scholarly journals Hybridity versus Revivability: Multiple Causation, Forms and Patterns

2009 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 40-67 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ghil'ad Zuckermann
Keyword(s):  
Historical Linguistics ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
Spoken Language ◽  
Family Tree ◽  
Single Source ◽  
Congruence Principle ◽  
Modern Hebrew ◽  
Multiple Causation ◽  
Cross Fertilization

AbstractThe aim of this article is to suggest that due to the ubiquitous multiple causation, the revival of a no-longer spoken language is unlikely without cross-fertilization from the revivalists' mother tongue(s). Thus, one should expect revival efforts to result in a language with a hybridic genetic and typological character. The article highlights salient morphological constructions and categories, illustrating the difficulty in determining a single source for the grammar of Israeli, somewhat misleadingly a.k.a. 'Modern Hebrew'. The European impact in these features is apparent inter alia in structure, semantics or productivity. Multiple causation is manifested in the Congruence Principle, according to which if a feature exists in more than one contributing language, it is more likely to persist in the emerging language. Consequently, the reality of linguistic genesis is far more complex than a simple family tree system allows. 'Revived' languages are unlikely to have a single parent. The multisourced nature of Israeli and the role of the Congruence Principle in its genesis have implications for historical linguistics, language planning and the study of language, culture and identity.

’Nother Tongue

Revivalistics ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 44-111
Author(s):  
Ghil'ad Zuckermann
Keyword(s):  
Mother Tongue ◽  
Spoken Language ◽  
Single Source ◽  
Multiple Causation ◽  
Cross Fertilization

This chapter analyses salient phonetic, phonological, morphological, syntactic, and lexical features in the fully fledged Israeli language. It illustrates the difficulty in determining a single source for the grammar of Israeli. The European impact in these features is apparent inter alia in structure, semantics, or productivity. The chapter demonstrates the ubiquitous multiple causation in Israeli and that the revival of a no-longer spoken language is unlikely without cross-fertilization from the revivalists’ mother tongue(s). Thus, one should expect revival efforts to result in a language with a hybridic genetic and typological character.

Revivalistics

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ghil'ad Zuckermann
Keyword(s):  
Critical Analysis ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
South Australia ◽  
Spoken Language ◽  
Promised Land ◽  
Language Revival ◽  
Revival Movements ◽  
Disciplinary Field ◽  
Multiple Causation ◽  
Cross Fertilization

This seminal book introduces revivalistics, a new trans-disciplinary field of enquiry surrounding language reclamation, revitalization and reinvigoration. The book is divided into two main parts that represent Zuckermann’s fascinating and multifaceted journey into language revival, from the ‘Promised Land’ (Israel) to the ‘Lucky Country’ (Australia) and beyond: PART 1: LANGUAGE REVIVAL AND CROSS-FERTILIZATION The aim of this part is to suggest that due to the ubiquitous multiple causation, the reclamation of a no-longer spoken language is unlikely without cross-fertilization from the revivalists’ mother tongue(s). Thus, one should expect revival efforts to result in a language with a hybridic genetic and typological character. The book highlights salient morphological, phonological, phonetic, syntactic, semantic and lexical features, illustrating the difficulty in determining a single source for the grammar of ‘Israeli’, the language resulting from the Hebrew revival. The European impact in these features is apparent inter alia in structure, semantics or productivity. PART 2: LANGUAGE REVIVAL AND WELLBEING The book then applies practical lessons (rather than clichés) from the critical analysis of the Hebrew reclamation to other revival movements globally, and goes on to describe the why and how of language revival. The how includes practical, nitty-gritty methods for reclaiming ‘sleeping beauties’ such as the Barngarla Aboriginal language of Eyre Peninsula, South Australia, e.g. using what Zuckermann calls talknology (talk+technology). The why includes ethical, aesthetic, and utilitarian reasons such as improving wellbeing and mental health.

