From linguista at gmail.com  Wed Feb  2 02:10:08 2011
From: linguista at gmail.com (Bryan James Gordon)
Date: Tue, 1 Feb 2011 19:10:08 -0700
Subject: Omaha and Ponca to Arabic: You're not so unique after all!
In-Reply-To: <AANLkTin0xHhz+QT12Qwi0DgzWPC=8RtNv1DbW80F+An-@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <TUE.1.FEB.2011.191008.0700.>

Kees Versteegh, writing on /ḍ/ in the Encyclopedia of Arabic Language and
Linguistics:

Sībawayhi (Kitāb II, 405.8-9) describes [ḍād]'s place of articulation as
being "between the first part of the side of the tongue and the adjacent
molars" (*min bayna ˀawwal ḥāfat al-lisān wa-mā yalīhi min al-ˀaḍrās*). The
exact interpretation of this passage remains controversial. ... Cantineau
(1960:55) is probably right in interpreting it as a lateral or lateralized
velarized voiced interdental fricative ... IPA [ðˡ] .... This would make it,
indeed, a unique sound among the world's languages (cf. Ladefoged and
Maddieson 1966:154-56).


Ha!

Of course I use [ðˡ] or [ɫð] all the time when I use IPA to represent Omaha
and Ponca words. Unique indeed. If the CSG has a phonology section, this
should definitely be in it.

Sībawayh's description is over 1200 years old, of course, so it is not true
of most forms of Arabic today, although many Arabic loanwords in other
languages have laterals where ḍād should be.

-- 
***********************************************************
Bryan James Gordon, MA
Joint PhD Program in Linguistics and Anthropology
University of Arizona
***********************************************************
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From shokoohbanou at yahoo.co.uk  Wed Feb  2 11:14:32 2011
From: shokoohbanou at yahoo.co.uk (shokooh Ingham)
Date: Wed, 2 Feb 2011 11:14:32 +0000
Subject: Omaha and Ponca to Arabic: You're not so unique after all!
In-Reply-To: <AANLkTimO1am0GC3yREdnPu7zy5=AYA60jmVsnz9WnytQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <WED.2.FEB.2011.111432.0000.>

Interesting to hear of the Omaha Ponca sound.  The Arabic one, or possibly something similar, still occurs in dialects of the South West ie some parts of 'Asir in Saudi Arabia and in Yemen.  The Arabs used to refer to their language as Lughat al-[ḍād], the Language of [ḍād] or Lughat al -'Ain the Language of 'Ain (the pharyngeal voiced sound, fricative, continuant or plosive, depending on who you believe), presuming that these sounds were not used by other people.  The latter is less rare, also occurring in Somali and Amharic and I think some Caucasian languages.

Ethnocentricity is widespread.  I remember as a boy in primary school being shown a map of the world and being told proudly by the teacher to note that England was in the middle of the world. The Chinese obviously used a different map.

Bruce

--- On Wed, 2/2/11, Bryan James Gordon <linguista at gmail.com> wrote:

From: Bryan James Gordon <linguista at gmail.com>
Subject: Omaha and Ponca to Arabic: You're not so unique after all!
To: "Siouan Listserv" <siouan at lists.Colorado.EDU>
Date: Wednesday, 2 February, 2011, 2:10

Kees Versteegh, writing on /ḍ/ in the Encyclopedia of Arabic Language and Linguistics:


Sībawayhi (Kitāb II, 405.8-9) describes [ḍād]'s place of articulation as being "between the first part of the side of the tongue and the adjacent molars" (min bayna ˀawwal ḥāfat al-lisān wa-mā yalīhi min al-ˀaḍrās). The exact interpretation of this passage remains controversial. ... Cantineau (1960:55) is probably right in interpreting it as a lateral or lateralized velarized voiced interdental fricative ... IPA [ðˡ] .... This would make it, indeed, a unique sound among the world's languages (cf. Ladefoged and Maddieson 1966:154-56).


Ha!
Of course I use [ðˡ] or [ɫð] all the time when I use IPA to represent Omaha and Ponca words. Unique indeed. If the CSG has a phonology section, this should definitely be in it.


