Languages and Linguistics

The increasing of the number of syllables and the chronology of anaptyxis and prosthesis in West European loan-words of Ottoman Turkish

by Marek Stachowski

Standardising Cornish: The politics of a new minority language

by Dave Sayers

Forthcoming in Language Problems and Language Planning 36(2). http://benjamins.com/#catalog/journals/lplp.36.2/toc. Pagination in this document will not match the published article. Contact the publisher John Benjamins for permission to re-use or reprint this material in any form.

The last recorded native speaker of the Cornish language died in 1777. Since the nineteenth century, amateur scholars... more The last recorded native speaker of the Cornish language died in 1777. Since the nineteenth century, amateur scholars have made separate attempts to reconstruct its written remains, each creating a different orthography. Later, following recognition under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages in 2002, Cornish gained new status. However, with government support came the governmental framework of “New Public Management”, which emphasises quantifiable outcomes to measure performance. This built implicit pressure towards finding a single standard orthography, for greatest efficiency. There followed a six- year debate among supporters of the different orthographies, usually quite heated, about which should prevail. This debate exemplified the importance of standardisation for minority languages, but its ultimate conclusion saw all sides giving way, and expediency, not ideology, prevailing. It also showed that standardisation was not imposed explicitly within language policy, but emerged during the language planning process.

pone_zsgb

by Rolf Zwaan

Uwagi o zapożyczeniach ałtajskich w języku prasłowiańskim i kwestie pokrewne

by Marek Stachowski

RESUMEN DE TESIS DE MAGÍSTER 2008

by Kerwin A. Livingstone

This is just a summary of my Master's thesis which was successfully defended on Nov 21, 2008 in Concepcion, Chile. This is just a summary of my Master's thesis which was successfully defended on Nov 21, 2008 in Concepcion, Chile.

PROYECTO DE TESIS DE MAGISTER (2008)

by Kerwin A. Livingstone

This is my Master's the proposal/project for my Master's Degree thesis. This project was defended on March 31, 2008. This paved for the way for the elaboration of the actual thesis.

En el área de la investigación sobre la adquisición de L2, un problema fundamental es que investigadores y profesores... more En el área de la investigación sobre la adquisición de L2, un problema fundamental es que investigadores y profesores de lenguas focalizados en la adquisición de L2 (Lee, 2000; Sheen, 1994; Willis, 1996; Skehan 1998) buscan obtener muestras auténticas del uso de la lengua de los aprendices. Necesitan que estos ejemplos sean representativos de la manera cómo actúan los aprendices de manera natural, para así investigar cómo se produce el aprendizaje de L2. Para los profesores de lenguas, estos modelos son de gran utilidad, pues son tanto un medio para ayudar a los estudiantes a aprender como una evidencia de un proceso de aprendizaje exitoso. Además, es importante señalar que estos patrones de habla que producen los alumnos varían según el grado de centralización que ellos tienen en el uso correcto de la lengua.


A la luz de lo mencionado, el objetivo principal de este proyecto es investigar la efectividad de un modelo metodológico mixto integrado en un curso de español como LE para mejorar la competencia comunicativa y lingüística de unos 18 estudiantes provenientes de Minnesota, EE.UU.

Los dos enfoques metodológicos que se abordarán en este proyecto son el Enfoque por Tareas y el Enfoque Cooperativo. Estos dos enfoques constituyen un movimiento de evolución dentro del enfoque comunicativo y no resulta tan difícil experimentar con ellos a través del diseño de unidades didácticas. Un segundo objetivo de este proyecto es diseñar una Unidad Didáctica, en la cual se incorporarán los enfoques mencionados y en la cual se practicarán bastante las cuatro habilidades lingüísticas, y luego implementarla.

Los datos se obtendrán de un estudio cuasi experimental – pre-test y post-test - en un grupo experimental de 18 estudiantes de Minnesota. El propósito de las dos pruebas será definir su nivel de competencia antes, y evaluar y diagnosticar cuánto sabían antes y cuánto aprendieron después de haber llevado a cabo la Unidad Didáctica. Los datos recogidos serán analizados empíricamente para luego llegar a conclusiones sobre la investigación realizada. Es decir, a través de esta investigación se pretende obtener información clara y precisa en lo concerniente a la competencia comunicativo-lingüística de los alumnos antes y después de hacer este curso, y poner de relieve la efectividad del Enfoque por Tareas y del Enfoque Cooperativo.

The morphology/syntax interface: evidence from possessive adjectives in Slavonic

by Greville G. Corbett

Gender, animacy, and declensional class assignment: a unified account for Russian

by Greville G. Corbett

Norman Fraser & Greville G. Corbett. 1995. Gender, animacy and declensional class assignment: a unified account for Russian. In: Geert Booij and Jaap van Marle (eds) Yearbook of Morphology 1994. Dordrecht: Kluwer. pp. 123-50. [Note: the Yearbook for a given year was published the next year.]

