LONG RANGER 33 (part 1)
Newsletter of the
Association for the Study
of Language in Prehistory.
(formerly Mother Tongue Newsletter)
Issue 33. (Part
1) September 2001.
The Assocation for the Study of Language in
Prehistory (ASLIP) is a nonprofit organization, incorporated under the laws of
the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Its purpose is to encourage and support the
study of language in prehistory in all fields and by all means, including
research on the early evolution of human language, supporting conferences,
setting up a data bank, and publishing a newsletter (Long Ranger) and a journal
(Mother Tongue) to report these activities.
Membership: Annual dues for ASLIP membership,
including subscriptions to Long Ranger newsletter and Mother Tongue journal,
are U.S. $25 in all countries, except those with currency problems (e.g.,
Russia). Please send membership fees to:
Peter Norquest tel:
520-903-0648
ASLIP Treasurer e-mail:
Norquesp@U.ARIZONA.edu
1632 Santa Rita Avenue
Tucson, AZ 85719
U.S.A.
* * * * * * *
Long Ranger Editor
(for this section):
Michael Witzel
ASLIP President
Dept. of Sanskrit & Indian Studies
Harvard University
2 Divinity Ave.
Cambridge MA 02138
ph.617-496 290
witzel@fas.harvard.edu
Readers: Please inform us of news items that
might be of interest.
ASLIP Website:<http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~witzel/aslip.html>
Note: As of now LR will first be published
electronically,
in several parts per issue, as to allow rapid communication. A combined issue
will be sent by regular mail to those members who do not have email. (In the
future we may have to charge for this). Members are requested to notify
Peter Norquest of their email address, and to indicate whether they allow
publication of their email address on the website.
***
Long Ranger
Newsletter No. 33 (LR 33-1) Fall 2001
CONTENTS
ASLIP ANNOUNCEMENTS
1.
Obituaries
2. Annual meeting 2000
3. Annual meeting 20001
REPORTS
4. Notes on the Moscow Conference on
Long-Range Comparison
5. The Moscow Conference: An interview with
Fabrice Cavoto
6. ASLIP Conference on Central and South Asia
at Harvard
PAPER
7. Kusunda lives!
INTERNET
8. Lurker's Log (of the MT mailing list)
ANNOUNCEMENTS
9. SFI Bulletin : Language Evolution
10. NSF grant for
endangered language preservation
INDEX
11.
Chronological subject index LR, Fall 1996 - Fall 1998
Obituaries
During the past few
months we have lost
Cyrus Gordon
Joseph Greenberg
Scotty MacNeish
Roger Wescott
They were remembered
during the yearly meeting. Several obituaries have already appeared in MT VI
(which is on its way to all members)
***
2
ASLIP Annual Meeting
2001
MINUTES
April 21, 2001
African Studies Center
Boston University
Boston, MA
CURRENT BUSINESS
Elections:
11 members of the Board
of Directors were elected:
Anne W. Beaman, Allan R.
Bomhard, Ronald Christensen, Gyula D™csy, Murray Denofsky, Harold C.
Fleming, Frederick Gamst, Kenneth Hale, Mary Ellen Lepionka, Phillip Lieberman,
Jan Vansina
The following officers
were elected for the next year:
President: Michael
Witzel
Vice-President: John D.
Bengtson
Secretary-Treasurer:
Peter Norquest
Secretary-Treasurer's
Report:
M.Witzel relayed the
Secretary-Treasurer's report, sent by Peter Norquest by e-mail as he could not
attend the meting this year.
On the basis of votes
mailed in, Merritt Ruhlen and Ofer Bar-Yosef were the top two vote-getters for
the Council of Fellows, and will replace the deceased members (Igor Diakonoff
and Karl Heinrich Menges). Vyacheslav Ivanov was third in the voting.
Vice-President's
Report:
John Bengtson reported
on the progress of our journal Mother Tongue. The 2000-2001 issue, Mother
Tongue VI, was in preparation, and includes: articles in Memoriam of Roger
Wescott, Cyrus Gordon, and Joseph Greenberg; articles discussing
'Paleolinguistics: The State of the Art and Science' (in memory of Roger
Wescott); a discussion of Austric with L.V. Hayes and others; and book reviews.
(This issue of Mother Tongue has since been completed and has been distributed
to members)
President's Report:
Our recently deceased
members
Cyrus Gordon
Joseph Greenberg
Scotty MacNeish
Roger Wescott
were remembered. Obituaries
are to appear in MT.
A number of recent
developments and prospects were reported.
* Printing of the Brochure, was delayed for
financial reasons; it will be printed now and distributed to some institutions
and libraries. Members are requested to ask for copies to do some advertising
of their own.
* As for the Newsletter, John Bengtson is to
include a report of the Moscow Conference, Announcements of meetings are to
include NAACA and regional meetings of the LOS. M. Witzel briefly reported on a
special Burushaski session at the Montreal ICANAS conference last August that
brought together a dozen of specialists, including H. Berger, E. Tiffou.
* ASLIP Web site
The Long Ranger web site is up to date
for the past seven issues. Earlier past issues will follow. The online
Newsletter can remain open to the public for free. For continuity, it is better
to publish it in smaller installments on the web, to be augmented between issues;
they can then include for instance, to include members' new news.
* The Mother Tongue e-mail
list : In LR 33, a summary of past discussions will be published; it has
been prepared by Mary Ellen Lepionka. Randy Foot will summarize the syntax
discussion later on.
(Additional note: The list is not functioning as
of now (as the host company does not sustain it any longer, such as has also
happened with Bill Gates' Listbot! It will be re-installed, with all old
materials, as a Yahoo list.) A Linguist search engine will be added later on.
* Data Bases
The new ASCII-like
encoding system, 'Unicode', allows phonetic transcriptions of most languages
and, at the same time, the standard representation of written languages in
their original characters. It is now included in the new Macintosh Operation
System (OS X), and it has been available for the PC for some time. Hopefully,
people will make use of it to replace our unwieldy ASCII-limited (7 bit
character) transcriptions on the web and in email.
The
Whitehouse and Bomhard fonts are to be added for the creation of a database
that everyone can use and can connect to by hyperlink.
P.
Whitehouse has offered to make his database collection available (see LR 33).
LV Hayes' Austric data can be scanned in as pdf files, which then remain under
his control.
The
Starling database for Altaic, Dravidian, etc., can already be accessed easily
via S. Starostin's website (http://starling.rinet.ru/). The same applies to the
one for Indo-European run by S. Lubotsky at Leiden (http://iiasnt.leidenuniv.nl/ied/index2.html)
they can eventually be hot-linked to our emerging database (P. Whitehouse); we
can also add a database on (already existing) relevant texts and links to such
texts.
Highly
"intelligent", multi-purpose search engines should be included, such
SIM developed by the Australia RMIT's SIM; unfortunately it is very expensive.
John Gardner and M. Witzel have set up a prototype for such work, using mapping
procedures, at a private computer company. More news will be reported as we
progress.
It
was suggested by members that we will create a list of language families on web
site and add relevant links, lists of prominent experts, etc.
* Fund raising
On
fund raising, the M. Witzel reported on 'footholds' on the East and West
Coasts. It is hoped that these may lead to funding for ASLIP and related
activities. He outlined a program for attracting funds for the creation of an
institute that would establish and manage a universally accessible global
database of facts relating to long-range comparisons.
DECISIONS
It
was resolved at the 2001 Annual Meeting of ASLIP to publish the brochure
developed last year, work on developing a mailing list and recruiting new
members, deliver the Long Ranger Newsletter by email and on the website, and
attend to the distribution of reprints of past issues of Mother Tongue long
requested by certain new members.
NEW BUSINESS
Hal
Fleming reported on his visit to Joe Greenberg in California just prior to his
death. A conference, in his memory, and a memorial volume, inspired by his
work, are planned at Stanford (M. Ruhlen) for next year.
Hals'
African conference, originally planned as a back-to-back conference with the
Harvard Central & South Asian Workshop in May, had to be postponed; however,
there are prospects for next Spring next year.
Or, it may be
substituted for by one of the AAPA to be held in Buffalo, NY next April: this
is a symposium headed by S.O.Y. Keita, which will cover the same elements that
were to be included in the Gloucester conference.
It
was suggested by members to have an ASLIP conference attached to other
conferences, such as those of the Society for the Origin of Language, or the
meetings of societies such as that of those of Linguistics, Archaeology,
Anthropology, etc.
Members
are encouraged to inform the Secretary about their participation in such
conferences so that we can organize a get together or a para-session devoted to
ASLIP matters.
Hal
also reported a new discovery on Shabo, a hunter-gatherer society living within
a society of hunter-gatherers with a little agriculture (SW Ethiopia). Their
language does not seem to be related to any other one; sometimes it was thought
to be a very old branch of Nilo-Saharan (or even of S. Cushitic), but with old
borrowings from Omotic (or cognates?), Cushitic, Surma, and others. The East
African 'Bushmen' (Hadza and Sandawe) and the unclassified Kado also are
geographcially close. In other words, Shabo is situated at the crossroads of
several major language families, and close to the suspected original home of
Homo Sapiens before the migration out of Africa. Unfortunately, some genetic
researchers recently walked right by the Shabo, as they were not allowed into
their precise area.
Murray
Denofsky reported briefly on his paper, 'Iconicity and Language: Phonetic
Symbolism of the Occlusivity Symbol,' publication forthcoming. This paper is in
search of universals supporting the concept of pan-language (e.g., open sounds
= open staces; occlusivity = nasals and stops), particular sound symbols for
contact, density, and other qualities.
Michael
Witzel announced a 'Fourth Pillar' of long range linguistic comparison,
mythology (linguistics, archaeology and anthropology, and population genetics
being the other three pillars). According to him (see now MT VI), a comparison
of whole mythologies reveals global patterns that closely relate to global
distributions of languages. One pattern, termed Laurasian, spans, e.g., Greece,
Egypt, Mesopotamia, India, Japan, Polynesia, the Americas, and includes a
chronological structure of myth from creation to destruction with tales of
origins, the flood, killing the dragon, and 4 or 5 generations of deities and
heroes, and a final destruction of the world.
A
second pattern, including, e.g., Australian, sub-Saharan African, Papuan, and
Andaman mythologies, does not include most of these elements but has its own
commonalties. The two chief explanations for resemblances among myths--diffusion
and psychic archetypes--in most cases cannot satisfactorily explain the
distribution of these two patterns, but linguistic affinities very likely can.
He proposes that, using the major (often 'official') myth systems as well as
some folktales, the local patterns can be predicted on the basis of the model.
