<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class="">Dear All,<div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">to be honest, I don't believe that languages function with clear categories for concepts like "animal". More probably, there is something like a prototypical "core" for "animalness" (or many of them, if there are many categories corresponding to "animal"), surrounded by grey zones and depending on contexts, styles, subcultures, etc.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">My own anecdotal experience (which first caught my attention years ago, when working on a translation job): in Estonian, "loomad ja linnud" (‘animals and birds’, implying that ‘birds’ are a category distinct from ‘animals’) seems to be a pretty frequent expression (more than 60,000 Google hits). As a native speaker of Finnish, I find the Finnish equivalent expression, "eläimet ja linnut", less natural or not as idiomatic and acceptable as the Estonian one; it does occur but clearly less frequently than in Estonian (13,700 Google hits), and according to my intuition, the Finnish ‘bird’ is a borderline case – birds might be "animals" or "not-animals", depending on context and use. I'm also pretty sure that many other Finnish speakers might see this differently.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Therefore, I have great doubts concerning the use of questionnaires for gathering data. Or, at least, the questionnaire should be very carefully planned, to accommodate vagueness and fuzzy or overlapping categories.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Best</div><div class="">Johanna</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">PS. Note also that terms for animals in many languages are greatly affected by taboos. And that the term ‘animal’ in itself is often a derivative (Finnish eläin = "living thing", Estonian loom = "creature", Hungarian állat = "standing thing") or a result of semantic extension or specification (cf. German "Tier" and its Scandinavian cognates with English "deer", or the fact that Hungarian "állat" a few centuries ago had a more general meaning, something like "entity" or "being") and that these developments might be connected to cultural changes.<br class=""><div class="">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; border-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;"><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; border-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;"><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div class="">--</div><div class="">Univ.Prof. Dr. Johanna Laakso</div><div class="">Universität Wien, Institut für Europäische und Vergleichende Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaft (EVSL)</div><div class="">Abteilung Finno-Ugristik</div><div class="">Campus AAKH Spitalgasse 2-4 Hof 7</div><div class="">A-1090 Wien</div><div class=""><a href="mailto:johanna.laakso@univie.ac.at" class="">johanna.laakso@univie.ac.at</a> • <a href="http://homepage.univie.ac.at/Johanna.Laakso/" class="">http://homepage.univie.ac.at/Johanna.Laakso/</a></div><div class="">Project ELDIA: <a href="http://www.eldia-project.org/" class="">http://www.eldia-project.org/</a> </div><div class=""><br class=""></div></div></span><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"></div></span><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><br class="Apple-interchange-newline">
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<br class=""><div><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class="">Hedvig Skirgård <<a href="mailto:hedvig.skirgard@gmail.com" class="">hedvig.skirgard@gmail.com</a>> kirjoitti 15.10.2018 kello 13.55:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><div class=""><div dir="ltr" class="">Dear everyone, <div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Queries like one David posed are often improved via more systematic data collection using a form. I suggested Google Forms because it's one of the most user friendly and familiar interfaces out there where David could set up a questionnaire and collect data on people's usage of words in their respective language, and also get systematic data on exactly what language they speaks.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">I'm not going to set this up for anyone else or compile the information in this thread, I'm merely suggesting that it a Google Form may be a productive way of going about this. <br clear="all" class=""><div class=""><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr" class=""><div class=""><div dir="ltr" class=""><div class=""><div dir="ltr" class=""><div dir="ltr" class=""><div dir="ltr" class=""><div dir="ltr" class=""><div dir="ltr" class=""><div dir="ltr" class=""><div dir="ltr" class=""><div dir="ltr" class=""><div dir="ltr" class=""><div dir="ltr" class=""><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><span style="font-size:9pt" class=""><b class=""><br class=""></b></span></div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;" class=""><font size="2" face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif" class=""><b class="">Med vänliga hälsningar</b><b