Sībawayh's description is over 1200 years old, of course, so it is not true of most forms of Arabic today, although many Arabic loanwords in other languages have laterals where ḍād should be.



-- 
***********************************************************
Bryan James Gordon, MA
Joint PhD Program in Linguistics and Anthropology
University of Arizona
***********************************************************





      
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From carudin1 at wsc.edu  Wed Feb  2 14:24:08 2011
From: carudin1 at wsc.edu (Catherine Rudin)
Date: Wed, 2 Feb 2011 08:24:08 -0600
Subject: Omaha and Ponca to Arabic: You're not so unique after all!
Message-ID: <WED.2.FEB.2011.082408.0600.>

Interesting!  (And here I thought O-P was unique.)  :-)
Catherine

>>> shokooh Ingham  02/02/11 5:18 AM >>>
Interesting to hear of the Omaha Ponca sound.  The Arabic one, or
possibly something similar, still occurs in dialects of the South West
ie some parts of 'Asir in Saudi Arabia and in Yemen.  The Arabs used to
refer to their language as Lughat al-[ḍād], the Language of [ḍād] or
Lughat al -'Ain the Language of 'Ain (the pharyngeal voiced sound,
fricative, continuant or plosive, depending on who you believe),
presuming that these sounds were not used by other people.  The latter
is less rare, also occurring in Somali and Amharic and I think some
Caucasian languages.

Ethnocentricity is widespread.  I remember as a boy in primary school
being shown a map of the world and being told proudly by the teacher to
note that England was in the middle of the world. The Chinese obviously
used a different map.

Bruce

--- On Wed, 2/2/11, Bryan James Gordon  wrote:

From: Bryan James Gordon 
Subject: Omaha and Ponca to Arabic: You're not so unique after all!
To: "Siouan Listserv" 
Date: Wednesday, 2 February, 2011, 2:10

Kees Versteegh, writing on /ḍ/ in the Encyclopedia of Arabic Language
and Linguistics:

Sībawayhi (Kitāb II, 405.8-9) describes [ḍād]'s place of articulation as
being "between the first part of the side of the tongue and the adjacent
molars" (min bayna ˀawwal ḥāfat al-lisān wa-mā yalīhi min al-ˀaḍrās).
The exact interpretation of this passage remains controversial. ...
Cantineau (1960:55) is probably right in interpreting it as a lateral or
lateralized velarized voiced interdental fricative ... IPA [ðˡ] ....
This would make it, indeed, a unique sound among the world's languages
(cf. Ladefoged and Maddieson 1966:154-56).


Ha!


Of course I use [ðˡ] or [ɫð] all the time when I use IPA to represent
Omaha and Ponca words. Unique indeed. If the CSG has a phonology
section, this should definitely be in it.


Sībawayh's description is over 1200 years old, of course, so it is not
true of most forms of Arabic today, although many Arabic loanwords in
other languages have laterals where ḍād should be.

-- 
***********************************************************
Bryan James Gordon, MA
Joint PhD Program in Linguistics and Anthropology
University of Arizona
***********************************************************





      
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From mawakuni-swetland2 at unlnotes.unl.edu  Fri Feb  4 00:37:27 2011
From: mawakuni-swetland2 at unlnotes.unl.edu (Mark J Awakuni-Swetland)
Date: Thu, 3 Feb 2011 18:37:27 -0600
Subject: SACC 2011 conference update
Message-ID: <THU.3.FEB.2011.183727.0600.>

Aloha all,
Saul asked me to forward along an update on the 2011 SACC event at White 
Cloud, KS
The original pdf choked the server, so here is a plain.doc version.
Best
Mark



Mark Awakuni-Swetland, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Anthropology & Ethnic Studies 
Native American Studies Program Liaison
University of Nebraska
Department of Anthropology
841 Oldfather Hall 
Lincoln, NE 68588-0368

http://omahalanguage.unl.edu
http://omahaponca.unl.edu
Phone 402-472-3455
FAX: 402-472-9642
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From jgoodtracks at gmail.com  Fri Feb  4 15:26:59 2011
From: jgoodtracks at gmail.com (Jimm GoodTracks)
Date: Fri, 4 Feb 2011 09:26:59 -0600
Subject: Emailing: 2011 SCLC UPDATES.doc
Message-ID: <FRI.4.FEB.2011.092659.0600.>

