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

[MJ Hardman]

Thank you for stating it so well for us.  MJ

On 4/15/11 10:05 AM, "Richard Zane Smith" <rzs at WILDBLUE.NET> wrote:

> 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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