seeking recommendation for articles evaluating linguistic contacts

[Patrick, Peter L]

I suggest contacting Sally Thomason about this. In addition to being a
historical linguist and specialist in language contact, Sally has a
sideline
doing debunking of pseudo=science, and so is ideally placed to comment
on
this - and probably knows good sources too.
	Her homepage is
http://www.lsa.umich.edu/ling/people/Sarah_Thomason.htm

	-peter p-

Prof Peter L Patrick
Dept of Language and Linguistics
University of Essex
Wivenhoe Park
Colchester CO4 3SQ, UK

E:  patrickp at essex.ac.uk
Ph:  +44 (0) 1206 87.2088
Fax: +44(0) 1206 87.2198
Web: privatewww.essex.ac.uk/~patrickp



> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-linganth at ats.rochester.edu 
> [mailto:owner-linganth at ats.rochester.edu] On Behalf Of 
> Harriet J. Ottenheimer
> Sent: 18 July 2005 16:41
> To: LingAnth List
> Cc: Lauren Ritterbush
> Subject: [Linganth] seeking recommendation for articles 
> evaluating linguistic contacts
> 
> 
> Hi all.
> 
> I hope everyone's summer is going well.
> 
> A colleague of mine at Kansas State University has asked me the 
> following question:
> 
> ---------------
> 
> [quote]  ". . . In my Archaeological Fact or Fiction class, 
> we discuss 
> various claims of migration and diffusion, many over long distances.  
> For example, the claimed transatlantic crossing of Africans 
> to Central 
> America, where these "advanced" Africans were claimed to have 
> influenced 
> the development of the Olmec civilization.  In evaluating 
> these claims, 
> we often look mostly at the archaeological record.
> 
>     However, many of these claims try to use linguistics, or, more 
> specifically, word similarities to support their claim.  Not 
> being well 
> versed in linguistics, I often am unable to explain very well the 
> problems of making comparisons based only on word similarities.  I am 
> already familiar with some discussion of this topic for the claimed 
> Africa-Central America connection, but I wonder if you might 
> by chance 
> be familiar with other discussions of problems with similar arguments.
> 
>     The most recent controversial claim is that ancient Polynesians 
> sailed to southern California. The claimed evidence is the similarity 
> between sewn-plank boats found in both places, but also 
> similarities in 
> Polynesian and Chumash words, especially related to these boats. In 
> order to guide students to look not only at archaeological evidence 
> critically, but also linguistic evidence, I wonder if you 
> might know of 
> any resources that would be useful in evaluating arguments of contact 
> between peoples that are based on linguistic similarities? . 
> . ."  [end 
> quote]
> 
> ------------
> 
> My colleague is already aware of at least one critique of the 
> African-Olmec connection that includes some discussion of the 
> linguistic 
> argument.  Does anyone know of a good article which critiques the 
> linguistic assumptions made concerning the 
> Polynesian-California connection?
> 
> Also: does anyone know of a good *general* article which 
> explains how to 
> evaluate and critique the arguments for contact based on linguistic 
> evidence? 
> 
> My colleague is looking, in particular, for a good article 
> (one which is 
> neither too long nor too technical) that she can use with a class of 
> undergraduates, most of whom have little or no background in 
> linguistics 
> or linguistic anthro.  
> 
> An article which discusses the folly of making claims for 
> contact based 
> on only one or two supposedly "similar" words would be ideal.  Or an 
> article which shows students that apparently similar words 
> may actually 
> function quite differently in different grammatical and cultural 
> contexts, and therefore might not be reliable linguistic 
> indicators of 
> ancient contacts.
> 
> I would appreciate it if anyone can recommend any good readings.
> 
> You can write either directly to her (Lauren Ritterbush 
> <lritterb at ksu.edu>), or to me and I will forward to her.  (I 
> am cc'ing 
> this message to her.)
> 
> Many thanks.
> 
> Harriet Ottenheimer
> Professor of Anthropology and American Ethnic Studies
> Kansas State University
> 
> 
> 
>