More on Human Phylogeny and Linguistic History

Duoxu is a terminally endangered and virtually undescribed Tibeto-Burman language, spoken in the historically multi-ethnic and multi-lingual Miǎnníng county of Sìchuān province in the People’s Republic of China. Until recently, Duoxu was known only through a 740-word vocabulary list in the Sino-Tibetan vocabularies Xīfān Yìyǔ [Tibetan-Chinese bilingual glossary], recorded in Chinese and Tibetan transcriptions in the 18th century, and a grammatical sketch (Huáng & Yǐn 2012). Researchers who have worked on the language (Nishida 1973, Sūn 1982, Huáng & Yǐn 2012) have expressed different views about the features and the genetic position of Duoxu, variously viewing it as (1) closely related to Lolo-Burmese languages (Nishida 1973), (2) closely related to Ersu and Lizu, two neighboring languages that are currently classified as members of the Qiangic subgroup of the Tibeto-Burman language family (Sūn 1982), or (3) distantly related to those two languages and to Qiangic languages at large (Huáng & Yǐn 2012). The Duoxu language is critically endangered and urgently requires documentation. It is of great value for our understanding of the linguistic diversity of the region, and of its linguistic history. It is also of great value as a modern reflection of a language that was recorded in the 18th century. This paper makes a significant contribution in all these areas. Based on new fieldwork with all remaining elderly Duoxu speakers, this study provides newly collected data and a new analysis. It compares the newly collected data with the 18th-century attestations of Duoxu as well as with its two putative sister languages Ersu and Lizu. The conclusion of the study is that Duoxu is closely related to Ersu and Lizu, with superficial differences attributed to long-standing and on-going contact influence from Southwestern Mandarin.

Download Full-text

The meaning of absence: the primate tree that did not make it into Darwin's The Descent of Man

BJHS Themes ◽

10.1017/bjt.2020.14 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 1-17

Author(s):

Marianne Sommer

Keyword(s):

Human Populations ◽

Ernst Haeckel ◽

Species Status ◽

Tree Diagram ◽

Organismic Evolution ◽

Racial Hierarchies ◽

Descent Of Man ◽

Human Phylogeny

Abstract This paper engages with a specific image: Darwin's tree of the primates. Although this diagram was sketched in ink on paper in 1868, it did not make it into the publication of The Descent of Man (1871). This may seem all the more in need of an explanation because, as Adrian Desmond and James Moore have shown, Darwin strongly relied on the notion of familial genealogy in the development of his theory of organismic evolution, or rather descent. However, Darwin expressed scepticism towards visualizations of phylogenies in correspondence with Ernst Haeckel and in fact also in Descent, considering such representations at once too speculative and too concrete. An abstraction such as a tree diagram left little room to ponder possibilities or demarcate hypotheses from evidence. I thus bring Darwin's primate tree into communication with his view on primate and human phylogeny as formulated in Descent, including his rejection of polygenism. I argue that considering the tree's inherent teleology, as well as its power to suggest species status of human populations and to reify ‘racial’ hierarchies, the absence of the diagram in The Descent of Man may be a significant statement.

Download Full-text

Māvors vis-à-vis Mārs: Linguistic History and Cultural Background

Glotta ◽

10.13109/glot.2017.93.1.135 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 93 (1) ◽

pp. 135-153 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Nishimura Kanehiro

Keyword(s):

Cultural Background ◽

Linguistic History

Download Full-text

The History of the Language and the History of the Nation

Armenian Folia Anglistika ◽

10.46991/afa/2020.16.2.106 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 16 (2 (22)) ◽

pp. 106-118

Author(s):

Gabriella Macciocca

Keyword(s):

Political Thought ◽

Italian Literature ◽

The Political ◽

Italian Language ◽

Deep Knowledge ◽

Linguistic History ◽

History Of ◽

The University ◽

Over Time

The history of the language represents a moment of deep knowledge in the development of the political thought of the Nation. With regard to the Italian language, we must recognize observations and summaries of linguistic history produced ever since the origins of the language itself. A short number of examples, coming from the history of the Italian language, and from the history of Italian literature, will be considered. We will consider in which way the language has been taught over time and the University statement.

Download Full-text

A latinizálás és hiánya a pécsváradi apátság alapítólevelében

Névtani Értesítő ◽

10.29178/nevtert.2020.2 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 42 ◽

pp. 29-46

Author(s):

Melinda Szőke

Keyword(s):

Chronological Order ◽

13Th Century ◽

Main Road ◽

15Th Century ◽

Linguistic History ◽

Insight Into

The founding charter of Pécsvárad Abbey (+1015/+1158 [about 1220]/1323/1403/PR.) is a document that has only survived in a 15th-century copy of a 13th-century forgery. Thus, an analysis of toponym history and linguistic history must deal with several chronological planes when studying the document. The first section of this study examines Hungarian words (Duna ‘Danube’; the names of trees: e.g. tulfa ‘oak’, scylfa ‘elm’; geographic common nouns: e.g. aruc ‘ditch’, nogwt ‘main road’) that are used only in Latin in other documents or are characterised by mixed usages of Latin and Hungarian terms. These indicate a lack of Latinisation. The second section details the characteristics of five Latin name forms used in the document (Scena abbatis, Sirmia, Strigoniensis, Colocensis, Montis Ferrei), emphasising their chronological order. The small number of Latin names among all designations in the charter and the use of vulgar elements instead of Latin is presented as an imprint of 11th-century charter writing (from the time of Saint Stephen). Thus, the charter can provide significant insight into the beginnings of charter writing in Hungary.

Download Full-text