra I͡Urʹevna Aĭkhenvalʹd and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2006 with total page 376 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examining the ways in which linguistic traits may change in a contact situation, this book contains an encyclopaedic introduction, which sets out a theory of contact-induced change, and chapters which analyse the effects of language contact on grammatical systems in a variety of languages.
Download or read book Negation in Arawak Languages written by Lev Michael and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2014-03-13 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Negation in Arawak Languages presents detailed descriptions of negation constructions in nine Arawak languages (Apurinã, Garifuna, Kurripako, Lokono, Mojeño Trinitario, Nanti, Paresi, Tariana, and Wauja), as well as an overview of negation in this major language family. Functional-typological in orientation, each descriptive chapter in the volume is based on fieldwork by authors in the communities in which the languages are spoken. Chapters describe standard negation, prohibitives, existential negation, negative indefinites, and free negation, as well as language-specific negation phenomena such as morphological privatives, the interaction of negation with verbal inflectional categories, and negation in clause-linking constructions. Informed by typological approaches to negation, this volume will be of interest to specialists in Arawak languages, typologists, historical linguists, and theoretical linguists.
Download or read book Expressing the Self written by Minyao Huang and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book addresses different linguistic and philosophical aspects of referring to the self in a wide range of languages from different language families, including Amharic, English, French, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin, Newari (Sino-Tibetan), Polish, Tariana (Arawak), and Thai. In the domain of speaking about oneself, languages use a myriad of expressions that cut across grammatical and semantic categories, as well as a wide variety of constructions. Languages of Southeast and East Asia famously employ a great number of terms for first person reference to signal honorification. The number and mixed properties of these terms make them debatable candidates for pronounhood, with many grammar-driven classifications opting to classify them with nouns. Some languages make use of egophors or logophors, and many exhibit an interaction between expressing the self and expressing evidentiality qua the epistemic status of information held from the ego perspective. The volume's focus on expressing the self, however, is not directly motivated by an interest in the grammar or lexicon, but instead stems from philosophical discussions on the special status of thoughts about oneself, known as de se thoughts. It is this interdisciplinary understanding of expressing the self that underlies this volume, comprising philosophy of mind at one end of the spectrum and cross-cultural pragmatics of self-expression at the other. This unprecedented juxtaposition results in a novel method of approaching de se and de se expressions, in which research methods from linguistics and philosophy inform each other. The importance of this interdisciplinary perspective on expressing the self cannot be overemphasized. Crucially, the volume also demonstrates that linguistic research on first-person reference makes a valuable contribution to research on the self tout court, by exploring the ways in which the self is expressed, and thereby adding to the insights gained through philosophy, psychology, and cognitive science.
Download or read book Lessons from Documented Endangered Languages written by K. David Harrison and published by John Benjamins Publishing. This book was released on 2008 with total page 382 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume represents part of an unprecedented and still growing effort to advance, coordinate and disseminate the scientific documentation of endangered languages. As the pace of language extinction increases, linguists and native communities are accelerating their efforts to speak, remember, record, analyze and archive as much as possible of our common human heritage that is linguistic diversity. The window of opportunity for documentation is narrower than the actual lifetime of a language, and is now rapidly closing for many languages represented in this volume. The authors of these papers unveil newly collected data from previously poorly known and endangered languages. They organize highly complex linguistic facts - paradigms, affixes, vowel patterns - while pointing out the theoretically challenging aspects of these. Beyond this, they reflect on the social and human dimensions, discussing particular problems of nostalgia and modernity, memory and forgetting, and obsolescence and ethics, while viewing language as not merely data on a page but as a living creation in the minds and mouths of its speakers.
Download or read book Die Aruaken written by Max Schmidt and published by . This book was released on 1917 with total page 126 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
