Culture trumps biology in language development, study argues (fwd link)

[Richard Zane Smith]

kweh omateru',
If i understand correctly, it seems an understanding of THE BIG picture
(paradigm) is ever expanding,
and when we recognize *universal patterns*, eg.,within physics,
astronomical, molecular,
we can learn how BASIC universal patterns apply to all of reality ... even
to our fields of linguistics.

"Continual metamorphosis" (as Jess described) seems to be an established
universal model,
pops up everywhere,  not a concept foreign to any indigenous thinking i'm
aware of.
Our own cultural expressions, reasons, and  descriptions of "change" WILL be
different, and thats the beauty.

BUT is it merely from the halls of academia that the big picture comes into
view?
or are indigenous cultures approaching the BIG PICTURE views in their own
particular ways?

For those of us in the process of revitalization of Language/Culture,
We have that difficult task of moving, often as our Maori friends describe
as, our backs to the future.
How do we preserve worthy cultural distinction while appreciating the  "BIG
PICTURE" ?
Will the standardization of a ONE SIZE fits all GENERIC Academic system,
only feed the tsunami effects of an underlying undetected colonialism?
reducing all cultural circles to floating angular particles, with a touch of
"nice" color here and there?

Will our own cultural leaders return from Academic Institutions,the
*new*secular missionaries
to compartmentalize our own cultural practices and life-ways into nice new
ribbon shirts?

I am *always* hungry to learn more! ... but at the same time I'm cautious
and suspicious of
academicism, and Greenhouse grown paradigms, always reducing...always
compartmentalizing,
It is the nature of conquest to blaze trails, be the first, to discover new
uncharted territories
There is a very destructive side to all this reductionism that i find
worrisome.
(the sciences once thought creating styrofoam for the entire world! was an
excellent idea)

ske:noh
Richard



On Fri, Apr 15, 2011 at 2:29 AM, jess tauber
<phonosemantics at earthlink.net>wrote:

> Well, off topically, I've been reworking the Periodic Table, at both
> electronic and nuclear levels, and have found numerous new, previously
> unnoticed relations to the Pascal Triangle and the Golden Ratio. The latter
> appear in natural phenomena, both inanimate and living, all over the place,
> and at every scale. It should therefore not be surprising that people are
> looking into language structure and usage along these lines as well. I also
> dabble in optical theory, one application of my work may give us the ability
> to create new space telescope objectives on the scale of many miles or
> larger, cheaply, that will let us image planets around other stars. We'll be
> able to watch the pod people squabble about their endangered communicative
> systems. Exolinguists, sign up now.
>
> As for word roots and their naturalness within particular language systems,
> it seems to me that there is always a reworking going on, ultimately based
> on some semiotic principle or other, at some constructional level.
> Continuous metamorphosis. This might explain the distribution of sound
> symbolism in the languages of the world, against morphosyntactic type, word
> formation, etc. It reminds me a bit of the heirloom hammer where the father
> had to replace the head after it rusted through, and the son got a new
> handle after the original rotted.
>
> Jess Tauber
>
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