Conference Attendees:

There is another recent addition(s) to the expanding program for the 2011 SCLC:

Iren Hartman, on Thursday, "Project Valency Classes in/ on Hochank"

Iren Hartman, Thursday Evening Round Table Discussion: "Revival of the Wiki (CSG Project)." 

This will be at the Eagle's Nest Motel facilities, 7pm. Perhaps dinner together at the Motel, if the group desires.

Jimm Goodtracks & Saul Schwartz
Conference Organizers

PS:  We are experiencing technical difficulties with the ListServe. Colorado which may not accept .pdf attachments vs. a .doc attachment.

Another on-going issue is the year long stall on having Saul Schwartz installed, accepted to the ListServe. Colorado.

Please, stand by while these concerns are figured out by someone who knows how to address such issues.  It sure is not in my limited expertise.
jgt 


Jimm G. Goodtracks
Báxoje Jiwére Language Program
POBox 122
White Cloud, Kansas 66094
785 595 3335

Ríre hánwegi ich^é irégrat^a je?
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From carudin1 at wsc.edu  Fri Feb  4 16:16:49 2011
From: carudin1 at wsc.edu (Catherine Rudin)
Date: Fri, 4 Feb 2011 10:16:49 -0600
Subject: Emailing: 2011 SCLC UPDATES.doc
Message-ID: <FRI.4.FEB.2011.101649.0600.>

Jimm --
The conference is sounding great.  I'm impressed at how well organized
it all looks several months in advance!  

Unfortunately I am not so well organized.  I will probably miss the
first day of the conference, arriving late afternoon on Wed. the 15th. 
I knew the conference dates were the 15th-18th, but since 4 days is a
really long conference, I hoped/assumed this meant just an opening event
of some kind the evening of the 15th.  So I accepted an invitation to
conduct a mid-day workshop in Omaha on the 15th.  Looks like I guessed
wrong.   

I'll get there as early as I can, but ... can you move my talk from
Wednesday to Thursday or Friday?  

Thanks, and sorry for the mixup --
Catherine

>>> "Jimm GoodTracks"  02/04/11 9:31 AM >>>
Conference Attendees:
 
There is another recent addition(s) to the expanding program for the
2011 SCLC:
 
Iren Hartman, on Thursday, "Project Valency Classes in/ on Hochank"

 
Iren Hartman, Thursday Evening Round Table Discussion: "Revival of the
Wiki (CSG Project)." 
 
This will be at the Eagle's Nest Motel facilities, 7pm. Perhaps dinner
together at the Motel, if the group desires.
 
Jimm Goodtracks & Saul Schwartz
Conference Organizers
 
PS:  We are experiencing technical difficulties with the ListServe.
Colorado which may not accept .pdf attachments vs. a .doc attachment.
 
Another on-going issue is the year long stall on having Saul Schwartz
installed, accepted to the ListServe. Colorado.
 
Please, stand by while these concerns are figured out by someone who
knows how to address such issues.  It sure is not in my limited
expertise.
jgt 
 
 


Jimm G. Goodtracks
Báxoje Jiwére Language Program
POBox 122
White Cloud, Kansas 66094
785 595 3335

Ríre hánwegi ich^é irégrat^a je?



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From jgoodtracks at gmail.com  Fri Feb  4 16:15:46 2011
From: jgoodtracks at gmail.com (Jimm GoodTracks)
Date: Fri, 4 Feb 2011 10:15:46 -0600
Subject: Fw: Emailing: 2011 SCLC UPDATES.doc
Message-ID: <FRI.4.FEB.2011.101546.0600.>


----- Original Message ----- 
From: Jimm GoodTracks 
To: TRhodd, Iowa Chairman ; siouan at lists.colorado.ed 
Sent: Friday, February 04, 2011 9:26 AM
Subject: Emailing: 2011 SCLC UPDATES.doc


Conference Attendees:

There is another recent addition(s) to the expanding program for the 2011 SCLC:

Iren Hartman, on Thursday, "Project Valency Classes in/ on Hochank"

Iren Hartman, Thursday Evening Round Table Discussion: "Revival of the Wiki (CSG Project)." 