***
3
ASLIP ANNUAL MEETING
April 15, 2000
Boston University
African Studies Center
CURRENT BUSINESS
The outgoing President,
John D. Bengtson, was warmly thanked for his successful four years of dedicated
service. He offered to stay on as Vice-President and editor of MT, and members
agreed.
Elected Officers of
ASLIP: Michael Witzel, President; John D. Bengtson and Roger W. Wescott,
Vice-Presidents; Peter Norquest, Secretary-Treasurer.
Elected Members of the
Board:
O. Bar-Yosef, A. Beaman,
A. Bomhard, R. Christensen, G. Decsy, H. Fleming, F. Gamst, M. E. Lepionka, Ph.
Lieberman, J. Vansina.
Nominations for Council
of Fellows:
As Igor Diakonoff and
Karl-Heinrich Menges have passed away since our last meeting, new elections to
the Council are necessary. Michael Witzel will solicit nominations from the
membership, and elections to vacancies in the Council of Fellows will be done
by mail/email at a later time.
DECISIONS
Resolved: ASLIP will
begin a monograph series with papers by members, per Fred Gamst's suggestion.
These brief voluntary papers will be copied and stapled as special supplements
to the journal. They will be listed in the journal, in the newsletters, and on
the web site with an abstract and an order form, where they can be ordered and
mailed as single copies for a fee (to be determined). The Secretary-Treasurer
will manage the copying, mailing, and record keeping.
Resolved: ASLIP will
seek funding to establish an Institute to collect databases relating to
historical linguistics and language origins. These databases will be made
comparable or usable comparably, prepared electronically, and made available to
scholars worldwide. Paul Whitehouse will play a central role in this project.
Initial requests for
funding for conferences will be a step in the quest to establish an Institute.
For example, small workshops and seminars (perhaps organized by macrofamilies)
could be held to identify, discuss, and solicit the data that will be housed at
the institute. Funds could cover travel for invited principals.
The point was raised
that ASLIP's Institute could be specifically and explicitly linked to
equivalent database projects in archaeology and genetics, including the human
genome project.
DATA BASES
To begin with, Paul
Whitehouse is willing to type up and collect word lists for the projected
database. We should also link up with the extensive etymological databases of
Sergei Starostin at: http://starling.rinet.ru/ We will offer to publish word
lists that authors have been holding privately (for example, L.V. Hayes'
Austric lists, see his announcement in
http://204.156.22.2/cgi-bin/demogate/mothertongue/lwgate/MOTHERTONGUE/).
THE NEWSLETTER
Name of Newsletter: We
discussed and decided to keep Roger Wescott's suggestion of The Long Ranger for the newsletter to
distinguish it from Mother Tongue for the journal.
Distribution of
Newsletter: The Long Ranger will be made available for free on the ASLIP web
site, with the options of receiving it in a pdf or a text format. It will also
be available in hard copy for a fee ($10 was suggested).
Content of Newsletter:
The Long Ranger will be geared more toward members, including news and
announcements of members' activities; events of interest to members; and
anecdotes, jokes, or cartoons submitted by members. The News portion of The
Long Ranger will contain brief summaries of news from Science, Nature,
Scientific American, and other mass media. Members are encouraged to provide
copy for this feature, which should be sent to Michael Witzel.
THE JOURNAL
Status of Journal:
Mother Tongue V is coming out in July under the aegis of Vice-President John D.
Bengtson who has agreed to continue as editor.
Distribution of Journal:
We will look into the
possibilities of letting a publisher take over the publication and distribution
of Mother Tongue. Institutional membership will be targeted (Individual
membership remains $25). The journal now has 225-250 subscribers, including 12
institutions.
CONFERENCE
Hal Fleming will
organize an Africanist conference at Gloucester in May 2001.[NB: This did not
go through this year] M. Witzel proposed to link, in item if not in location,
this with the Central/South Asian Round Table that has been held twice now at
Harvard. From these workshops, a more general ASLIP conference may emerge in
the future.
PROMOTION
Advertising and
Promotion: ASLIP will have a brochure as developed earlier in ASLIP's history
in conjunction by M. E. Lepionka with Allen Bombard.
INTERNET PRESENCE
ASLIP now has two
internet presences. Its web site is at:
http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~witzel/aslip.html
with links to the old
issues of the Mother Tongue Newsletter (now Long Ranger), and our journal,
Mother Tongue. The Newsletters will be put on the web retroactively, issue by
issue, as the opportunity arises (so far, issues 25-27, 30, 32 are available).
The journal will only be represented by Summaries and Indexes (by Mary Ellen
Lepionka).
The other web initiative
is the Mother Tongue mail list and discussion forum, at:
http://204.156.22.2/cgi-bin/demogate/mothertongue/lwgate/MOTHERTONGUE/
where past discussions
can be viewed. Request to join the list should be sent to the web master John
Robert Gardner, who hosts the list for us at his Indological web site
(vedavid.org), at: atman@vedavid.org or directly via:
http://204.156.22.2/cgi-bin/demogate/mothertongue/lwgate/MOTHERTONGUE/subscribe.html
[**Note: This will be
shifted to Yahoo groups in September]
Our thanks go to Randy
Foote who has taken the initiative, in February, to invite people interested in
the origin of language to join. Mary Ellen Lepionka has proposed to summarize
some of the discussion for the next issue of Long Ranger.
4
Notes on the Moscow
Conference on Long-Range Comparison
Peter A. Michalove
It was a great pleasure
to attend the recent conference on "Problems in the Study of Long-Range
Linguistic Comparison at the Turn of the Third Millennium" at the Russian
State University for the Humanities in Moscow, May 29 through June 2, 2000. Led
by Sergei Starostin, the conference was extremely well organized, with much of
the logistical preparation made very effectively by George (Gosha) Starostin.
For
me, one of the most fascinating aspects of the trip was the opportunity to see
Moscow again for the first time since 1988. I had been there several times in
Soviet days, and I was constantly struck by how much had changed since then,
and by what had not changed. But that's a separate story.
The
conference itself covered a number of topics. The first day involved papers on
Indo-European. I felt that it was significant to devote an entire day to this
best-established of language families at a conference on long-range comparison;
the presentations made clear that work on established families is in principle
no different from work on long-range work. Both endeavors share the same
principles, goals, and problems.
The second day was
devoted to Nostratic, and included papers on lexical, morphological, and
phonological comparisons, as well as more theoretical considerations. After
that the agenda became somewhat muddled as the schedule became more flexible to
accommodate speakers who came late or left early, or were unable to come at
all.
There
was a very interesting session on Altaic, and Sergei gave an introduction to
the Altaic etymological dictionary he is currently preparing in collaboration
with Anya Dybo and Oleg Mudrak. The current state of the dictionary is
available on the web at "http://starling.rinet.ru/intrtext.htm",
along with other etymological databases in progress.
Another
new etymological dictionary presented at the conference was the Semitic
dictionary being prepared by Yuri Militarev and L. E. Kogan. Afroasiatic
linguistics was also discussed in several papers at a session on comparative
linguistics and ancient near eastern history, held in memory of the late Igor
Diakonov. There was also a session on Sino-Tibetan and Caucasian linguistics,
which I missed because it was held at the same time as the ancient near east
session. In all, the conference covered a wide range of topics, and the
organizers will publish a book of the conference proceedings around the end of
this year.
But
of course the high point of the conference was the opportunity to see old
friends and meet new ones. I was especially glad to meet Fabrice Cavoto in
person; we have been corresponding by email for some time now. In addition it
was good to see Sergei Starostin and Aharon Dolgopolsky, whom I had met before.
Martine Robbeets, who
was studying in Moscow for a month, had the task of orienting the foreign
visitors, a job she fulfilled admirably. I especially enjoyed talking with her
*___r, and with Egidio Marsico.
Among
those whom I had known only from their published works, it was a pleasure to
finally meet Václav Blazhek, Vladimir Dybo (who was just elected to the
Russian Academy of Sciences) and his daughter Anya, Thomas Gamkrelidze (whose
Georgian charm and wit were very much in evidence), Eugene Helimsky, Alexander
Lubotsky, Edkhiam Tenishev, and several others.
One
of the students at the conference gave some of the foreign visitors a tour of
Moscow for an afternoon. Good linguists that we were, we spent as much time
excavating the local bookshops as we did seeing the sights of Moscow. We all
came home loaded down with more books, and amazed at the contradictions that
fill the streets of modern Moscow.
***
5
The International
Conference "Problems in the Study of Long-Range Linguistic Comparison at
the Turn of the Third Millennium", Moscow, 29 May - 2 June 2000
J.Bengtson
An interview with
Fabrice Cavoto
LR (Long Ranger): How
were the conference arrangements and organization?
Cavoto: The organization
in itself was actually very good, from the preparations before the conference
(help with visas, etc.) until the last minute of it. The program of the
conference was changed a few times, typically because of last minute defections.
A few times, there were two simultaneous sessions: Altaic or Afro-Asiatic
related. Much attention has also been brought to the presentation of
Starostin's and his team's online database, which is really impressive. A few
activities had been prepared for us international guests, mostly a tour of the
city. A reception was held the last evening.
LR: What impression do
you have of the organizers (ASLIP Council Fellow Sergei A. Starostin, and his
son George S. Starostin)?
Cavoto: Generally,
Sergei Starostin deserves special attention, because of his efforts to build a
bridge between Moscow and the rest of the world. I remember a few discussions
with some of the others about that. Also, speaking of databases, he insisted
several times on the fact that such tools should be available to everyone, and
for free, through the internet. Unfortunately, a database with Nostratic
material won't be available until [Aharon] Dolgopolsky has published his
Nostratic dictionary. He [Dolgopolsky] repeated that the book is in its last
phase of preparation, but I understand from others that this is what he has
been repeating the last 10 years.
LR: How was
communication between Russian and non-Russian scholars?
Cavoto: One point of
disappointment for us non-Russian guests was that presentations which had been
announced in English actually were held in Russian, which is why we didn't
attend to all of them. We understood later on that some of the young
participants, especially students, actually couldn't speak enough English to
have made their presentation in English.
I
myself had a few conversations with Oleg Mudrak, whose views about the
relationship of Yukaghir are most interesting, I think. Generally, there is
some space between Western and Russian scholars, especially when it comes to
knowledge of each other's work. Therefore, Sergei Starostin's efforts to
establish better communication between East and West seem very important to me,
in general.
LR: What discussion was
there, if any, of Joseph H. Greenberg's recent book, Indo-European and its
Closest Relatives: The Eurasiatic Language Family?.