class="">,</b><br class=""></font></div><div class=""><div class=""><div dir="ltr" class=""><div dir="ltr" class=""><div dir="ltr" class=""><div dir="ltr" class=""><div dir="ltr" class=""></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;" class=""><b class=""><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif" size="2" class="">Hedvig Skirgård</font></b></div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;" class=""><br class=""></div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;" class=""><font size="1" class=""><span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;" class="">PhD Candidate</span><br class=""></font></div><div style="font-family: Verdana, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;" class=""><span style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif" class=""><font size="1" class="">The Wellsprings of Linguistic Diversity</font></span></div><div style="font-family: Verdana, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;" class=""><font face="verdana, sans-serif" size="1" class="">ARC Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language</font></div><div style="font-family: Verdana, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;" class=""><font face="verdana, sans-serif" size="1" class="">School of Culture, History and Language<br class="">College of Asia and the Pacific</font></div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;" class=""><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif" size="1" class="">The Australian National University</font></div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;" class=""><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif" color="#666666" size="1" class=""><a href="https://sites.google.com/site/hedvigskirgard/" target="_blank" class="">Website</a><br class=""></font></div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;" class=""><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif" size="1" class=""><br class=""></font></div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;" class=""><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif" size="1" class="">P.S. If you have multiple email addresses, I kindly ask you to just use one with corresponding with me. Email threads and invites to get confusing otherwise. I will only email you from my gmail, even if other email addresses re-direct emails to them to my gmail (ANU etc).</font></div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;" class=""><br class=""></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><br class=""></div></div><br class=""><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="">Den mån 15 okt. 2018 kl 22:50 skrev Assibi Apatewon Amidu <<a href="mailto:assibi.amidu@ntnu.no" class="">assibi.amidu@ntnu.no</a>>:<br class=""></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div style="word-wrap:break-word" class="">
Dear Hedvig,
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">I am not myself into google, twitter, facebook, etc. beyond pressing 'like' buttons. If you wish to put the information on these platforms, too, please, do so, as long it does not distract from David's exploration.</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
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<div class="">Best regards,</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">Assibi</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
<div class="">
<div class="">On 15. okt. 2018, at 13:21, Hedvig Skirgård <<a href="mailto:hedvig.skirgard@gmail.com" target="_blank" class="">hedvig.skirgard@gmail.com</a>></div>
<div class=""> wrote:</div>
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<div dir="ltr" class="">May I suggest a google form to be spread around facebook and twitter etc?<br clear="all" class="">
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<div style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt" class=""><font size="2" face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif" class=""><b class="">Med vänliga hälsningar</b><b class="">,</b><br class="">
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<div style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt" class=""><b class=""><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif" size="2" class="">Hedvig Skirgård</font></b></div>
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<div style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt" class=""><font size="1" class=""><span style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif" class="">PhD Candidate</span><br class="">
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<div style="font-family:Verdana,Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt" class="">
<span style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif" class=""><font size="1" class="">The Wellsprings of Linguistic Diversity</font></span></div>
<div style="font-family:Verdana,Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt" class="">
<font face="verdana, sans-serif" size="1" class="">ARC Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language</font></div>