This will be at the Eagle's Nest Motel facilities, 7pm. Perhaps dinner together at the Motel, if the group desires.

Jimm Goodtracks & Saul Schwartz
Conference Organizers

PS:  We are experiencing technical difficulties with the ListServe. Colorado which may not accept .pdf attachments vs. a .doc attachment.

Another on-going issue is the year long stall on having Saul Schwartz installed, accepted to the ListServe. Colorado.

Please, stand by while these concerns are figured out by someone who knows how to address such issues.  It sure is not in my limited expertise.
jgt 


Jimm G. Goodtracks
Báxoje Jiwére Language Program
POBox 122
White Cloud, Kansas 66094
785 595 3335

Ríre hánwegi ich^é irégrat^a je?
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From jgoodtracks at gmail.com  Fri Feb  4 17:06:00 2011
From: jgoodtracks at gmail.com (Jimm GoodTracks)
Date: Fri, 4 Feb 2011 11:06:00 -0600
Subject: Emailing: 2011 SCLC UPDATES.doc
In-Reply-To: <4D4BD2110200008E0002BC54@hermes.wsc.edu>
Message-ID: <FRI.4.FEB.2011.110600.0600.>

Catherine:
Yes, your presentation has been moved from Wednesday to Thursday.  All times and dates are tentative, including title and subjects of presentations.  The general format is for academic presentations to be presented before the applied linguistics presentations, which is why I preferred to begin the conference on Tuesday, June 14th, rather than the first day being Wednesday, June 15th, as it is easier for the community people, tribal members to get away as we move towards the weekend.
Saturday is reserved as a backup overflow of presentations that are unable to be scheduled within the week day time frame.

I also want to stress, that reservations should be made as soon as possible either at the tribal cabins or the Eagle Nest Motel, as I believe it is all on a First Come, First Served.  Of course, if need be there are several Motels in Hiawatha, KS, 22 miles to the Southwest.  
Of those available, we found that the Hiawatha Lodge, (on the south side across from McDonalds  fast foods), www.hiawatha-lodge.com (hiawathalodge at rainbowtel.net) (785 742 7401) is the better one, and has an in-house cafe, serving breakfast, lunch and dinner.  The Iowa Tribe Eagle Nest Motel also has an open restaurant.

The main advantage to Hiawatha Lodge, is that it is near town, services, shopping and Wal-Mart's on the west side of town.  I believe their typical room fee begins at $50; however, check with Saul who has that information.  He is en route from Denver at this moment, so it is inconvenient to call him.  There are still intermittent snow packed roads and slick spots on the highways, that require full attention w/o the distraction of answering an unnecessary cell phone call.
Jimm
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Catherine Rudin 
  To: siouan at lists.Colorado.EDU 
  Sent: Friday, February 04, 2011 10:16 AM
  Subject: Re: Emailing: 2011 SCLC UPDATES.doc


  Jimm --
  The conference is sounding great.  I'm impressed at how well organized it all looks several months in advance!  

  Unfortunately I am not so well organized.  I will probably miss the first day of the conference, arriving late afternoon on Wed. the 15th.  I knew the conference dates were the 15th-18th, but since 4 days is a really long conference, I hoped/assumed this meant just an opening event of some kind the evening of the 15th.  So I accepted an invitation to conduct a mid-day workshop in Omaha on the 15th.  Looks like I guessed wrong.   

  I'll get there as early as I can, but ... can you move my talk from Wednesday to Thursday or Friday?  