Cavoto: I asked around
about Greenberg's book while I was there. I don't think that it was discussed,
at least when I was there. I had no clear answer from Russians however, which
can be interpreted in different ways. Both my presentation and Peter
Michalove's presentations referred to it a few times, especially to Greenberg's
observation that the first person singular perfect marker *-H¯e in
Indo-European could correspond to what is seen as *-k in other languages. This
is an important point and opens lots of possibilities for further comparisons
of IE with other Nostratic and Eurasiatic languages. I hear that a discussion
on IE *H's [laryngeals] and their correspondences in other languages has also
been opened by B. Vine recently. Except for Sergei Starostin's presentation
about a new row of correspondences for stops [in Nostratic] and George
Starostin's paper on Dravidian initial *y-, most presentations on long range
comparisons were based on lexical parallels, which might be the reason
Greenberg's book wasn't being referred to.
***
6
ASLIP Conference on
Central and South Asia
Michael Witzel
From May 12-14 this
year we held the Third Harvard Round table on Ethnogenesis of South and Central
Asia. It was co-sponsored by ASLIP and the Infinity Foundation
(http://www.infinityfoundation.com). This year's Round Table was attended by 25
invited speakers/discussants from India, Europe and America, and a considerable
number of additional participants, from Daghestan to Rochester, NY., including
Hal Fleming and Daniel McCall, Mary Ellen Lepionka, and the ASLIP members
listed below by order of appearance (Zide, Anderson, Patnaik, Witzel, Bengtson,
Meadow, Farmer, Miller).
Aims.
In his summary of genetic studies, L.
Cavalli-Sforza writes: "... the need for a multidisciplinary approach, ...
from historical demography to archaeology, palaeoanthropology and linguistics,
and perhaps ethnography, together with population and molecular genetics"
(1994: 372). This is precisely what we have been doing over the past three
years at our Round Table.
These
days, philologists, linguists and geneticists find themselves between a rock
and a hard place: on the one hand, the 'indigenist' one in archaeology where
"... the English speaking archaeological world, ... adopted an essentially
unanimous rejection of "migrationism" (Cavalli-Sforza 1995: 138-139),
and on the other hand, the present Indian revisionist movement which rejects
any immigration (Aryan, Dravidian, etc.) into the subcontinent. Interestingly,
revisionists hardly speak about the "African Eve".
We
have discussed these issues at great length, and from various angles, without a
preset agenda or a preconceived outcome: what does language tell us, how does
it fit the present evidence of archaeology, of multivariate anthropological
analysis, and of principal component and non-recombinant Y-chromosome genetic
studies?
As
in past years, the meeting was held in the form of a frank open-ended and
detailed discussion of specialists and some interested lay persons. We had a
detailed update on the present state of affairs.
Program.
This year's meeting (for updates and reports see
our permanent site: http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~sanskrit/RoundTableSchedule.html)
concentrated, to a large degree, on linguistics, especially that of the
neglected Munda group of languages. We had a virtual mini-conference of leading
specialists in the field who had the chance to meet for the first time after
many years:
N.
ZIDE: Introduction
D.
STAMPE: The current state of Munda and Austroasiatic studies, with special
reference to lexicography
G.
ANDERSON: Recent Advances in the Reconstruction of Proto-Munda and
Proto-Austroasiatic Morphology
P.
DONEGAN: Typology and drift in Munda.
A.
GRIFFITHS: A report on fieldwork in Koraput District, Orissa: the Senior Gadba
tribe and the Gutob language
M.
PATNAIK: A synchronic analysis of linguistic divergence in South Asia: A case
study of the verb 'say'
[An outcome of our informal discussions is that
there is some hope now for a comparative. etymological dictionary of Munda]
However, we did not neglect other language
families: Dravidian was represented twice:
S.
STEEVER: Historical Dravidian linguistics: the need of internal reconstruction
to balance the results of the comparative method.
S.
PALANIAPPAN: Culture change in Tamil Nadu in the early centuries CE.;
and Tibeto-Burmese figured at least with
Manipuri:
S.
RAY : The many forms of Meitei Mayek: orthographic debates in Meitei language.
Another highlight of this year's meeting was a
state of the art overview of genetics, especially that of non-recombinant Y-chromosome
genetic studies,
which was presented by a former Cavalli-Sforza student (now teaching at
Sassari, Sardinia):
P.
FRANCALACCI : The peopling of Eurasia: the contribution of Y-chromosome
analysis.
As
usual, we continued our discussions about the links between archaeology,
texts, and language.
This year, we explored, from various angles, the northwest of and areas further
northwest of the Indian subcontinent, the Bactria-Margiana Archaeological
complex,
and their mutual relationships from the Indus civilization onwards. (Note that
F. Hiebert's Anau seal, if indeed local, would be the first written evidence of
the BMAC language, at c. 2300 BCE).
H.-P.
FRANCFORT: Perspectives on the origins and religious aspects of the Oxus
Civilization (BMAC)
G.
THOMPSON: The relationship between Vedic and Avestan: the provenance of Soma, amshu, and its relation to
the BMAC?
B.
LAWERGREN: On Bactria-Margiana and later Iranian trumpets
F.
HIEBERT: The recently discovered Bronze Age inscription (2300 BC) from Anau,
Central Asia.
M.
WITZEL: Central Asian substrate languages
J.
BENGTSON: Genetic and cultural links between Burushaski and the Caucasian
languages and Basque
Prominently present, as every year, were the
Indus civilization and related theoretical issues,
R.
MEADOW: Current excavations at Harappa
R.
MUGHAL: Cemeteries of Late Harappan period at Harappa
B.
WELLS: The geographical distribution of Indus signs
S.
FARMER: Three problems in Indology approached from comparative perspectives:
textual layering, the dates of the Vedas, and the Harappan 'writing' question.
K.
YOUNG: Searching for Clues to Indian Prehistory Around and Across the Arabian
Sea: Are Nubia, Punt (on the eastern coast of the Red Sea), Indus Valley, and
Tamilnadu Linked and If So, How?
D.P.
AGRAWAL: The Central Himalayas in the archaeology of the Northern Plains, and
the myth of Vedic Aryans
Some more theoretical issues were dealt with by
:
G.
POSSEHL: Franz Boas on Race, Language and Culture
H.
MILLER: A look at method and theory: the example of Biblical Archaeology
And, last but not least, we had a refreshing
view of one of our classical texts of state craft:
B.
BROOKS: The Arthashastra Core as a Maurya Document
We plan to continue the Round Table during this
academic year. Some finical support has already been secured. Results, handouts
and full papers relating to the Round Table will be published, this Fall, at
its website: http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~sanskrit/RoundTable2001Papers.html
and also via the ASLIP website.
***
7
KUSUNDA LIVES!
The isolate language
Kusunda in Central Nepal has been declared dead for quite some time, for
example by SIL. In fact, it lives, albeit feebly. The Nepali linguist B.K. Rana
has been on their trail and has discovered a few surviving mother tongue
speakers in various districts of Central and Western Nepal. Below some extracts
from his report in the local journal Jana
Jati.
The writer is a socio-linguist by discipline who is concentrating his studies
on Tibeto-Burman languages. He believes that the Nepali language has evolved
sharing with Magar language of the Karnali area as well as other Tibeto-Burman
languages in the Southern Himalayan Belt.
A Short Note on Kusunda Language
B. K. Rana
In
Nepal, about 91 languages [are spoken] belonging to different families for
example: 73 of Tibeto-Burman, 16 of Indo-Aryan, 1 Dravidian and 1 of
Austro-Asiatic are spoken today ...
Ethnologue
survey of languages in Nepal has painstakingly dug out more numbers of
languages than they actually are there, offering independent nomenclature to
them to increase unreal number of languages in the country. For example: it
mentions - Byangsi, Chaudangsi and Darmiya as three different languages spoken
in Darchula District, of far west Nepal but they are dialects of Shauka language
which I had an opportunity to study last year. Likewise, the survey report
presents Tarali Kham known as Kaike, Kham Gamale, Kham Maikoti, Kham Nishi,
Kham Sheshi and Kham Takale as different languages of the area which should
also have been introduced as Magar language of Karnali area. The Magar language
of that area is publicized as Kham Magar Kura but in fact, Kham does not mean
any language category. It refers to an administrative unit set by then Yumila
(Jumla) kingdom to rule over the indigenous Magar peoples of that area. Now,
the practice of offering a nomenclature as Kham and Kaike for Magar languages
of Karnali area requires linguistic redefinition and new recognition as well.
Kusunda
language is one of the endangered languages in Nepal. At the moment, there are
only three speakers of this language [now at least 7, --MW]. It is widely
believed that this language is already dead. But, it is not true. ... Prof.
Sueyoshi Toba, one of the Kusunda authorities, who first analyzed the language
scientifically, in association with Johan Reinhard, now believes that Kusunda
is not a dead language and further states that "we do not call a language
"dead" or "extinct" as long as there is anyone alive who
knows even a little of the language in question" (Toba 2000).
Kusunda
language has been already declared extinct following the death of Raja Mama's
mother, the presumed last speaker; who died of diarrhea few years ago in
Damauli of Tanahu District, West Nepal. Although, there are very limited noun
phrases and a remarkable loss of major word classes including verbs and their
patterns, yet Kusunda is not a dead language because there are at least three
Kusunda speakers "physically alive" in different parts of the
country, which I have mentioned above.
Kusunda
is one of the unique languages found in the southern Himalayan region,
primarily in Nepal, which was recorded and published, for the first time, by
Brian Houghton Hodgson. The Hodgson word list of 1857 (Hodgson 1992 reprint)
contains only 223 words and fifteen sentences collected through supposedly
available trained-hands of those days. It is understandable that Nepali was
lingua-franca at that point of time also. The Rana Regime (1846-1950) had
barred Hodgson from visiting Kusunda areas in rural Nepal. It is believed that
he could not have any opportunity to listen to Kusunda utterances by himself.
Researchers in Linguistic Survey of India Team carried over his works. But,
"one is to argue that Hodgson (from whose article the Linguistic Survey of
India drew its Kusunda vocabulary) was a well-meaning Victorian amateur whose
data are worthless, whereas those of Reinhard and Toba are the reliable
findings of modern professionals. The other view is that Hodgson worked with a
living language whose internal variation we can only guess and recorded it
faithfully by the standards of his age, whereas Reinhard and Toba worked with
the aging and isolated survivors of a vanished language community whose
imperfectly remembered idiolects may or may not have been representative of a
language whose internal variation we can now only guess at. There is some truth
in both views, but my own leaning is towards the latter. Certainly the
limitations of our Kusunda data are such that we are in no position to pick and
choose." (Whitehouse 1997).
