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How to launch new ideas IV Why have words (Presentation)
If you say that we have words to pinpoint and describe the
things
around us, and to explain what we may wish to do in their
respect, you
will not be far wrong. But there is more to it than that.
If we tried to describe the patterns made by the water in these
two
pictures, words would fail us in English and probably Georgian
too; but
it would be no problem in the American Indian language Hopi,
where in
the first situation a native Hopi speaker would say harand in
the
second harrta. If the same native Hopi Indianthere are about
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16,000 of these original inhabitants of Arizona still
survivingwere to
speak about wind blowing across a cornfield
he might say waya, ayaor if the wind is really rippling through
the
field wayayata, ayayata or evenand this is how Van Gogh saw
it
riayata. These Hopi words precisely describe exact wave-like
motions.
So American Indian languages have excellent words to describe
events
in nature, and to denote a small difference between them,
something
which you only really see if you live close to nature for
thousands of
years.
But Western peoples have languages which are strong on words
for
objects. It was guns and the desire for gold which destroyed
the
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American Indian peoples, but the American Indian language
Shwanee
cannot say, I clean a gun with a metal rod: they can only say,
dry
space, interior of hole, movement Pkw, alk, h.
Its like they are dreaming! But they have excellent words for
their
dreams.
IV Archaeology of a Language
At Dmanisi, as is well known, archaeologists were able to find
skulls
dating back 1.8.million years: of hominids who had come to the
area
that is now Georgia from Africa.
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A million years later, also in Africa, evidence is emerging
about the first
symbolic human thinking and behaviour, asthiswonderful video
shows.
transcript
We will touch on other aspects of this interesting story as we
study the
course; for now I wanted to fast forward to our textwritten in
2008
and see how the words in it can be traced back at least two
thousand
years. Below is a colour key to enable you to see which words
can be
traced to which area of the evolution of English, and one or two
starred
words of especial interest we may discuss in detail at a later
stage.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4Pvh9_jttkhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4Pvh9_jttkhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4Pvh9_jttkhttp://www.scribd.com/doc/234749678/Thinking-in-Symbolshttp://www.scribd.com/doc/234749678/Thinking-in-Symbolshttp://www.scribd.com/doc/234749678/Thinking-in-Symbolshttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4Pvh9_jttk
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As Ive said, English means learning at least four languages at
once
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Good luck on the journeyand I hope that Ive whetted your
appetite!