  Thanks, and sorry for the mixup --
  Catherine

  >>> "Jimm GoodTracks" 02/04/11 9:31 AM >>>
   
  Conference Attendees:

  There is another recent addition(s) to the expanding program for the 2011 SCLC:

  Iren Hartman, on Thursday, "Project Valency Classes in/ on Hochank"

  Iren Hartman, Thursday Evening Round Table Discussion: "Revival of the Wiki (CSG Project)." 

  This will be at the Eagle's Nest Motel facilities, 7pm. Perhaps dinner together at the Motel, if the group desires.

  Jimm Goodtracks & Saul Schwartz
  Conference Organizers

  PS:  We are experiencing technical difficulties with the ListServe. Colorado which may not accept .pdf attachments vs. a .doc attachment.

  Another on-going issue is the year long stall on having Saul Schwartz installed, accepted to the ListServe. Colorado.

  Please, stand by while these concerns are figured out by someone who knows how to address such issues.  It sure is not in my limited expertise.
  jgt 


  Jimm G. Goodtracks
  Báxoje Jiwére Language Program
  POBox 122
  White Cloud, Kansas 66094
  785 595 3335

  Ríre hánwegi ich^é irégrat^a je?
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From jgoodtracks at gmail.com  Fri Feb  4 17:21:56 2011
From: jgoodtracks at gmail.com (Jimm GoodTracks)
Date: Fri, 4 Feb 2011 11:21:56 -0600
Subject: Fw: Emailing: 2011 SCLC UPDATES.doc
Message-ID: <FRI.4.FEB.2011.112156.0600.>


----- Original Message ----- 
From: Jimm GoodTracks 
To: Gwen Shunatona ; Jean P. RICE ; Red Corn, Ryan ; Veronica Pipestem 
Cc: Wórage Wáákida GO ; Wilson K. Pipestem ; Elyse Towey Green ; Lori Stanley ; Dennis STANLEY ; SSILA ; Riley Sine ; Rebbeca Schlicht ; Duane & Melinda Scates ; John Sacoolidge ; Marilyn Roubidoux 
Sent: Friday, February 04, 2011 10:13 AM
Subject: Fw: Emailing: 2011 SCLC UPDATES.doc



----- Original Message ----- 
From: Jimm GoodTracks 
To: TRhodd, Iowa Chairman ; siouan at lists.colorado.ed 
Sent: Friday, February 04, 2011 9:26 AM
Subject: Emailing: 2011 SCLC UPDATES.doc


Conference Attendees:

There is another recent addition(s) to the expanding program for the 2011 SCLC:

Iren Hartman, on Thursday, "Project Valency Classes in/ on Hochank"

Iren Hartman, Thursday Evening Round Table Discussion: "Revival of the Wiki (CSG Project)." 

This will be at the Eagle's Nest Motel facilities, 7pm. Perhaps dinner together at the Motel, if the group desires.

Jimm Goodtracks & Saul Schwartz
Conference Organizers

PS:  We are experiencing technical difficulties with the ListServe. Colorado which may not accept .pdf attachments vs. a .doc attachment.

Another on-going issue is the year long stall on having Saul Schwartz installed, accepted to the ListServe. Colorado.

Please, stand by while these concerns are figured out by someone who knows how to address such issues.  It sure is not in my limited expertise.
jgt 


Jimm G. Goodtracks
Báxoje Jiwére Language Program
POBox 122
White Cloud, Kansas 66094
785 595 3335

Ríre hánwegi ich^é irégrat^a je?
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From David.Rood at Colorado.EDU  Sun Feb 13 18:49:27 2011
From: David.Rood at Colorado.EDU (ROOD DAVID S)
Date: Sun, 13 Feb 2011 11:49:27 -0700
Subject: English grammar innovation? New reflexive pronouns?
Message-ID: <SUN.13.FEB.2011.114927.0700.>