Following
Hodgson's return to his country, Kusundas and their language remained ignored
for a long time until Narahari Nath Yogi tried to write something on them in
1955. And in 1970, an Anthropologist, Johan Reinhard from Austria arrived here
and took interest in them. He recorded some sample sentences and hundreds of
Kusunda words, brought them to Katmandu for analysis, until when the language
was hardly spoken by few Kusundas of central hills of Nepal. Prof. Sueyoshi
Toba, a linguist from Japan worked together with Reinhard, analyzed the record
in a standard linguistic framework. Both of these scholars' contribution to
Kusunda community is immensely great for their reports are the only authentic
source of information on Kusundas, their language, their plight and other sorts
of things related to them. (Reinhard & Toba 1970).
Below is a functional
explanation of Kusunda cognates and their comparison with other Tibeto-Burman
languages found in Nepal:
a) Kusundas
have "tang" [ta+ng] for water, Shaukas and Chepang have [ti] and
Magars say it [di]. In "tang" we have voiceless alveolar
"t" of Shauka and Chepang "ti". And, Shauka and Chepang
"ti" is voiceless representation of Magar "di". [Note: ng =
œ]
b) For
fish Kusundas say "ngsa" = [ng+sa], Magars of Karnali area say
"nga+sya" , Chepangs say it "nya or nga", Baram say it
"nanga" and Magars of Gandaki area say it [di+sya]. The Kusunda
segment "ng" of "ta+ng" i.e. "water" stands here
to denote "water related object" and "sa" for meat >
"meat from water = fish". These segments: [ng+sa], [nga+sya] and
[di+sya] have same meaning and morphologically, the formation of these words
are distinctly similar.
c) Blood
is "yu+ei" in Kusunda, whereas, it is "chyu+huei" in
"Balkura" (Baram language) and "wei" in Chepang language.
These three words are phonetically similar in these three languages.
d) "Aagai"
is a dog in Kusunda, whereas in Baram language it is "aakyo" and here
voiced velar "g" is present in Kusunda "aagai" and
voiceless "k" in Balkura.
e) Generally
speaking Kusunda phonology is that it has initial "ng" distribution
in at least two words, so far found, for example: fish = [ng+sa] and wife =
[ng+yang+di]. The initial "ng" segments in these words suggest their
root from Tibeto-Burman language. One of the major characteristics of
Tibeto-Burman languages is that they have initial "ng" segment in
their cognates.
f) In
Kusunda words like "ngsa", "ngyangdi", "dimtang",
"lahang", "mangmi", "kapang" ,
"gelang", "pinjang" ,"ghinga" , natang" ,
"chining" "chan" "iping jing" "ing"
etc. we can find [ng] in initial, middle and final distribution. These all
words have Tibeto-Burman characteristics.
g) Tamangs say
"moje" for banana and "kakhare" for a crab. Kusundas say
them "mucha" and kakchi" respectively.
h) Bhotes say
"manjya" for millet and "du" for a snake and Kusundas have
"mangmi" and "tu" for them respectively.
i) As
concerns numerals in Kusunda, there is "ghinga" for count number
"2" and in Baram it is "ni" and "ngi" in Thaksya
[Thakalis (Bhotes?) who lived around Thak Satsaya Khola] (Gierson 1909). The
nasal [ng] in these words is very similar to Magar "nish" for numeral
2. Similarly, Chepang say "ploin-zho" for "4" - Kusunda say
it "pinjang" and in Baram it is "bi" - here too, we can
find bilabials [p] and [b] present in these three words.
j) Chepangs say "micha" for a
goat and in Kusunda and Baram languages it is "mijha" and
"michha" respectively. And, a road is "un" in Kusunda and
"ungma" in Baram language.
i) Let us again see these Kusunda
pronominalized sentences and phrases below:
I eat rice = "ci
kaadi taamaanan" [it should have been "chaamaanan". Raja Mama
says "gaamaanam"];
You eat rice = " nu
kaadi naamaanan"
He eats rice = "
git kaadi gaamaanan"
My stomach = "cie
cimat";
Your stomach = "nie
nimat";
His stomach =
"gidie gimat" (Bandhu 1999).
ii)
The Magars of Karnali area say "ge+pang" for "their own
language" and "rangpang" for Khas Kura (= Nepali language).
Kusundas also say "gi+pan" for their language. The Magar language of
Karnali area is one of the Tibeto-Burman languages which also has
pronominalized sentences and phrases as outlined below:
I
eat rice = "nga [nga] yai/kang jyonga"
You
eat rice = "nang [nang] yai/kang jyona"
He
eats rice = "wola yai/kang jyowa"
My
stomach = "nga phu"
Your
stomach = "na phu"
His
stomach = "wa phu"
References:
Bandhu, C. M. (1999):
Keynote Address to the Fifth Himalayan Language Symposium Kathmandu Sept.
13-15, 1999.
Fleming, Harold (1996):
Nihali and Kusunda, Mother Tongue II. Journal of the Association for the study
of Languages in Prehistory.
Grierson, G. A. ed.
(1909): Linguistic Survey of India: New Delhi, India.
Grimes, Barbara ed.
(1996): Ethnologue: languages of the World/SIL.
Hodgson, Brian H.
(1848): On the Chepang and Kusunda Tribes of Nepal. Journal of the Asiatic
Society of Bengal.
Krauss, Michael (1992 ):
The World"s Language in Crisis, Language.
Rana, B. K. (2000): An
Ethnographic Study on the Shaukas of Byas Valley, Janajati Vol. 2 No.1, Journal
of Nationalities of Nepal 2057, Kathmandu.
---, (2000): Eklo Jivan
Jiudaichhan Kusunda Raja (The Lone Kusunda Lives a Lonely Life.) Samadristi
Weekly, Vol. 3 Nos. 11. 12 and 13 - February 15, 22 and 29 - 2000 Kathmandu,
Nepal
---, (2000): The Lone Kusunda: Struggles
for Survival, Report Submitted to National Committee for Development of
Nationalities Kathmandu, Nepal.
---, (2000): On Genetic
Preservation of Kusundas and Reintroducing Their Language. (Paper presented in
a workshop on preserving endangered languages, Kathmandu, May 19 -21, 2000).
---, (2000): Writing on
a Dead Language,The Kathmandu Post, April 16, 2000.
---, (2001): Kusunda
Bhasa: Thapa Adhyan (Kusunda Language: an Additive Study) Samadristi Weekly
Vol. 4, Nos. 3,4 and 5 -January. 7, 14 and 21 - 2001, Kathmandu, Nepal.
Reinhard, J. & Toba,
S. (1970): A Preliminary Linguistic Analysis and Vocabulary of the Kusunda
Language, University of Vienna and Summer Institute of Linguistics, Tribhuvan
University, Kathmandu, Nepal.
Toba, Sueyoshi (2000):
Kusunda Wordlists Viewed Diachronically, Central Department of Linguistics,
Tribhuvan University, Kathmandu.
Whitehouse, Paul (1997):
The External Relationships of the Nihali and Kusunda Languages. Mother Tongue
III: Journal of the Associastion for the study of Languages in Prehistory .
Yogi, Narahari Nath
(1955): Itihas Prakashan Sandhipatra Sangraha, Ratna Pustak Bhandar, Kathmandu
Nepal.
***
9
Lurker's Log : The MT email List
Mary
Ellen Lepionka
February 2000
Our site is live! Randy Foote (GRFoote@aol.com)
posts our site to Nostratic List and PaleoAnthList.
LV Hayes on Austric and Austro-Asiatic
(lvhayes@worldnet.att.net) 2/2. Asks about date for beginning of spoken human
language 2/13.
Patrick (Pat) C. Ryan
(proto-language@email.mns.com) joins the list 2/11.
NY Times article on Ruhlen's criticism of
Greenberg's classification for multilaterial comparison (MLC) posted by Randy
2/2. Also "Scientist At Work: Joseph H. Greenberg, What We All Spoke When
the World Was Young" by Nicholas Wade.
John Bengtson (John D Bengtson
<jdbengt@operamail.com>) clarifies that both mass comparison and
historical reconstruction are needed and are not incompatible, an idea
supported by Lloyd Anderson, Ecological Linguistics (ECOLING@aol.com), who also
clarifies methodological distinctions between multilaterial comparison and
historical linguistics. Anderson asks if Greenberg's African classification
continues to hold up.
John Robert Gardner, Emory University,
identifies topic: the role of first person pronouns in "expressive
architecture of self" John G. (http://vedavid.org/diss/) announces his
role as keeper of passive gateway to ASLIP and giver of rules (No attachments,
provide URL to place where attachment could be read, posts not to exceed 5 full
screens. Nettiquette needed; no flaming, etc.)
Iain Davidson, Professor of Archaeology and
Paleoanthropology at the University of New England in Australia identifies
topic 2/14: Beginning of speech (Iain.Davidson@une.edu.au). Suggests 80-60
thousand years outside of Africa as date for spoken language.
John Gardener (jrgard@emory.edu) and Randy Foote
join the discussion about speech. Patrick Ryan joins speech 2/16. Science
article on Chomsky posted. Michael Witzel (witzel@fas.harvard.edu) responds.
Randy posts a NYTimes article on sign language
2/15.
Albert Naccache, Beirut, Lebanon, joins discussion
of sign language and language learning (anaccash@nidal.com) 2/16.
Rogert Lass (lass@iafrica.com) joins discussion
on beginning of speech .
Norman Holland (nholland@ufl.edu) alerts ASLIP
members to "Language and the Brain," an online lecture series on the
brain's processing of language at
http://www.medinfo.ufl.edu/other/profmed/lectures.html.
Isaac Elchanan Mozeson (mozeson@yahoo.com)
announces a web site on Hebrew as the original language
(www.homestead.com/shimon12/edenic.html). ASLIP discussants politely explain
that the date is far older.
See "Origins of First Americans"
(http://www.human-nature.com/).
From evolutionary-psychology@egroups.com, a
suggestion to see 3 300-dpi JPG images at
http://www.umich.edu/~newsinfo/Releases/2000/Feb00/bracejpg.html.
Pedra Furada dates posted 2/19. Articles on
archaeology of first Americans posted by Randy. See Mammoth Trumpet
(http://www.peak.org/csfa/mthome.html).
Article on age of fossils at Brazilian findings
at Sao Raimundo. See http://insidedenver.com/shns/story.cfm?pk=PREHISTORY-or-14-00&cat=AS.
Michael Witzel announces topic: Wide-range
comparative mythology 2/19 [see now MT VI].
Jess Tauber joins discussion; topic:
Sound/Symbol (typological waves and geographic distribution (Zyology@aol.com).
See Sound/Symbol@list.pitt.edu, which describes a model in which waves of
typological change sweep across the landscape.
Discussions also on work on Munda, clarification
of ideophones, and saltationist perspective.
