U2AOS2 - Endangered Languages Flashcards
Pirahã
Live In An Isolated Region Of Brazil, Only Surviving Dialect Of The Mura Language
Estimated To Have 250-380 Speakers In About Eight Different Villages
Pirahã Kinship Terms One Word baíxi’ (pronounced [màíʔì]) Used For Both Mother And Father // Proper Noun
Don’t Worry About Relationships Any Further Away Than Biological Siblings
Pirahã hói (Used For Small Quantity) // hoí (Used For Large Quantity) // Adjective
Don’t Use Absolute Terms Such As One And Therefore Place Value Differently On Things
“Pirahã ““(like) blood”” = ““red”” // Adjective Phrase”
Rely More On Metaphor And Simile Usage To Explain The Concept Of A Colour.
This would mean however that there would not be western style art classes And may hold A different way Of teaching art
Maybe they refer To Concept Of colour In art by The emotion?
“Pirahã ti kaiíi = ‘I house’ // ““My house”” // Fragment // Zero marked language Has no grammatical marks on the dependants, modifiers or heads which indicate a relationship between the different parts of a phrases // ti (I) gí (you) kapiigaxiítoii (pencil) hoa-í (give)”
The sentence ordering is different than English
Don’t use the same apostrophe structure to show ownership.
Arabic also has a partially zero marked language and it uses juxtaposition to indicate possessive relationships possibly might be similar?
Pirahã A lot of the lanauge is conveyed through pitch, stress, and rhythm and sometimes omits consonants and vowels all together.
Demonstrates A precision The people Have Of focusing On The sound Of The word And getting The meaning from that.
Pirahã Couldn’t say a simple [future] declarative such as ‘I will go and get fish.’ It would be more like ‘I get fish’
Focus on the moment // a completely different way of living and focusing on the present moment means they probably wouldn’t worry about the future or regret something in their past
If we lose the language, we lose their way of living and their concepts.
“Pirahã No evidence of recursion // Couldn’t have sentences such as ““Hand me the nails that Dan bought.”” that Dan bought which could be in a bigger phrase ““Dan bought the nails”” however this is nested in the bigger clause”
This is interesting as they can’t keep adding new concepts onto a sense
Maybe they focus on what is the essential and important communication
This is notable it is faster and more efficient for communication
Possibly don’t have recursion due to the humming, singing etc as it might be confusing otherwise
Kakadu
Gun-djeihmi is The living Language spoken In The central part Of Kakadu. Kun-winjku languages is A related Dialect Of The Gun-djeihmi And they can understand one another well
Kakadu is A national park In The middle Of Australia which is home To past, present And future elders And communities Of The first nations people Of Australia
Kakadu ‘dj’ for ‘j’ (as in jump) // ‘dj’ is used instead of the alveo-palatal voiced affricate d3 or ‘j’
interesting as it is A different way To speak And if A Dreaming was written down In This spelling without The knowledge Of The lanauge The meaning may be lost, or The word may be mispronounced with affects their culture And connection with The land.
Kakadu ‘Namarrgon Djadjam // Proper Noun // Used to describe a place where Namarrgon (or loosely translated the lightening man) lives
This Demonstrates their connection To The land And how their Dreaming is so closely linked To The land.
While we may just view The lightening man as A name The Indigenous Australians most likely Have A spiritual story behind it which tells their community how The land was created.
This gives them An understanding Of The land In A More advanced And connected way than other languages can. if we lose This Language, we lose their value Of The land which we may Have A lot To learn from it.
Kakadu ‘Dreaming // Noun // The concept of the mythology and continuing spirituality of the Australian Aboriginals
A key problem when losing an important language or language group such as this is that it can’t always be directly translated, and a complex concept might be lost.
Dreaming is a term coined by the invaders who came to Australia and were trying to make sense of the perceived religion that the original first nations people were following.
The issue is that this doesn’t actually capture the complexity of the dreaming; how it is ongoing, what it explains and doesn’t explain, how the ‘Dreaming’ is based on not only the land but the interrelations of all people and all things and it turns it into more of an abstract temporary concept when the dreaming for the first nations people has no beginning or end.
Pormaraww Language
A community Located On The Cape York Peninsula Of Australia
Pormaraww Cardinal Directions ‘A long way to the south southwest’
Use directions which are absolute And are therefore More aware Of their surroundings e.g. not left
Various Some Languages Tend To Assign Blame More Than Others // ‘the vase broke’ vs ‘____ broke the vase’ syntax structure
Depending on what sentence you use the blame gets assigned differently and this changes how people see the world. The agent of causality isn’t used.