Work notes on the Pyrgi Gold Tablets

by Mel Copeland

The Pyrgi Gold Tablets consist of three sheets of gold, two of which are written with Etruscan letters and the third is in Punic. Scholars have speculated that the tablets are a bilingual text. It is not exactly bilingual, but the texts of the group tend to follow a common theme, that of a dedication. While translators of the Punic text claim that that text addresses the goddess Astarte, there is no reference to Astarte in the Etruscan text. Three goddesses are mentioned in  the Etruscan text: RIA (possibly Rea Silvia, mother of Romulus and Remus, MIA (possibly May, month, or Maia, mother of Mercury (L. Maia-ae; adj. Maius-a-um; Maius, May) and Uni, consort of Tini. Uni and Tini correspond to Greek Hera and Zeus, Roman Juno and Jupiter. Janus the god of doorways, new beginnings, is mentioned. There may be a reference to Remus (REMIA), which would validate the name RIA, and the text concludes with what appears to be the phrase, "I renewed Aph." Aph, who appears to be a fertility goddess, is mentioned in many texts (see the Etruscan GlossaryA.pdf).  The goddess Astarte / Ishtar have been likened to Juno (Etr. Uni), Greek Hera,  as presiding over childbirth and being a protector goddess. They are also equated to the the Egyptian goddess Isis who was the consort to the god of the underworld and judge of the dead, Osiris. Isis was depicted with the horns of a heifer on her head which represented the crescent moon. She was identified with Aphrodite (Roman Venus). Isis had a temple of her own in Rome, and their are many votive figures of Isis-Aphrodite, including one in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Etruscan name of Aphrodite is Turan (TVRAN). It may be that both Aph and Turan served the Venus role, of love and childbirth, just as we can see the virgin huntress role of Artemis shared with a goddess named Mean (MEAN- See the Divine Mirror, Script DM).

Etruscan GlossaryA.xls /pdf. is an index to about 2,300 Etruscan words that are similar to Latin, French, Italian and Romanian. Declension patterns follow those in Latin. The 2,500 words = the repeated words in 6,000 words of the major extant texts. The texts have been frozen in time, covering ~700-400 B.C., representing a lens to understanding the early formation of Indo-European languages, particularly the early Italic-Latin-Celtic languages, such as Italian, French & Romanian / Dacian. (By 45 BC. the language was a dead language - no one understood or could write Etruscan)

This GlossaryA works together with Indo-European Table 1 which refutes theories by the Pallottino school of thought that the Etruscan language is not Indo-European and an isolate, unlike any other language. It is very close to Latin and, curiously, Romanian, Italian and French. The Latin suffix, "us" shifts to "o" as in Italian (Titus vs Tito); first person conjugation patterns are similar to French and Romanian. This GlossaryA provides a quick look at the grammatical structure of the Etruscan language, how closely it coincides with Latin. A more detailed Declension Table can be seen on the Etruscan Phrases website. These PDF documents facilitate independent confirmation of the words in GlossaryA.xls , the Grammar and Declension Table. All words can be examined from actual images of texts on the Etruscan Phrases website. Over 150 texts, with about 6,000 words can be examined at Etruscan Phrases.

The Etruscans surfaced in Italy about 1,000 B.C., reputed to have arrived from Lydia / Phrygia. The Phrygians originated near Macedonia in Thrace, according to Herodotus. One may therefore inquire whether the ancient Thracians (Dacians, Gettae, modern Romanians), spoke a language common to the Phrygians, at the time of the Trojan War and after (~1180 B.C.). The Thracians, Phrygians and Lydians (also dead languages) were allies of the Trojans, according to the Iliad. Etruscan Phrases finds a common vocabulary among Latin, Italian, French, Romanian, Etruscan and Phrygian. While French, Spanish, Italian and Romanian are considered Romance languages, showing a similar Latin heritage, Etruscan is not, of course, a Romance language, as it preceded Latin, at least in the written form (giving Rome its alphabet).

Resolution of the Etruscan Mystery may be likened to Michael Ventris' decipherment of Linear B and Jean-François Champollion's decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphics using the Rosetta Stone - written in Egyptian hieroglypics, Demotic and Greek. The decipherment of Etruscan is a bit more challenging, since we have no multilingual Rosetta Stone, but we do have enough vocabulary and grammar to establish that Etruscan is similar to Latin, French, Italian and Romanian. (Certainly far more vocabulary and a more extensive grammar is provided in Etruscan Phrases than that used by Ventris to claim translation of Linear B as an old form of Greek.)