Ken Jacobs (jacobsk@anthro.umontreal.ca) on
Loring Brace's reference to Neanderthal characteristics in the Americas and
latitudinal affinities of Eurasian languages, linking Ainu and Saami.
Jacques Cinq-Mars
(jacques.cinqmars@sympatico.ca) joins discussion on first Americans 2/19.
Albert Naccache proposes metaphors for Jess
Tauber's typological waves. LV Hayes clarifies meaning of cladistics 2/20.
(Would love to see map animations of Tauber's typological waves and Jacobs'
Eurasian latitudinal affinities.)
Clarification on how to reach ASLIP web site: To
subscribe:
http://204.156.22.2./cgi-bin/demogate/mothertongue/lwgate/MOTHERTONGUE. For
Archives: same as above /archives/.
Randy quotes RMW Dixon from Rise and Fall of
Languages
(Cambridge 1997) based on study of aboriginal Australian languages, in which
language change is postulated as linguistic punctuated equilibrium
LV Hayes debates relative merits of areal and
genetic descriptors of linguistic change 2/20.
Michael Witzel cites earlier precedents for
these models and metaphors from 19th cent.
Randy sends monograph from Alvah Hicks,
"Hypothesis Testing vs. Hypothesis Comparibility in the Problem of the
Origins of Native Americans" by G. Dziebel and A. M. Hicks, on
alternatives to Clovis-settlement theory, analysis of reasons for rejection of
pre-Clovis hypotheses, age of evidence in the Americans, and argument for
possible ancient local origin of first Americans with reverse connections with
Asia vs. (or in addition to) peopling of New World from Asia.
Randy clarifies the idea of Clovis New World
origin and backward migration in addition to pre-Clovis settlement of the
hemisphere.
Randy sends Scientific American piece from the
Discovery Archaeology web site (DiscArch:
http://www.discoveringarchaeology.com/0799toc/0799.shtml) on "Solutrean
Solution" (Europeans as precursors to Clovis) by Dennis Stanford and Vance
Haynes, on climatic constraints on New World settlement.
Canadian geologists Arthur Dyke and Victor Prest
announce precise maps of deglaciation through the late Pleistocene, which shows
an earlier corridor. See www.geoserv.org.
Randy posts summary of article from Science on
Human Genetics: "Genes May Link Ancient Eurasians, Native Americans,"
by Virginia Morell (Lineage X)!
Jonathan Adams joins the discussion
(jonathan.adams@netzero.net), confirming Haplotype X European. Randy suggests
that this could correspond to a North Atlantic migration to the Western
Hemisphere or the presence of Europeans in Asia. The true global distribution
of X will shed light on who were the first Americans.
Paul Sidwell (Paul.Sidwell@anu.edu.au) joins the
discussion on tree vs. wave theory and the general Australian rejection of
Dixon, preferring genetic tree.
Jonathan Adams asks about linking Aboriginal
language patterns with paleoclimatology data 2/22, citing Vostok oxygen isotope
evidence regarding glaciation. See
http://www.esd.ornl.gov/projects/qen/nerc.html.
Randy visits Adams' paleoclimatology site and
recommends it. Cites Neil Boas' use of "the phrase climate pump to
describe the forces that first drew modern humans out of Africa and the
Levant---the warm/wet and cold/dry conditions that alternated over N. Africa,
Arabia and the Middle East" 3/3.
Randy posts abstract of article by Jonathan
Adams and Marcel Otte in Current Anthropology on effect of climatic instability
on language change and movement ("Did Indo-European Languages Spread
Before Farming?") 2/23.
LV Hayes discusses pro- and anti- Greenberg
camps (favoring the antis) and cites Historical Linguistics and
Lexicostatistics, edited by Vitaly Sheroroshkin and Paul Sidwell, published by
the Association for the History of Language with articles critical of
Greenberg's methods. The table of contents, posted later, also includes
articles by Sergei Starostin "Methodology of Long-Range Comparison"
and Alexander Vovin, "Some Notes on Linguistic Comparison."
Paul Sidwell, Dept. of Linguistics, Australian
National University, reports on Australian linguistics, favoring historical
linguistics and the Dixon approach. Sidwell points out that there is no agreed
genetic map of Australian languages.
Randy posts a notice about Lingua Ex Machina:
Reconciling Darwin and Chomsky with the Human Brain by Derek Bickerton and
William Calvin (Bickerton has previously published Language and Species) 2/24.
Article posted by Randy from Discovering
Archaeology proposes a more recent date for the movement of modern humans out
of Africa (50,000 vs. McCann/Wilson 150 - 200 kya in Mitochrondrial Eve) and
also proposes a distinction between anatomically human and behaviorally human.
See "Human Genes: New Genetic Studies Trace Movement of Modern Humans Out
of Africa," based on work of Marcus Feldman of Stanford (2000 indivs. vs.
1000 for sample size) based on Y-chromosome data 2/24.
Also an article relating to Migrant Genes
discussion from Science, "Anthropology: No Last Word on Language
Origins" by Constance Holden. Why did people have anatomical capacity for
spoken language so long before there is any evidence of it? Tattersall says
empathy, intuitive reasoning, and future planning are possible without
language, also symbols with socially shared meaning in Upper Paleo. Swiss army
knife model of intelligence (Steven Mithen of U. Reading, UK). Thus there was
little cross-use until 40,000 BP when brain evolution permits generalization
and analogy. An Alternative to the cognitive model is the social context model
(size and complexity of population and environment). Getting to Australia would
have required language (60T - 40T bp). Was this change sudden or gradual?
Jonathan Adams asks about the current status of
mitochondrial Eve (2/25).
Margaret Magnus (mmagnus@conknet.com) joins the
discussion, asks about linguistic iconism (correlation between consonant
distribution and semantic domains). See data on her web site
(www.conknet.com/~mmagnus/)
See Peter Brown's Australian and Asian
Paleoanthropology web site at
http://www-personal.une.edu.au/~pbrown3/palaeo.html. Brown reviews speculations
that Australians may have derived from or interbred with Indonesian H. erectus
(Niah Cave in Borneo). Iain Davidson clarifies Brown's actual position as more
moderate than that.
Randy explains how speculation about Australians
relates to multiregional evolution hypothesis (vs. out of Africa hypothesis,
e.g., Rebecca Cann and Alan Wilson), followed by M. Wolpoff and Loring Brace
(and earlier by Carleton Coon and Franz Weidenreich). Randy presently favors
monogenesis of modern humans.
Randy clarifies questions about the Eve
hypothesis and posts the Science article, "Human Evolution: Y Chromosome
Shows that Adam Was an Africa," by Ann Gibbons 2/25. Gibbons identifies 10
haplotypes, including 1 shared by both Chimps and Khoisans!
Albert Naccache, Lebanese University, on Migrant
Genes discussion: Are language origins a matter of genetic specification or
social interaction alone? Cites Peter MacNeilage, "Whatever happened to
articulate speech?" and Merlin Donald, "Preconditions for the
evolution of protolanguages," in M.C. Corblalis and S.E.G. Lea, eds., The
Descent of Mind: Psychological Perspectives on Hominid Evolution, Oxford
University Press, 1999. This discussion strand becomes known as "Getting
Back on Track," with Derek Bickerton responding.
Patrick Ryan responds to MacNeilage's
proposition that speech learnability evolved in the context of the learnability
of perceived movements. See
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/2803/PL-MonosyllableMeaning.htm.
Randy asks if there is a leap from protolanguage
to human language? Does the rise of syntax signify the beginning of symbolic
behavior? What do we mean by human language? LV Hayes gets into the question of
defining speech, language, and symbol.
Ian Davidson argues for a sharp divide at the
emergence of the first symbols. Things either are or are not symbols and there
are no protosymbols. Discussion strand begins on syntax as an emergent property
without protolanguage (2/27).
Ken Jacobs, who taught paleoanthropology, human
anatomy, and osteology for 20+ years at U. of Montreal, states preference for
adaptationist vs. saltationist view and notes that preplanning does not
differentiate humans from apes.
LaVaughn Hayes and Ken Jacobs discuss the hyoid
(2/27). Iain Davidson says it's irrelevant to the question of language origins,
and Derek Bickerton agrees.
Pat Ryan: Would mutation causing hemispheric
separation have led to syntax? Ken Jacobs says no because other primates have
hemispheric separation with interaction during activities.
Derek Bickerton speaks: language is ancient. It
enables, it doesn't enforce. Can't be inferred from artifacts and fossils
(timing keeps going back). E.g., water-craft for getting to Australia dating to
60 kya does not give a date of origin for language. Cites Sue Savage-Rumbaugh
and Talmy Givon research grant to teach syntax to apes. Points out that pidgins
are languages without syntax. Symbols are a necessary but not a sufficient
prerequisite for syntax. Derek defends the idea of protolanguage against Iain.
See the BBC radio series of human evolution at
See http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/apeman/.
Larry Trask (larryt@cogs.susx.ac.uk) forwards
from Nostratic mailing list an article on Johanna Nichols' work on linguistic
geography, published in New Scientist.
Randy posts a synopsis of The Science Times Book
of Language and Linguistics by Nicholas Wade.
Miguel Aquirre (miguel.aquirre@wxs.nl) joins the
dissusion (2/28) on climatic change and linguistic expansion--the impacts of
the Younger Dryas oscillations on both linguistic and demic expansion
(Nostratic?). Jonathan Adams agrees. Ken Jacobs offers scientific evidence to
be cautious about equating the I-E expansion with the Younger Dryas, but
generally supports the Adams and Otte idea of climatic pumps. Cites Tony Marks'
works at http://www.smu.edu/~anthro/amarks.html among many others. Asks if
paleolinguistic hypotheses can ever be tested? Remains skeptical that we will
ever know the origins of the spread of I-E, but the end of Younger Dryas opened
large areas of empty land to people and would have had a strong impact on
linguistic and genetic expansion (3/1).
March 2000
Randy attempts to mediate between LV Hayes and
Derek B on definition of language as more than speech and on status of deaf
language as language.
Andy Lock cites "Introduction to Part III:
Ontogeny: Symbolic development and symbolic evolution." In A. J. Lock and
C. R. Peters (Eds) Handbook of Human Symbolic Evolution Oxford (University
Press/Blackwell pp. 371-399) RE: ontogeny recapitualtes phylogeny is not
applicable to language origins. Andy Lock talks about development of syntax in
child language acquisition.
