Language and Writing

1. Language and Writing Professor Julia Nee Comparative Linguistics Spring 2014

2. Differences/Similarities Language Writing Writing is a recent cultural development Learned with deliberate effort Arbitrary link between symbol and sound • Language ability is as old as man • Acquired without specific formal instruction • Arbitrary link between sound and meaning

3. Types of Writing • Logographic writing: symbols represent morphemes or entire words • Oldest type of writing • Examples? • Logograms within our own systems? • Is it useful to write in a purely logographic system? • What is difficult to represent with logograms? • Pros/Cons of logographic writing?

4. Types of Writing • Phonographic writing: symbols represent syllables or segments

5. Phonographic Writing • Syllabic writing: signs represent syllables (a set of syllabic signs is called a syllabary) • What types of languages are easy to write this way? • Alphabetic writing: represents consonant and vowel segments • Generally ignore nonphonemic phenomena • ‘Pan’ and ‘nap’ are written with the same ‘p’ even though they’re different sounds in IPA

6. The Early History of Writing • Prewriting: earliest stage of developing a written language; language represented through objects. • Prewriting appeared about 12,000 years ago • Not strictly linguistic – may have served as a way of communicating, as part of religious practices, or as artistic expression

7. The Early History of Writing

9. The Early History of Writing • Writing may have developed from record-keeping • Used clay tokens to represent goods  made impressions of the tokens rather than carrying the tokens around • Idea that objects can be represented symbolically

10. The Early History of Writing • Pictograms: picture writing; object or concept represented in drawing; no clues to pronunciation • Necessary to understand the conventions of the author

11. The Early History of Writing

12. The Early History of Writing • Do we use pictograms today?

13. The Early History of Writing • Yes! • What purpose do they serve? • Blissymbolics: system developed by Charles K. Bliss

15. Blissymbolics • Why don’t you just teach a child to spell out what they want in English/Spanish/French/etc.? • “Kids whose communicative worlds had been defined by the options of pointing to a picture of a toilet, or waiting for someone to ask the right question, started talking about a car trip with a father, a brother’s new bicycle, a pet cat’s habit of hiding under the bed.” ~ArikaOkrent

16. Blissymbolics • Bliss broke the world down into “essential elements of meaning” • Assigned each element a sign • Complex ideas were combinations of signs • Why didn’t this language become universal?

17. Blissymbolics • “The simple, almost self-explanatory picturegraphs of Semantography can be read in any language” !

18. Blissymbolics • aUI (John Weilgart) creates shame as: • Why haven’t we created a system of universal symbolic communication? • We don’t all have the same ideas about what is ‘basic’ or what images inherently represent what concepts

19. Blissymbolics • Bliss’s symbol for water is Weilgart’s symbol for sound • Weilgart says that water is not a simple concept, but a complex one: even + matter + quantity

20. Blissymbolics • Don’t conceptualize things into the same categories • Chinese encyclopedia of the “Celestial Empire of benevolent Knowledge” says that animals are divided into: Belonging to the emperor, Embalmed, Tame, Suckling pigs, Sirens, Fabulous, Stray dogs, Included in the present classification, Frenzied, Innumerable, Drawn with a very fine camelhair brush…

21. The Early History of Writing • Are pictographs writing? • Why not? • Don’t represent language (sounds, words, segments, etc.) • Don’t follow the language’s word order • May be interpreted in multiple ways

22. The Evolution of Writing • Pictographic writing began in Sumeria and spread from there • Ambiguous pictograms came to represent abstract ideas and related concepts • ‘fire’  ‘inflammation’ • ‘foot’  ‘go’, ‘move’, ‘go away’ • Combine images to create abstract meanings • Head + fire = anger

23. The Evolution of Writing • Rebus principle: use a symbol to stand for any word that is pronounced like the word whose meaning it originally represented • Bear / Bare / Bear

24. The Evolution of Writing • Quickly (500-600 years), rebus principle evolved into syllabic writing • Ex: Tree + Son = ? • Ex: • Why is it useful to have ‘i’ repeated here?

25. The Evolution of Writing • Cuneiform: Sumerian writing system • Used with Akkadian, Hittite, and Old Persian

26. The Evolution of Writing • Hieroglyphics: Egyptian written sign system • At first represented objects, but then became logographic • Mixed system of word symbols and phonographic symbols • Didn’t represent vowels • Acrophonic principle: sounds represented by pictures of objects whose pronunciation begins with the sound to be represented

27. The Evolution of Writing • ‘horned viper’ f(V)t • ‘pleasant’ fen

28. The Evolution of Writing • Began in the Middle East • Phonecian alphabet • Phonecians were traders

29. The Greek Alphabet • Adapted Phonecian writing • One phoneme per sign • Each phoneme of the language was represented • Represented vowels • Used names for letters that came from Phonecian: ?aleph > alpha; beth > beta; etc. • Symbols and names no longer represented words at all • Boustrophedon: writing that goes both RL and L  R • Alpha-bet

30. The Roman Alphabet • Greeks went to southern Italy • Modified by Etruscans who lived there • Romans spread their alphabet • Subtle changes made as alphabet spread • Examples of changes?

31. Writing and Reading • Logographic systems, syllabaries, and alphabets represent different linguistic units • Different systems  different parts of the brain • EX: People suffering from Broca’s aphasia can use logograms • EX: People who are born deaf have difficulty learning to read syllabaries and alphabets  Why?

32. Writing and Reading • Logographic systems  easy to recognize individual words, difficult to learn how to read a text • Advantage of sound-based writing systems: fewer symbols to learn • Easier to learn syllabaries than alphabets • Why don’t we all use syllabaries?