<div style="font-family:Verdana,Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt" class="">
<font face="verdana, sans-serif" size="1" class="">School of Culture, History and Language<br class="">
College of Asia and the Pacific</font></div>
<div style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt" class=""><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif" size="1" class="">The Australian National University</font></div>
<div style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt" class=""><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif" color="#666666" size="1" class=""><a href="https://sites.google.com/site/hedvigskirgard/" target="_blank" class="">Website</a><br class="">
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<div style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt" class=""><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif" size="1" class="">P.S. If you have multiple email addresses, I kindly ask you to just use one with corresponding with me. Email threads and invites to get confusing otherwise. I will only
email you from my gmail, even if other email addresses re-direct emails to them to my gmail (ANU etc).</font></div>
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<div dir="ltr" class="">Den mån 15 okt. 2018 kl 21:31 skrev Assibi Apatewon Amidu <<a href="mailto:assibi.amidu@ntnu.no" target="_blank" class="">assibi.amidu@ntnu.no</a>>:<br class="">
</div>
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<div style="word-wrap:break-word" class="">Dear David and all,
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">Your exploration is very educative. I cannot claim to be able to answer your questions, but here is a take from Kiswahili. In Kiswahili, the categorization is as follows:</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">1. <i class="">Mtu/Watu</i> 'being/s' (Classes 1/2 M/WA) includes human and other animates. They are superordniate terms which subsume (2-3).</div>
<div class="">2. <i class="">Mnyama/Wanyama</i> 'animal/s, ±live' (Classes 1/2 M/WA) , (historically undifferentiated as<i class=""> nyama/nyama</i> of classes 9/10, N/N up to ends of the 19th century) which subsume (3), hence hypernym to (3).</div>
<div class="">3. <i class="">Mdudu/Wadudu</i> 'insect/s, crawler/s, parasite/s, and others, ±live' (Classes 1/2 M/WA).</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">This gives us three generic terms for referring to humans, animal, insects and other species all the way to microbes. (2-3) are co-hyponyms of (1). These are not sharp mutually exclusive categories. Thus, centipede, scorpion, etc. are also types of (3),
and human, and other animals, e.g. hippo, can be described as <i class="">wadudu</i>, or better still with the augmentative
<i class="">dudu/madudu</i>, depending on the communication intention of the speaker, e,g, how monstrous they perceive the entity. Returning to your list of words, they would fall under (1-2), but specifically under (2) in everyday usage. For a quick, not too detailed,
discussion, kindly look at chapter 2 of</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">Amidu, A. A. (2007). <i class="">Semantic Assignement Rules in Kiswahili Bantu Classes</i>. Köln: Rüdiger Köppe Verlag. </div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">Best wishes,</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">Assibi</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
<div class="">
<div class="">On 14. okt. 2018, at 08:11, David Gil <<a href="mailto:gil@shh.mpg.de" target="_blank" class="">gil@shh.mpg.de</a>></div>
<div class=""> wrote:</div>
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<div bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000" class=""><p class="">Randy,</p><p class="">So which of the items in (1-8) are covered by Chinese <i class="">dòngwù</i> (動物), ‘moving thing’?</p><p class="">David<br class="">
</p><p class=""><br class="">
</p>
<br class="">
<div class="m_-6983009224296648985m_6965022154629685558moz-cite-prefix">On 14/10/2018 03:59, Randy LaPolla wrote:<br class="">
</div>
<blockquote type="cite" class="">Hi David,
<div class="">The categories as you have them (1-8) reflect certain cultural conceptions, and so won’t be the same for other cultures. For example, in Chinese bats were traditionally seen as flying mice, and lizards were seen as four-legged snakes. </div>
<div class="">The word in Chinese that we translate as ‘animal’ is <i class="">dòngwù</i> (動物), ‘moving thing’. </div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">Randy<br class="">
<div dir="ltr" class="">Sent from my iPhone</div>
<div dir="ltr" class=""><br class="">
On 14 Oct 2018, at 12:33 AM, David Gil <<a href="mailto:gil@shh.mpg.de" target="_blank" class="">gil@shh.mpg.de</a>> wrote:<br class="">
<br class="">
</div>
<blockquote type="cite" class="">
<div dir="ltr" class="">
<div class=""><br class="m_-6983009224296648985webkit-block-placeholder">
</div><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" class="">Dear all,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" class=""><br class="">