Iain Davidson and Derek Bickerton on definitions
and theories. This becomes the Gradualism vs. Great Leap Forward debate. Iain
favors a bigger role for behavioral selection, agrees that Kanzi and Panbanisha
are not doing language. Discusses Bonobos chimps, H. erectus, and Koobi Fora
evidence. Cites his 1999 article "The Game of the Name. Continuity and
discontinuity in language origins." In B. J. Kind (ed.) The Origins of
language: what nonhuman primates can tell you.
Iain D. and Derek B. agree on deaf being
language. Various sources cited.
Jonathan Adams asks if children accelerate
language drift. Izzy Cohen (Izzy_Cohen@bmc.com) responds: listing ways in which
Israeli children influence language (e.g., lisps, shared ideosyncratic speech,
in-group/out-group jargon, secret languages) Jonathan Adams points out that
children preserve ancient language fragments (eeny, meeny, mieny, mo = pre-IE counting?).
Michael Witzel points out the that latter has
cognates in German and Buddhist Sanskrit (suggesting pre-IE origins).
Derek B. (derek.bickerton@worldnet.att.net)
sends a poem, "Genius." (I think we should request permission to
publish it in ASLIP's Long Ranger.)
Paul Whitehouse joins the discussion
(paul_whitehouse@talk21.com) on Australian linguistics, responding to Paul
Sidwell. Paul requests lexical data on which classifications by Stephen Wurm
were based. He especially seeks Kunkarakany (last speaker died in 1989), which
he believes taxonomiclaly could have constituted as much as one-quarter of the
human language family!
Iain and Derek on syntax and whether apes do
language, on Savage-Rumbaugh, on Chomsky, on Alexthe parrot, on protolanguage.
Paul Whitehouse and LV Hayes on Tai-Kadai and
Miao-Yao, and on deep connections between Austric, Indo-Pacific and Australian
(in agreement with Cavalli-Sforza).
Alvah Hicks (pardnerH@netscape.net) on SE Asian
languages for Paul W. and others: F. Seto 229-1123, Kanagawa-ken, Kami-Mizo
3093-205, Japan.
Andy Lock (http://www.massey.ac.nz/~ALock;
A.J.Lock@massey.ac.nz): Symbols can be used in ways that qualify as a
pre-syntactic language. Bonobo production is not syntactic but their
comprehension is.
Randy posts an excerpt from a study by Richard
Rogers and Larry Martin relating current linguistic theory to glaciation. See:
http://www.peak.org/csfa/mt13-3.html#part3 Posits occupation of Americas 18kya.
(3/4).
Jacques Cinq-Mars sends a useful bibliography in
support of predating the Fall of the Clovis Wall, citing Rogers, Rogers, and
Martin et al. (3/4).
Paul Whitehead appeals to list members to call
for the gathering together and publishing of the Swadesh 200 word list for
every language in the world. Reports on attending SOAS, suggests that link
between Proto-Austric and people of Australoid physical type cannot be
determined and that emerging genetics data suggest a far more complex reality.
Alvah Hicks sends annotated bib on population
formation in deglaciated North America and Siberia and quotations from
historical works, beginning with Franz Boas on the 1905 Jessup Expedition, J.W.
Fewkes 1912, and others to the present, all of which support the idea of
possible back migration after the last glacial period.
Albert Naccache quotes from Bickerton 1990 in
answer to Andy Lock. Cites Andy's paper "On the recent origin of
symbolically-mediated language and its implications for psychological
science," in M.C. Corblalis and S.E.G. Lea, The Descent of Mind: Psychological
Perspectives on Hominid Evolution, Oxford University Press, 1999. 3/6 See
http://www.massey.ac.nz/~ALock/virtual/welcome.htm. See also Lock and Peters
Handbook of Symbolic Evolution, which supports recent origins.
Paul Whitehouse again implores people not to
withhold data (3/7).
Randy posts some selections from V. Sarich, Race
and Language in Prehistory See
http://www.mc.maricopa.edu/academic/cult_sci/anthro/exploratorium/hominid_journey/sarich.html.
This site explain's Sarich's view that people (genes plus languages) were
admixed ca. 15,000 years ago and macro families are recent and that
relationships prior to 7,000 bp are unknowable. See also Sarich's Molecular
Clocks Now and Then.
Jonathan Adams counters that environments
favored discontinuity in population distributions, not panmixis. Patrick Ryan
thanks Randy for the reference. Derek Bickerton asks how early Australians got
panmixed, based on Sarich's very recent date. Iain Davidson agrees with the
criticism, noting the example of Colin Renfrew's assertion that language
emerged with agriculture at the last Evolution of Language conference (3/9).
Andy Lock posts his book review of Language in
Cognitive Development: Emergence of the Mediated Mind by Katherin Nelson
(Cambridge University Press 1996, 1998) from the field of developmental
psychology. Cites Merlin Donalds' 1991 scenario for the evolutionary origins of
the human mind through stages of representation (episodic narrative, mimetic
narrative, theories) in a process similar to ontogeny recapitulating phylogeny.
Based on inference and extrapolation from studies of language learning in human
infants.
Randy asks Bickerton, Davidson, and Naccache to
report on the 2000 Evolution of Language conference in Paris (see
http://www.infres.enst.fr/confs/evolang/). Albert Naccache sends a list of
invited speakers and the titles of their papers.
Marc Verhaegen (Marc.Verhaegen@village.uunet.be)
sends his paper for the Evolution of Language conference with Stephen Munro,
"The Origin of Phonetic Abilities: A Study of the Comparative Data"
(an appreciation of the "aquatic ape" and "singing origin"
theories)
Iain Davidson sends an abstract of his paper for
the conference, "Tools, Language and the Origins of Culture,"
addressing the question: What do tools tell us about language-based symbolic
representations in the mind? Cites Mellars concept of "imposed form"
(geometric microliths) versus "modification of a form" (Mousterian
and Acheulean, which did not require language). Posits a 90,000 bp African
origin in Olduwan, followed by discontinuity vs. progressive sequence. Davidson
points out that the naming of tool industries and attributing of tool
industries globally and to different species has hidden the issues of variation
and mechanical constraint, conceptualization, cultural context, and intent.
Ken Jacobs assesses Sarich's effort at a grand
unifying theory and cites opposing evidence of recent (15-20kya)African (Eden)
origin, citing Frayer, Brace, Caspari, Wolpoff, and others (3/11).
There is now a rich discussion strand called
"Symbol, Syntax and Discontinuity." Randy summarizes this strand and
the positions of Iain, Derek, Andy, and others (Lieberman, Deacon, Zegura,
Fitch, Donald, Pinker) in a posting on 3/13 and in a separate article for the
Long Ranger. His summary represents more than 90 pages of spirited email for
the month of March.
Jacques Cinq-Mars shares a bibliography on
recent surveys and summaries from archaeology on the middle and lower European
paleolithic (3/26).
April 2000
Roger Lass (lass@iafrica.com), Randy, and Andy
Locke discuss the dualism vs. true relationship between biology and culture as
this question relates to the roles of symbolism and syntax in human verbal and
nonverbal communication (3/30; 3/31; 4/1). Andy says, "...the
brain/culture nexus is a closed loop...." and Roger agrees that both
"coevolved as wetware response to percepts"!
In a series of postings, Jess Tauber claims
phonosemantic connections in roots between Austronesian and Tai-Kadai and also
to Salish! She says: "Lots of language families share the same
phoneme/semantic mapping..., but not the distribution of particular roots,
which seems to be more a fossil of relatively arbitrary lexicalization from the
ideophone pool." Tauber also asks about rules of evidence for deep genetic
relationship. Cites Mary LeCron Foster's model of form/meaning pairings, based
on internal reconstruction inherited from ur-language. Suggests that
expressive/ideophonic bases are a continuing source of new lexicalized roots
that then are subject to normal historical changes.
Paul Whitehouse responds to Jess with claim of
low probability that lexicons were ever continually reinvented and defends
Greenberg against Nichols etc. At the same time he says that historical
linguistics (as done by Greenberg, Ruhlen, and Bengtson) "relies for its
validity on the arbitrariness of sound and meaning," which sound symbolism
threatens. Randy defends the applicability of sound-symbol
relationship/iconicity studies to long ranger interests.
Jess rejoinds with data on roots and ideophones
in Kobon and Kalam (Papua, New Guinea), Basque, Niger-Congo, Japanese, Yokuts,
Northwest Caucasian, etc., in a closely reasoned argument that addresses every
one of Paul's points but is over my head! Jess says: "It is time, perhaps,
instead, to look at large scale lexical corpus data--being as exhaustive as we
can. The statistical clumpings and clusterings of forms/meanings within a
language or family may tell us even more about the genetic and areal
connections than any 200-word list ever could." Paul says that he is
interested only in taxonomy and that he thinks whole lexicon comparison will
never happen.
Michael Aguirre makes the following points about
the work of the long ranger: It's more difficult because it looks for much
older relationships, depends on comparison among many languages in which
individuals may not be equally expert, and involves non-linguistic evidence
such as human genetics and paleoclimatology. A long ranger is a generalist
(and, he implies, a dreamer).
Randy posts a review of Lingua ex Machina by
Paul Bloom, which is online at http://www.nytimes.com/books/00/04/14/reviews/000416.16bloomt.html.
Bloom says that Calvin and Bickerton place the evolution of syntax in the
context of modern neuroscience (4/15). Bloom says the book is "witty,
opinionated and deeply clever." Jess Tauber says that the authors had neglected
phonosemantics in their initial draft and hopes they corrected it.
May 2000
Randy posts a commentary on Paleoanthropology: A
Glimpse of Humans' First Journey Out of Africa by Michael Balter and Ann
Gibbons from Science on the 1.7 mya H. erectus/ ergaster finds at Dmanisi. The
authors posit increased size of brain and body as cause of food getting
patterns (not new tools) that lead them out of Africa. Jerry Ottevanger
(OTTEVANGER@ukgateway.net) agrees and notes that pebble tool cultures long
predated migrations. Cites Ofer Bar-Yosef that there was more than one wave out
of Africa.
Roger Lass forwards a post on anthropometric
maps in relation to the issue of chance correspondences, in which it is
proposed that genetic links and/or areal contacts be found to account for the
aleph-GHT and siblant + het (SW) parallels. Presents a body-part map of
"Hermes" and "Aphrodite" (by Izzy Cohen:
izzy_cohen@bmc.com) as evidence for late Semitic-Germanic areal contact via
Phoenicean! Cites T. Venemann and Larry Trask.
Randy posts a NYTimes article summarizing
current genetic research into modern human groups and migrations, available at
http://www.nytimes.com/library/national/science/050200sci-genetics-evolution.1.GIF.html.