33. Your Project • In teams of 4-5, choose an orthographic system. • Describe the system (logographic, syllabary, alphabet, combination, etc.) • Describe it’s historical development (how did it form into what it is today?) • What languages are written in it? Do their systems differ at all?

34. Your Project • Work in class on Thursday, May 15 • Present on Tuesday, May 21 • Minimum of 10 minutes per presentation • 17 minutes maximum per presentation! • Choose writing systems: Cyrillic, Arabic/Hebrew, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Cherokee, Cree, Devanagari, Thai

35. Is each example below analogical leveling, analogical extension, immediate analogical chance, hypercorrection, or back formation? • Divertir:divertido::imprimir:imprimido (impreso > imprimido) • dies lunae / dies martis / dies mercuri / dies jovis / dies veneris > lunes/ martes/ miércoles/ jueves/ viernes • Cactus (plural) > cactu (singular) • Divertir:divierto::inventar:inviento (invento > inviento) • Correct the sentence: Sound change is an irregular change that causes irregularity; analogy is a regular change that causes regularity. • Define three types of semantic change (widening, metaphor, taboo replacement, narrowing, etc.)

36. In the Land of Invented Languages • Why do you think that people want to invent a language? • Solve the “defects” of natural language • Remove irregularities • Remove ambiguities • Make communication universal • Create peace • Have fun 

37. In the Land of Invented Languages • 1600s – language of truth • Scientific revolution • Latin losing use  what were scientific papers to be written in? • Notational inventions in mathematics inspired language-inventors • “In right-angled triangles the square on the side subtending the right angle is equal to the squares on the sides containing the right angle.” • a2+b2=c2

38. In the Land of Invented Languages • John Wilkin’s created a hierarchy • Similar to genus-species organization of animals • Each branch and sub-branch of the table is given a symbol so that the word is composed of all of it’s component meanings • EX: motion  purgation  from ‘gross’ body parts  of vomiting • Cepuhws • Shit

39. In the Land of Invented Languages • Two main difficulties: • What is the true essence or meaning of a word? • What do you want to say? • Having ambiguity makes it much easier to talk! • Benefit of a hierarchy of word meanings?

40. In the Land of Invented Languages • IT’S A THESAURUS!

41. In the Land of Invented Languages • 1800s – Language of Peace • Esperanto (LudwikZamenhof) • Zamenhof grew up in Poland

42. In the Land of Invented Languages “[my hometown] marked the way for all my future goals. In Bialystok the population consisted of four different elements: Russians, Poles, Germans and Jews. Each of these elements spoke a separate language and had hostile relations with the other elements. In that that city, more than anywhere, a sensitive person might feel the heavy sadness of the diversity of languages and become convinced at every step that it is the only, or at least the primary force which divides the human family into enemy parts.”

43. Kara-a amik-o! Mi present-as al mi kia-n viza^g-o-n vi far-os post la ricev-o de mi-a leter-o. Vi rigard-os la subskrib-o-n kajek-ri-os: “^Cu li perd-is la sa^g-o-n? Je kialingv-o li skrib-is? Kio-n signif-as la foli-et-o, kiu-n li aldon-is al si-a leter-o?” Trankvi-i^g-u, mi-a kar-a! Mi-a sa^g-o, kiel mi almenaûkred-as, est-as tut-e en ordo. Al – to kaj – and sa^g – wise don - give Kia – what kind ek – out je – in si - self Viza^g– face li – he kio – what i^g - cause Far – to make perd – lose kiu – which kiel – as U – imperative almena^u – at least

44. In the Land of Invented Languages Dear Friend, I can only imagine what kind of face you will make after receiving my letter. You will look at the signature and cry out, “Has he lost his mind? In what language did he write? What’s the meaning of this leaflet that is added to the letter?” Calm down, my dear. My senses, at least as far as I believe, are all in order.

45. In the Land of Invented Languages “A Swede who speaks English with a Korean and a Brazilian feels that he is a Swede who is using English; he does not assume a special identity as “a speaker of English.” On the other hand, a Swede who speaks Esperanto with a Korean and a Brazilian feels that he is an Esperantist and that the other two are also Esperantists, and that the three of them belong to a special cultural group. Even if non-native-speakers speak English very well, they do not feel that this ability bestows an Anglo-Saxon identity on them. But with Esperanto something quite different occurs.” ~Claude Piron

46. In the Land of Invented Languages • Why learn a language? • Use it for a particular purpose • Use it as a way to participate in a group!

47. In the Land of Invented Languages • Modern Hebrew • Extinct as a spoken language by about AD 200 • Used for religious purposes and in writing

48. In the Land of Invented Languages • Zionist movement  Jews should establish a homeland in Palestine • Jews moved to Palestine from: • Europe (speaking Yiddish) • North Africa (speaking North-African Arabic) • Mediterranean (speaking Judeo-Spanish) • Palestine (speaking Palestinian Arabic) • Ben-Yehuda called for all Jews to adopt Hebrew as a unifying language

49. In the Land of Invented Languages • Ben-Yehuda looked for words in religious texts • “telegraph” from Psalm 19:4-5: “There is no speech, there are no words, neither is their voice heard. Their line is gone out through all the earth and their words to the end of the world.” • Made lots of words up himself! • 1914  Hebrew was made the official language of schools

50. In the Land of Invented Languages • 1900s – language of logic • The Whorfian Hypothesis – language shapes the way that we think • “users of markedly different grammars are pointed by their grammars toward different types of observations and different evaluations of externally similar acts of observation, and hence are not equivalent as observers but must arrive at somewhat different views of the world.”