Dear Colleagues,

 	In my English grammar class a few days ago my undergraduates 
claimed to have two reflexive pronouns that I have never heard before.  I 
wonder how wide-spread this is, or what other comments you might have 
about it.
 	The first is "themself", used for collective nouns.  The example 
was "The team really hurt themself by not cooperating more."  We're 
already ambivalent about number agreement in collectives (observe: "The 
team is playing well this year -- I hope they keep it up" with singular 
verb agreement but plural for the anaphoric pronoun), so this seems like a 
reasonable development.
 	The second is "theirselves", which for these kids, at least, 
contrasts with "themselves".  "The class taught theirselves the lesson" is 
said to mean that they got together in little groups or otherwise 
informally mixed and helped each other learn.  This is different from 
"The class taught themselves the lesson", in which each person taught 
him or herself, without cooperation, and also different from "the class 
taught each other the lesson", in which there has to be more deliberate 
one-to-one interaction.  I have no idea how to label this one.
`	There are probably dialect differences across the Atlantic, too, 
since British speakers use plural verbs with collectives much more readily 
than we do ("the team are playing well this year" is very marginal for me, 
but easily accepted in England, I'm told).
 	Is there a new "University of Colorado undergraduate" dialect of 
English evolving, or have I just not been keeping up?  Seems like the 
contrast collective/indivduated may be expanding its grammatical effects.

Best,
 	David



David S. Rood
Dept. of Linguistics
Univ. of Colorado
295 UCB
Boulder, CO 80309-0295
USA
rood at colorado.edu


From pankihtamwa at earthlink.net  Sun Feb 13 18:59:46 2011
From: pankihtamwa at earthlink.net (David Costa)
Date: Sun, 13 Feb 2011 10:59:46 -0800
Subject: English grammar innovation? New reflexive pronouns?
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.4.64.1102131110090.11470@spot.colorado.edu>
Message-ID: <SUN.13.FEB.2011.105946.0800.>

Both 'themself' and 'theirselves' have been around a while. I first  
noticed 'themself' in the '80s and might even use it myself.  
'Themself' presumably arose as a result of the use of 'they' as a  
gender-neutral 3rd person singular pronoun. Also note that 'themself'  
gets 1.7 million Google hits.

It's discussed some here: http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/004285.html

Dave Costa

>
> Dear Colleagues,
>
> 	In my English grammar class a few days ago my undergraduates  
> claimed to have two reflexive pronouns that I have never heard  
> before.  I wonder how wide-spread this is, or what other comments  
> you might have about it.
> 	The first is "themself", used for collective nouns.  The example  
> was "The team really hurt themself by not cooperating more."  We're  
> already ambivalent about number agreement in collectives (observe:  
> "The team is playing well this year -- I hope they keep it up" with  
> singular verb agreement but plural for the anaphoric pronoun), so  
> this seems like a reasonable development.
> 	The second is "theirselves", which for these kids, at least,  
> contrasts with "themselves".  "The class taught theirselves the  
> lesson" is said to mean that they got together in little groups or  
> otherwise informally mixed and helped each other learn.  This is  
> different from "The class taught themselves the lesson", in which  
> each person taught him or herself, without cooperation, and also  
> different from "the class taught each other the lesson", in which  
> there has to be more deliberate one-to-one interaction.  I have no  
> idea how to label this one.
> `	There are probably dialect differences across the Atlantic, too,  
> since British speakers use plural verbs with collectives much more  
> readily than we do ("the team are playing well this year" is very  
> marginal for me, but easily accepted in England, I'm told).
> 	Is there a new "University of Colorado undergraduate" dialect of  
> English evolving, or have I just not been keeping up?  Seems like  
> the contrast collective/indivduated may be expanding its grammatical  
> effects.
>
> Best,
> 	David
>
>
>
> David S. Rood
> Dept. of Linguistics
> Univ. of Colorado
> 295 UCB
> Boulder, CO 80309-0295
> USA
> rood at colorado.edu


From rankin at ku.edu  Sun Feb 13 22:18:38 2011
From: rankin at ku.edu (Rankin, Robert L)
Date: Sun, 13 Feb 2011 22:18:38 +0000
Subject: New English reflexive pronouns?
Message-ID: <SUN.13.FEB.2011.221838.0000.>

I don't find either of the forms David cites strange.  Both could easily occur in my "Southern" dialect.  'Theirselves' is just the plural of the very common 'hisself', as in "He shot hisself in the foot."  Maybe it is a reanalysis of 'himself' with 'his' simply possessing the noun 'self'.  It can't be possessing 'foot' because plain "He hurt hisself." is just as good.  These 3rd person forms are only distinctive in the masculine, of course.  Moreover, 1st person forms like 'myself, ourself/ourselves' also show the possessive pronoun.  '*usself' is not possible, so maybe the possessives are the older forms here.