The summary is by Nicholas Wade and clarifies the 10 nuclear-DNA haplotypes and
18 mitochondrial-DNA lineages. Cheddar man, Sally Hemings, and first Americans
are among the examples. E.g., based on mitochrondrial-DNA (Wallace), American
Lineage B is not Siberian (but appears elsewhere in Eurasia) and suggests a
separate origin from Lineages A, C, and D, which are Siberian. Africa has only
1 lineage with 3 branches as the source of all African, Asian, and European
lineages. Cites Y-chromosome studies and Cavalli-Sforza's "sons of
Adam". Claims that Bushmen and central Africa pygmies are genetically
nearest the H. sapiens root. Gives an African dispersal date of 50 kya.
Describes Lineage X in America (as European and pre-Columbian).
See also 5/9 NYTimes article by Nicholas Wade ,
"Y Chromosome Bears Witness to Story of the Jewish Disapora" citing
studies by Michael F. Hammer, and the following ABC news site on the 7 European
daughters of the African Eve.
(http://abcnews.go.com/sections/science/DailyNews/daughters000420.html). See
also oxfordancestors.com for an offer to trace your ancestry to one of the 7
European Eves! (Just send cheek cells and $180)!!!
Article from Science, "Et tu Homo
Sapiens?" a review by Marc D. Hauser on Michael Tomasello, The Cultural
Origins of Human Cognition (Harvard University Press, 1999). Analyzes the claim
(based on Premack and Woodruff on mental state attribution, plus Donald,
Dennett, Blackmore [meme machine], Dawkins [selfish gene], and Boyd and
Richerson on evolution) that humans are unique by virtue of ability to take the
view of the other (be in another's cognitive shoes) and to use this capacity to
imitate (vs. having a brain that is modular or domain-specific). Hauser
essentially disagrees (see Wild Minds: What Animals Really Think--Holt, 2000).
Article from Science on Johanna Nichols' Nakh
Daghestanian language family and its link to spread of farming and genetics.
Refers also to Orin Gensler's claim to have discovered pre-Celtic languages in
British Isles and strong links between Celtic and Afroasiatic. Jess Tauber and
Michael Witzel expresses skepticism because of easy confusion between
typological and genetic connections and the question of word order change.
Derek Bickerton hopes Gensler is right but also questions the word order
analysis. Roger Lass says the idea of Afroasiatics in Britain is old, from
German scholars, and is very solid. Bernard Comrie, Director, Dept. of
Linguistics, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
(comrie@eva.mpg.de) says that word order plays only a minor part in Gensler's theory
and we should all read the work.
A whole separate discussion strand on
SOV-VSO-SVO commences in relation to etymological comparisons, in which Derek,
Jess, Randy, Ken, Roger, Marc, and Pat participate. I have printed out this
correspondence if anyone would like to try to summarize it for the next issue
of Long Ranger or Mother Tongue (melpionk@ma.ultranet.com).
JUNE
This is as far as I got, and I still have a big
stack of discussion printouts to get through. If ASLIP members find it useful I
will try to continue Lurker's Log. The discussion pretty much petered out by
the end of the summer and did not resume in the fall. It is now May 2001 and
Jess Tauber has just introduced a topic, so perhaps it will get going again.
[NB: this list is moving to Yahoo groups in
September 2001]
Lurker's Recommendations:
Web hosting should move to a more active vs.
passive mode.
Discussion should center on new books, articles,
and papers relevant to long ranger interests that are uploaded, abstracted,
reviewed, or linked to the site (URL or hotlink).
Webmaster(s) should post the above, and
discussants can propose postings. Randy Foote has performed this role
effectively in the past and perhaps would consent to organizing new reviews and
discussions through postings.
A special mailing to ASLIP members should
request greater participation and perhaps describe the discussions that have taken
place as a stimulus (as in Lurker's Log).
Nonmember discussants should be actively
recruited to join ASLIP.
***
9
ANNOUNCEMENTS
SFI Bulletin Vol. 16
No. 1
Language Evolution
MacArthur Foundation Helps SFI Study
Long-Range Relationships of Human Languages
The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur
Foundation will fund a five-year research project at the Santa Fe Institute on
the long-range relationships of human languages. This work should throw light
on the evolution of human languages of the modern type and on other related
studies of the development of Homo sapiens sapiens. The initiative is
spearheaded by SFI Distinguished Fellow Murray Gell-Mann.
_______________
Basic Vocabulary
I/me, you, two, who, language, name, eye, heart,
tooth, no/not, fingernail/toenail, louse/nit, water, tear (drop), death, hand,
night, blood, horn (animal), full, sun, ear, salt.
From the list of most highly conserved words
among human languages.
________________
Conventional historical linguistics recognizes
language families that can be traced back to a partially reconstructed
ancestral language spoken some 6,000 or 7,000 years ago--or even less.
(So-called glottochronology or lexicostatistics permits crude estimates of when
a given pair of related languages separated.) At such time depth the sound
system of the "proto-language" can be reconstructed with some
confidence. Since the evidence for the relationship of the languages in any of
these families is overwhelming, it is difficult to believe that research on the
classification of languages must stop at such time depths. That is true even
though the evidence becomes sparser and the methods somewhat less rigorous as
the groupings get larger and larger and the corresponding languages older and
older.
A
small group of researchers, spread out across the world, is studying the wider
relationships of human languages. The great pioneer in this effort is Joseph
Greenberg of Stanford University, now retired but still producing remarkable
work. He began with the classification of African languages in the late 1940s
and early 1950s. After undergoing extremely harsh criticism, his work was
finally accepted even though it involved finding very large sets of related languages
stemming from proto-languages that date back very far. Through that method, he
found that all the African languages fall into four groups.
Despite
the general acceptance of the African work, the same harsh criticisms have been
leveled in recent years at Greenberg and other scholars who have applied
similar methods to discovering long-range relationship in other parts of the
world. These efforts thus require as much support as possible in order to push
the work of classification forward, strengthen (if possible) the statistical
and other arguments for the correctness of the ideas, and relate results to
other kinds of work on early Homo sapiens sapiens.
Although
the evidence is still not copious, there are serious indications that all
existing human languages are descended from a single ancestor,
"proto-World," which would have been spoken some tens of thousands of
years ago. (It seems that an age of 100,000 or 200,000 years can be ruled out:
there would not be any significant amount of evidence remaining.) A number of
words of this proto-language may well have been identified. If this idea is
correct, it is tempting to identify the time when modern language began with
the explosion of cultural achievement by Homo sapiens sapiens (but not by
Neanderthal man, soon to disappear) toward the beginning of the Upper
Paleolithic, when painting, sculpture, engraving, and the making of refined
stone tools all appeared.
But
there are now exciting results from the study of human genetics, especially the
work on Y chromosomes and mitochrondrial DNA, which permit tracing all of
today's people back to a single male and a single female ancestor respectively.
The dating of these ancestors is still not very accurate, but they seem to have
lived considerably earlier than the Upper Paleolithic.
Such
genetic studies, plus others based on physical anthropology, especially the
examination of teeth, are yielding a great deal of information about early
human lineages descended from the two common ancestors, including the migration
patterns of the people involved. All of this material can be correlated with
the linguistic work. Even though there is not a perfect correspondence between
genetic heritage and speech (witness, for example, Japanese-Americans speaking
English, a Germanic language), there are correlations and it is crucial to
explore them further.
As
the Institute has done in other cases, it will provide resources and a home for
the far-flung, now informal, network of researchers of human languages and for
related aspects of the development of human beings.
In
February, John Holland (Michigan) and William S-Y. Wang (City University at
Hong Kong) hosted a short, intense working group meeting on language emergence
and mathematical modeling.
Understanding
how language emerged is a quest which obviously requires piecing together
knowledge from the several disciplines represented at our workshop,"
writes Wang. "We need to know about the biological and social parameters
in the prehistoric times when the major transitions of language emergence took
place: the first words, segmental phonology, word order, hierarchical
structure, and recursion, etc." Wang explains further that the Stanford
geneticists Luca Cavalli-Sforza and Marcus Feldman offer dates for our most
recent common ancestors with whom presumably true language began. He finds it
fascinating that mtDNA and Y-chromosome yield disparate dates, and explains
that that fact contains important lessons for us about population sizes,
migratory patterns, and modes of cultural transmission, all of which are
relevant to the linguistic scenario they wish to eventually reconstruct.
The
interdisciplinary team of Martin Nowak (Institute for Advanced Study), Natalia
Komarova (Institute for Advanced Study), and Partha Niyogi (Chicago) has
pioneered modeling language emergence with significant results, experimenting
with various definitions of communicative fitness in simulating how words first
emerged and when syntax began. "They have provided a precise framework
within which questions on emergence may be formulated and investigated
quantitatively," Wang says. "My intuition is that language is a
cumulative repository of numerous histories of 'tinkerings,' i.e., successes
and false starts, over the many millennia of its evolution." As a consequence,
Wang sees that each language is riddled with ambiguities, homophonies, and
inconsistencies, and that speakers of the same community differ significantly
from each other in their linguistic behaviors, so that their "common
core" is much smaller than is usually assumed. "The 'universal' in
'universal grammar' may turn out to have little substantive content," he
says. He hopes that as future models of language emergence become increasingly
refined and complex, these models will approach more and more of these
realistic aspects of language, which have been unfortunately all too often
ignored in recent linguistic literature.
"As
I begin to understand more of the strategy of genetic algorithms (GAs), thanks
to John Holland's overview, it seems that this approach may prove to be quite
hospitable to some of the realistic aspects of language I have in mind. In
fact, some properties of rules, such as 'default' and 'exception,' have been
used by linguists for a long time in language description," he says. As an
example he says "default" is called the "elsewhere
condition" in linguistics. He wrote about the consequences of linguistic
rules in competition in 1969 [Language 45.9-25]. "However," he adds,
"linguistics has come nowhere close to the rich body of theory that has
been developed for genetic algorithms."
"As
D. Eric Smith (SFI) has noted, the GA approach builds upon 'successive
incorporation of independent rules into ever more complex networks.' It would
be particularly significant if we could show for some of these instances of
successive incorporation how its extension was driven interactively by
increases in semantic need and in cognitive capacity, as Schoenemann
argues," says Wang. He cites as very suggestive Smith's metaphors from
physics, of spin glasses, alignment, frustration, etc., where ultra-metricity
(hierarchy) and parsability emerge dynamically. "I hope that this approach
can be pursued in earnest, perhaps complementarily to the methods pursued by
Nowak and his colleagues."
Wang
believes that the linguists are in a position to set the agenda for such
research, since they own the target list--the set of properties that should
emerge from the modeling. Therefore the kind of typological variations that
Bernard Comrie (Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology) began to
circumscribe help define the boundaries of the task. "At more concrete
levels, Merrit Ruhlen's (Stanford) hypothesis that the first syntax which
emerged in phylogeny was of the form SOV, and Lee's distinction between two
stages of languages in ontogeny, comparable to propositional calculus and to
predicate calculus, both offer real challenges to efforts at simulation."