</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" class="">I am interested in exploring, cross-linguistically, the semantic range of words that correspond more or less to the English word "animal".</span></p>
<div class=""><span lang="EN-US" class=""> </span><br class="m_-6983009224296648985m_6965022154629685558webkit-block-placeholder">
</div><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" class="">Here are examples of the things that English "animal" refers to:</span></p>
<div class=""><span lang="EN-US" class=""> </span><br class="m_-6983009224296648985m_6965022154629685558webkit-block-placeholder">
</div><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" class="">1. dog, kangaroo, lizard, frog ...<br class="">
</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" class="">2. eagle, sparrow, chicken, bat ...<br class="">
</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" class="">3. bee, scorpion, spider, centipede ...<br class="">
</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" class="">4. crab, shrimp ...<br class="">
</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" class="">5. worm, leech ...<br class="">
</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" class="">6. starfish, jellyfish, squid, octopus ...<br class="">
</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" class="">7. oyster, clam ...<br class="">
</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" class="">8. sponge (?) ...<br class="">
</span></p>
<div class=""><span lang="EN-US" class=""> </span><br class="m_-6983009224296648985m_6965022154629685558webkit-block-placeholder">
</div><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" class="">I am looking for examples of languages in which the basic word closest to English "animal" is nevertheless different in its coverage.<span class="">
</span>In particular, I would like to find instances — if such exist — of languages in which there is a basic word that covers the examples in 1-4 (or maybe 1-5) to the exclusion of those in 5-8 (or maybe 6-8).<span class="">
</span><span class=""> </span>(Note that the question concerns every-day words that reflect our naive folk biological knowledge, not with scientific terms in those few languages that have such terminology.)</span></p>
<div class=""><span lang="EN-US" class=""> </span><br class="m_-6983009224296648985m_6965022154629685558webkit-block-placeholder">
</div><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" class="">Some words of background:<span class=""> </span>A colleague and I working in experimental cognitive science have found (non-linguistic) empirical evidence for the psychological reality of an ontological category that consists
roughly of animals of the kind exemplified in 1-4 (and possibly also 5).<span class=""> </span>
We are calling this category "higher animals".<span class=""> </span>The characteristic prototypical features of higher animals include a single axis of symmetry, the existence of head, torso and limbs, a face in the front of the head that includes sensory organs such
as eyes, and a mouth for eating, and the ability to move forward in the direction that the head is facing.
<span class=""> </span>A challenge that we face is that, in the (few) languages that we are familiar with, there is no simple word for higher animals.<span class="">
</span>But we are hoping that other languages might have such a word.<span class=""> </span>
in addition, we would also welcome grammatical evidence for the category of higher animals, for example in the form of grammatical rules that are sensitive to the animacy hierarchy by making reference to a cut-off point between higher and other animals.</span></p>
<div class=""><span lang="EN-US" class=""> </span><br class="m_-6983009224296648985m_6965022154629685558webkit-block-placeholder">
</div><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" class="">I look forward to your responses.<span class=""> </span>
Thanks,</span></p>
<div class=""><span lang="EN-US" class=""> </span><br class="m_-6983009224296648985m_6965022154629685558webkit-block-placeholder">
</div><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" class="">David</span></p>
<pre class="m_-6983009224296648985m_6965022154629685558moz-signature" cols="72">--
David Gil
Department of Linguistic and Cultural Evolution
Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History
Kahlaische Strasse 10, 07745 Jena, Germany
Email: <a class="m_-6983009224296648985m_6965022154629685558moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:gil@shh.mpg.de" target="_blank">gil@shh.mpg.de</a>
Office Phone (Germany): +49-3641686834
Mobile Phone (Indonesia): +62-81281162816
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<pre class="m_-6983009224296648985m_6965022154629685558moz-signature" cols="72">--
David Gil
Department of Linguistic and Cultural Evolution
Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History
Kahlaische Strasse 10, 07745 Jena, Germany
Email: <a class="m_-6983009224296648985m_6965022154629685558moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:gil@shh.mpg.de" target="_blank">gil@shh.mpg.de</a>
Office Phone (Germany): +49-3641686834
Mobile Phone (Indonesia): +62-81281162816
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