Review: G. Karimullin, Prototjurki i indejcy Ameriki

by Marek Stachowski

Thomas Benedikter: Language Policy and Linguistic Minorities in India: An appraisal of the linguistic rights of minorities in India

by Raphael Susewind

ASIEN / The German Journal on Contemporary Asia 118, 113-115, 2011

A current bibliography of Turkic etymologies 3 (1998-1999 et addenda)

by Marek Stachowski

Network Morphology: A DATR account of Russian inflectional morphology

by Greville G. Corbett

Greville G. Corbett and Norman Fraser. 1993. Network Morphology: A DATR account of Russian inflectional morphology. Journal of Linguistics 29, 113–42. [Reprinted in Francis X. Katamba (editor) 2003. Morphology: Critical Concepts in Linguistics, VI: Morphology: Its Place in the Wider Context, 364-396 London, Routledge.]

A cross‐cultural study of colour grouping: Evidence for weak linguistic relativity

by Greville G. Corbett

Ian R. L. Davies and Greville G. Corbett

Emu divorce: A unified account of gender and noun class assignment in Mayali

by Greville G. Corbett

Nicholas Evans, Dunstan Brown and Greville G. Corbett. 1999. Emu Divorce: A Unified Account of Gender and Noun Class Assignment in Mayali. CLS 34: Part 1: Papers from the Main Session: April 17-19, 1998 (The Proceeding from the Main Session of the Chicago Linguistic Society’s Thirty-fourth Meeting), ed. by M. Catherine Gruber, Derrick Higgins, Kenneth S. Olson & Tamra Wysocki, 127-142. Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society.

Shaahitter baahon, upobhaashaa, aar mitobaak shanketaayon

by Probal Dasgupta

In this paper (in Bangla) I argue that the notion of a 'standard dialect' is an oxymoron. The dialects are... more In this paper (in Bangla) I argue that the notion of a 'standard dialect' is an oxymoron. The dialects are asymmetrically related to a standard language. Those of us who wish to work against the invidious effects of this asymmetry are likely to find it worth our while to cultivate the art of thin description.

La función metalingüística del lenguaje puesta en contexto

by Gerardo Cardozo Rincón

El contexto entre la pragmática y la gramática tradicional

by Gerardo Cardozo Rincón

Taking a language stance

by Stephen J. Cowley

These proofs appeared as:
Cowley, S. J. (2011.) Taking a language stance. Ecological Psychology, 23/3: 185-209.

Linguists tend to view language in terms of forms and their use. For historical reasons, speaking and listening are... more Linguists tend to view language in terms of forms and their use. For historical reasons, speaking and listening are often ascribed to knowledge of a language system. Language behavior is seen as the production and processing of forms. Others contrast language to man-made codes (see Kravchenko, 2007; Love, 2004). Instead of focusing on forms, language can be conceived of as action and, as such, both dynamic and symbolic (Raczaszek-Leonardi, 2009). History places us in a meshwork where public resources of language, among other things, contribute to games, mashing beans, and watching television. Speaking-while-hearing draws on cultural products (e.g., axes, social roles, pictures, and wordings). As we collaborate, we orient to wordings or repeated (and systematized) aspects of vocalizations that, within our community, carry historically derived information. Pursuing this view, it is argued that hearing “words” is like seeing “things” in pictures. This is described as taking a language stance. To defend the position, it is argued that, first, we learn to hear wordings and, later, to use “what we hear” as ways of constraining our actions. Far from depending on individual knowledge, orienting to wordings makes language irreducibly collective.

Tito’s children?: educational resources, language learning and cultural capital in the life histories of interpreters working in Bosnia-Herzegovina

by Catherine Baker

Sudosteuropa 59:4 (2011): 477-501.

The foreign military forces and international organisations that have operated in Bosnia-Herzegovina (BiH) since 1992... more The foreign military forces and international organisations that have operated in Bosnia-Herzegovina (BiH) since 1992 recruited thousands of local people, often young students, to work as interpreters. Drawing on 31 life history interviews conducted in 2009–10 with language workers who grew up in former Yugoslavia, this paper seeks to answer whether certain age groups and social strata that emerged from socialist Yugoslav society were better able to benefit in the ‘SFOR economy’ that resulted from the effects of international intervention in BiH. In the process, it combines applied-linguistics approaches to language-learning narratives with area-studies perspectives on postsocialism to show how particular forms of language learning equipped people to adjust to the socio-economic crisis. Although all Bosnian schools taught foreign languages, pupils were assigned arbitrarily to different languages and English was not available in all schools. This study suggests on a limited sample that education outside the state classroom was a more helpful source of the necessary cultural capital to work as an interpreter and was easiest to access for children of urban professional families. The interpreting jobs that these subjects found during and after the war made them more privileged than workers on local-currency wages but less privileged compared to their parents’ pre-war lives. The work-based identity they went on to construct was informal and has not produced a public narrative that constructs interpreters as a recognised social group.