The Role of Nonadjacent Phonotactic Dependencies in the Perception of Spoken Language

2004 ◽  
Author(s):  
Conor T. McLennan ◽  
Paul A. Luce ◽  
Robert La Vigne
Keyword(s):  
Spoken Language

Language Use and Sustainable Development: Opportunities and Challenges for Policy-Makers and Educators in Northeast Vietnamese Areas

2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 122-130
Author(s):  
Ha Ngan Ngo ◽  
Maya Khemlani David
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Groups ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
Language Shift ◽  
Minority Languages ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Positive Attitudes ◽  
The Status ◽  
Wedding Songs

Vietnam represents a country with 54 ethnic groups; however, the majority (88%) of the population are of Vietnamese heritage. Some of the other ethnic groups such as Tay, Thai, Muong, Hoa, Khmer, and Nung have a population of around 1 million each, while the Brau, Roman, and Odu consist only of a hundred people each. Living in northern Vietnam, close to the Chinese border (see Figure 1), the Tay people speak a language of the    Central    Tai language group called Though, T'o, Tai Tho, Ngan, Phen, Thu Lao, or Pa Di. Tay remains one of 10 ethnic languages used by 1 million speakers (Buoi, 2003). The Tày ethnic group has a rich culture of wedding songs, poems, dance, and music and celebrate various festivals. Wet rice cultivation, canal digging and grain threshing on wooden racks are part of the Tày traditions. Their villages situated near the foothills often bear the names of nearby mountains, rivers, or fields. This study discusses the status and role of the Tày language in Northeast Vietnam. It discusses factors, which have affected the habitual use of the Tay language, the connection between language shift and development and provides a model for the sustainability and promotion of minority languages. It remains fundamentally imperative to strengthen and to foster positive attitudes of the community towards the Tày language. Tày’s young people must be enlightened to the reality their Tày non-usage could render their mother tongue defunct, which means their history stands to be lost.

The role of communities in Uganda’s mother tongue-based education: Perspectives from a literacy learning enhancement project in Arua district

2020 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Willy Ngaka
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Primary Education ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
Literacy Learning ◽  
Local Communities ◽  
Cultural Resources ◽  
Learning Enhancement ◽  
2030 Agenda ◽  
Medium Education

AbstractThis paper explores some of the factors that limit the effectiveness of Uganda’s mother tongue-based education policy, where instruction in lower primary classes is provided in the mother tongue. Using socio-cultural and ethnographic lenses, the paper draws from the experiences of a study implemented by a Ugandan NGO in one primary school in Arua district. Findings revealed weaknesses in implementation of the MTBE policy, highlighting deficiencies in the training of teachers, and lack of sensitization of local communities to the value of MTBE. The study also highlights the need for greater involvement of many kinds of stakeholder, and in particular, it focuses on how communities can be encouraged to work together with schools. A clearer understanding of what literacy involves, and how subjects can be taught in poorly-resourced communities, can be gained by considering the contribution of funds of local knowledge and modes of expression that build on local cultural resources. However, the strategies proposed are insufficient given the flawed model of primary education that the present MTBE policy embodies. A reenvisioning of how MTBE articulates with English-medium education is also needed. Substantial rethinking is needed to address target 4.6 of SDG 4 (UNDP, Transforming our world: The 2030 agenda for sustainable development. https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/post2015/transformingourworld (accessed 30 November 2015), 2015) which aims to ensure that “all youth and a substantial proportion of adults achieve literacy and numeracy by 2030”.

scholarly journals In search of a Goldilocks zone for credible AI

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin Allan ◽  
Nir Oren ◽  
Jacqui Hutchison ◽  
Douglas Martin
Keyword(s):  
Social Cognition ◽  
Single Source ◽  
Multiple Tests ◽  
The Social ◽  
New Directions ◽  
Global Problems ◽  
Scene Content ◽  
Different Sources ◽  
Source Accuracy

AbstractIf artificial intelligence (AI) is to help solve individual, societal and global problems, humans should neither underestimate nor overestimate its trustworthiness. Situated in-between these two extremes is an ideal ‘Goldilocks’ zone of credibility. But what will keep trust in this zone? We hypothesise that this role ultimately falls to the social cognition mechanisms which adaptively regulate conformity between humans. This novel hypothesis predicts that human-like functional biases in conformity should occur during interactions with AI. We examined multiple tests of this prediction using a collaborative remembering paradigm, where participants viewed household scenes for 30 s vs. 2 min, then saw 2-alternative forced-choice decisions about scene content originating either from AI- or human-sources. We manipulated the credibility of different sources (Experiment 1) and, from a single source, the estimated-likelihood (Experiment 2) and objective accuracy (Experiment 3) of specific decisions. As predicted, each manipulation produced functional biases for AI-sources mirroring those found for human-sources. Participants conformed more to higher credibility sources, and higher-likelihood or more objectively accurate decisions, becoming increasingly sensitive to source accuracy when their own capability was reduced. These findings support the hypothesised role of social cognition in regulating AI’s influence, raising important implications and new directions for research on human–AI interaction.