Wang
believes the researchers from the several disciplines have a lot to share with
each other on this topic whose time has come. "I hope such dialog can be
sustained, if not intensified, leading directly to collaborative research along
the lines discussed at the workshop."
http://www.santafe.edu/sfi/publications/Bulletins/bulletinSummer01/features/language.html
***
10
NSF Grant for
Endangered Languages
Sender:
Linguists at the University of Arizona <LINGUA@listserv.arizona.edu>
From:
Andrew Carnie <carnie@EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU>
Subject:
Endangered Language Database
To:
LINGUA@listserv.arizona.edu
------------------------------------
Colleagues,
Friends and Students,
The NSF grant
that the linguist list (with Terry and I as PIs) got for endangered language
preservation is currently highlighted on the NSF homepage! (www.nsf.gov)
Here's what they
say:
-----------------
The emergence of English and Spanish as the
dominant languages of global commerce is causing many other tongues to fall
into disuse. This trend alarms social scientists worldwide because linguistic
research not only provides cultural information, but also insight into the
diverse capabilities of the human mind.
To combat the decrease in the number and
diversity of languages and to capitalize on a growing store of digitized
linguistic data, a team of National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded researchers
led by Anthony Aristar at Wayne State University is developing an endangered
languages database and a central information server that will allow users to
access the material remotely by computer. A $2 million NSF grant to Aristar and
his colleagues at Eastern Michigan University, the University of Pennsylvania
and the University of Arizona will be used to create this public digital
archive.
The goals of the Electronic
Metastructure for Endangered Languages Data (E-MELD) project are to collect
data on endangered languages and to devise a Web-based protocol so that new and
existing data will be accessible to researchers and native speakers everywhere.
The researchers on the E-MELD project will start with 10 distinct endangered
languages to design a system that will be versatile, useful and extensible.
E-MELD is modeled on the Internet, where standard communications protocols
allow users to access information housed on a variety of very different
operating systems, including UNIX, Windows-NT, and VMS. [Dave Vannier]
The
first version of E-MELD is expected to appear online this fall at:
http://www.linguistlist.org.
(For more history on efforts to save endangered languages,
contact Mary Hanson, 703-292-8070)
***
11
INDEX
NEWSLETTER of the
Association for the Study of Language in Prehistory (LR)
CHRONOLOGICAL SUBJECT
INDEX
Fall 1996 - Fall 1998
Biogenetics
Cows
& Genes: A Miscalculation [of biogenetic dates for domestication of
cattle]? Issue 27, Fall 1996, p. 9
Deep
Biogenetic Calculations [of human evolution, by Stephen Sherry at Penn State],
Issue 27, Fall 1996, pp. 9-10
What
Has Homo Antecessor Got to Do with the New B-globin Problem? Issue 28, Spring
1997, pp. 2-6
How
Many Genes Do You Have? Issue 28, Spring 1997, pp. 11-12
Puzzling
mtDNA Diversity: Africa, Issue 28, Spring 1997, pp. 13-14
Y-Chromosomes
& Migrations, Issue 28, Spring 1997, p. 18
Y-Chromosomes
and Geography, Issue 28, Spring 1997, pp. 18-19
The
Oldest Family Tree, Issue 28, Spring 1997, p. 19
Dogs
and Cows--Again! Pigs Too! [biogenetic dating], Issue 28, Spring 1997, pp.
20-21
We
Must Rethink What We Know About Pigmies, Issue 28, Spring 1997, pp. 21-22
Australia
and New Guinea: Unity [AJHG article on common origin], Issue 28, Spring 1997,
p. 22
Our
Fellow Animals: Our Cousins [according to Ruvolo's molecular dating], Issue 28,
Spring 1997, pp. 23-24
Hominoids:
Definitive Review of Issues & More Details, Issue 28, Spring 1997, pp.
24-26
Between
the Hypothesis and the Empirical Test (Data) Stands the Instrument [re:
computer simulations in biogenetics], Issue 29, Fall 1997, pp. 3-4
Still
Arguing Over Dogs, Genes, and Dates, Issue 29, Fall 1997, p. 6
The
Hottest and the Latest News, as of Mid-February, 1998 [Zegura and Hammer in the
Journal of Molecular Biology and Evolution], Issue 30, Winter 1997, pp. 3-5
Brandt
Criticizes Luca's HGHG, , Issue 30, Winter 1997, p. 10
Is
a 50/50 Correlation Good [in biogenetic taxonomies]? , Issue 30, Winter 1997,
pp. 11-12
Archaeological
and Biogenetic News (on Crossroads to and from the Americas: Polynesia, Asia,
Afroasiatic, Europe, Africa, the Americas) [compiled by Alvah Hicks] Issue 31,
Fall 1998, pp. 2-11.
Physical
Anthropology & Archaeology
Amazing
New Data from [Jimnium Cave] Australia, Issue 27, Fall 1996, pp. 2-3
Maginot
Line: the Shredding [of the Clovis Horizon hypothesis], Issue 27, Fall 1996,
pp. 3-4
Critical
mass [of pre-Clovis sites]: It's Been Reached, Issue 27, Fall 1996, p. 4
Clovis
Culture in Siberia! Issue 27, Fall 1996, pp. 5-6
Why
Stress Clovis Horizons? Issue 27, Fall 1996, pp. 6-7
Paleolithic
Paradigm Rocking [because of new data on datings and distributions], Issue 27,
Fall 1996, p. 10
Homo
Gets Older in Ethiopia [because of Hadar upper jaw find], Issue 27, Fall 1996,
p. 10
Bike
DiBlasi Reports on His Excavations at Aksum, Ethiopia, Issue 27, Fall 1996, pp.
16-17
Ancheology
in the Americas: Monte Verde (Chile) Scene of Surrender, Issue 28, Spring 1997,
pp. 7-9
Oldest
Human Tools: Ethiopia, Issue 28, Spring 1997, p. 10
On
Dying Vikings & Doing Homework, Issue 28, Spring 1997, p. 12
China's
Zhoukoudian: New Dates, Issue 28, Spring 1997, pp. 12-13
Thinking
about Prehistory, Issue 28, Spring 1997, pp. 14-16
Apropos
of These Points [about prehistory]: Lemba, Issue 28, Spring 1997, pp. 16-18
UBAR:
Old Semites in South Arabia? Or an Old Semitic Date? Issue 28, Spring 1997, pp.
19-20
More
News from Ofer Bar-Yosef, Issue 28, Spring 1997, pp. 22-23
Some
Hot News [about Neanderthals], Briefly Discussed, Issue 29, Fall 1997, pp. 2-3
Stone
Tools and the Evolution of Modern Humans [Lahr and Foley on mode 3
technologies, in Cambridge Archaeological Journal], Issue 29, Fall 1997, p. 5
Once
Again: Those Stunning Early Dates from Australia, Issue 29, Fall 1997, pp. 5-6
First
Americans: Has 3-Migration Theory been Falsified? , Issue 30, Winter 1997, pp.
6-8
Yet
Another 'Too Early' Side [pre-Clovis, in Ohio] , Issue 30, Winter 1997, p. 8
Selected
Quotes and References on Settling the New World (Monte Verde), compiled by
Randy Foote, Issue 31, Winter 1998, pp. 12-17
Notes
and References on Early Man, Issue 31, Winter 1998, pp. 17-19.
Linguistics
and Neuroscience
Hot
Linguistic News from Africa [re: Ehret's six phyla hypothesis], Issue 27, Fall
1996, pp7-9
Editorial:
Borrowing Some Wisdom [about outlining and explaining the narrative and knowing
what happened] from Kindred Sciences, Issue 27, Fall 1996, pp. 13-16
Music:
The Neglected Aspect, Issue 28, Spring 1997, pp. 10-11
The
Explosion in Neuroscience, Issue 28, Spring 1997, p. 27
Taxonomy
& Phylogeny: Interest Up, Issue 28, Spring 1997, p. 27
Some
Tardy News in the West, Once Hot News in Japan [long rangers to contact in the
Anthopological Society of Nippon], Issue 28, Spring 1997, pp. 28-29
The
Egyptial Vulture, Reedleaf, and and Now, by Carleton T. Hodge, Indiana
University, supplemental enclosure, Issue 28, Spring 1997
Letter
of 2/29/96 to H. Fleming and ASLIP from Paul K. Benedict [responding to Mother
Tongue, Journal], Issue 29, Fall 1997, pp. 21-25
Chimps
Have the Brain for Syntax? , Issue 30, Winter 1997, pp. 9-10
Arrows
of Time: A Conference at Santa Fe, December 1997, by John D. Bengtson, , Issue
30, Winter 1997, 15-16
Vincent
Sarich on language classifications and Larry Trask's Reply, Issue 31, Winter
1998, 20-23
Paleolinguistic
News (Greenberg's Visit to Arizona, McCall on Afroasiatic, Ruhlen published in
La Recherche, Nichols on Settlement of the Americas, Conferences at Cambridge
England), by Peter Norquest, Issue 31, Winter 1998, 25-28
1998
Symposium on Nostratic at Cambridge, by Vitaly Shevoroshkin, Issue 31, Winter
1998, 28-32 (and book announcement, p. 38)
Editorial:
What Is Nostratic? and The 'Far East' of Nostratic, by John D. Bengtson, Issue
31, Winter 1998, 33-38
Obituaries
Paul
K. Benedict, by Hal Fleming, Issue 29, Fall 1997, 10-12
Mary
Haas, by Hal Fleming, Issue 29, Fall 1997, pp. 17-18
Robert
Hetzron, by Hal Fleming, Issue 29, Fall 1997, pp. 12-14
Gordon
W. Hewes, by Duane Quiatt, University of Colorado, , Issue 30, Winter 1997, pp.
12-15
Carleton
T. Hodge, by Saul Levin, Issue 31, Winter 1998, p. 1.
John
C. Kerns, by Allan R. Bomhard, Issue 29, Fall 1997, pp. 19-20
Aimo
Murtonen, by Hal Fleming, Issue 29, Fall 1997, pp. 14-17
***
ASLIP
Business: Reminder
Readers
are reminded to pay their 2001 dues, if they have not done so already. Only
those who have paid 2001 and prior dues will receive the 2000/2001 Mother
Tongue Journal (MT VI). To make payments, or to clarify your membership status,
please contact ASLIP Treasurer Peter Norquest. (See inside front cover for his
addresses.)
Mother
Tongue Journal, issue VI, has been published and is in the mail