The role of second language in higher education: A case study of German students at a Dutch university

2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lidy Zijlmans ◽  
Anneke Neijt ◽  
Roeland van Hout
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Academic Success ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
Research Question ◽  
Educational Background ◽  
Primary Concern ◽  
Study Results ◽  
Main Language

AbstractThis article reports on an investigation of the challenges and benefits of university students taking a degree course in a language other than their mother tongue. Our study was conducted from the point of view of the non-native students themselves, and our primary concern was the role of language. We investigated the academic achievement of German students studying in a Dutch-English academic environment. Dutch is the main language of instruction, and English the main language of the literature used. In search of predictors for successful learning of Dutch (our first research question), LexTALE tests were administered to determine linguistic competence in the students’ first language, German, and their second language, English. In addition, we collected data on their educational background and language learning history. None of the LexTALE scores stood out as ‘the’ predictor for success in learning Dutch; German was a slightly better predictor than English. The best predictor appeared to be the students’ general educational level, expressed in mean grades for final exams in secondary education. We then studied the role of proficiency in the foreign languages needed for academic success. Language data on L3 Dutch were gathered at the start and were compared to study results after the first six months and at the end of the first year. The level of Dutch as a second language correlated with study results, expressed in ECTS; the correlation was even higher with mean grades on exams. This indicates that language proficiency does play a role in study success.

The role of prosody in morphological change: The case of Hebrew bound numerals

2008 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-65 ◽  
Author(s):  
Irit Meir
Keyword(s):  
Native Speakers ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Noun Phrases ◽  
Grammaticality Judgments ◽  
Rapid Changes ◽  
The Feminine ◽  
Modern Hebrew ◽  
State Of Affairs ◽  
The One

AbstractThe morphological system of cardinal numerals in Modern Hebrew is currently undergoing rapid changes, enabling linguists to unravel the forces shaping the change as it takes place. In the free forms, gender marking on numerals is neutralized by collapsing both masculine and feminine forms into one paradigm, the feminine paradigm. In the bound (definite) forms, an opposite direction is attested, in that at least for some numerals, the masculine forms become more prevalent. The study reported here aims to determine whether the factor determining the change is prosodic or functional in nature, by eliciting production and grammaticality judgments of noun phrases containing bound numerals from five different age groups of native speakers. The results suggest that prosody plays a role in shaping the change, as forms with penultimate stress are favored over those with ultimate stress. In addition, processes of production and processes of grammaticality judgments seem to be subject to different kinds of constraints. This state of affairs indicates that the tension between the tendencies toward simplification on the one hand and maximal distinctness on the other occurs at the morphological level as well.

Root lexical features and inflectional marking of tense in Proto-Indo-European

2009 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
pp. 505-532 ◽  
Author(s):  
ANNAMARIA BARTOLOTTA
Keyword(s):  
Historical Linguistics ◽  
Past Tense ◽  
Inflectional Morphology ◽  
Verbal System ◽  
Lexical Aspect ◽  
Lexical Feature ◽  
General Linguistic ◽  
Linguistic Approaches ◽  
Shed Light

This paper examines early inflectional morphology related to the tense-aspect system of Proto-Indo-European. It will be argued that historical linguistics can shed light on the long-standing debate over the emergence of tense-aspect morphology in language acquisition. The dispute over this issue is well-known; it has been pursued mostly by scholars following various general linguistic approaches, from typology to acquisition, but also by historical linguists and Indo-Europeanists, who have long debated about the precedence of aspect or tense from both a synchronic and a diachronic perspective. However, so far Indo-Europeanists have rarely confronted their results in a successful way with recent research in other fields such as acquisition or neurolinguistics. The aim of this paper is to put forward evidence from the reconstruction of the Proto-Indo-European verbal system concerning the prominent role of root lexical aspect features in the emergence of grammatical marking of tense in the proto-language. More precisely, by means of a comparison between the residual archaic verbal forms of theinjunctivein Vedic Sanskrit and the corresponding augmentless preterites in Homeric Greek, it will be argued that the [±telic] lexical feature of the inherited verbal root is responsible for a non-random distribution of past tense inflected forms in an earlier verbal paradigm.

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