Note the mix of accusative and genitive pronominals though.  It looks as though sometimes the accusative pronoun won out and sometimes the genitive one did.

literary      less-literary
myself      me-self (common in Britain)
yourself    you-self (common in AVE)
herself      herself
himself     his-self
themself   theirself (selves)

I also wonder if 'themself' is really restricted to collective nouns.  It wouldn't bother me at all to say "Two kids out of 10 hurt themself."  It seems to me that 'kids' are being counted individually here.  But, again, that's "Southern."  I have to admit that I've heard "theyself/theyselves" from not-very-literate people, but I wonder if that isn't more underlyingly "theirself/ves" with syllable final R dropping plus a little analogy.  

There's a nice term paper topic for some enterprising student.  With the enormous text collections available on line, one could check all these forms in all kinds of literature going back to the Middle Ages probably.

Bob

________________________________________
> Both 'themself' and 'theirselves' have been around a while. I first
noticed 'themself' in the '80s and might even use it myself.
'Themself' presumably arose as a result of the use of 'they' as a
gender-neutral 3rd person singular pronoun. Also note that 'themself'
gets 1.7 million Google hits.

It's discussed some here: http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/004285.html

Dave Costa

>
> Dear Colleagues,
>
>       In my English grammar class a few days ago my undergraduates
> claimed to have two reflexive pronouns that I have never heard
> before.  I wonder how wide-spread this is, or what other comments
> you might have about it.
>       The first is "themself", used for collective nouns.  The example
> was "The team really hurt themself by not cooperating more."  We're
> already ambivalent about number agreement in collectives (observe:
> "The team is playing well this year -- I hope they keep it up" with
> singular verb agreement but plural for the anaphoric pronoun), so
> this seems like a reasonable development.
>       The second is "theirselves", which for these kids, at least,
> contrasts with "themselves".  "The class taught theirselves the
> lesson" is said to mean that they got together in little groups or
> otherwise informally mixed and helped each other learn.  This is
> different from "The class taught themselves the lesson", in which
> each person taught him or herself, without cooperation, and also
> different from "the class taught each other the lesson", in which
> there has to be more deliberate one-to-one interaction.  I have no
> idea how to label this one.
> `     There are probably dialect differences across the Atlantic, too,
> since British speakers use plural verbs with collectives much more
> readily than we do ("the team are playing well this year" is very
> marginal for me, but easily accepted in England, I'm told).
>       Is there a new "University of Colorado undergraduate" dialect of
> English evolving, or have I just not been keeping up?  Seems like
> the contrast collective/indivduated may be expanding its grammatical
> effects.
>
> Best,
>       David
>
>
>
> David S. Rood
> Dept. of Linguistics
> Univ. of Colorado
> 295 UCB
> Boulder, CO 80309-0295
> USA
> rood at colorado.edu

From carudin1 at wsc.edu  Mon Feb 14 02:34:36 2011
From: carudin1 at wsc.edu (Catherine Rudin)
Date: Sun, 13 Feb 2011 20:34:36 -0600
Subject: New English reflexive pronouns?
Message-ID: <SUN.13.FEB.2011.203436.0600.>

I use themself.  Always have, I think ...   Among other things, it's the only way to do the reflexive of the gender-neutral they, as in "any student who hurts themself should go to the nurse" or "if you don't shovel that sidewalk someone's going to fall and hurt themself".   

I don't use theirselves, but I certainly hear it, and again, I don't think it's new... on the other hand, I wouldn't have guessed that it could have a different meaning from themselves.  

Catherine

>>> "Rankin, Robert L"  02/13/11 4:22 PM >>>
I don't find either of the forms David cites strange.  Both could easily occur in my "Southern" dialect.  'Theirselves' is just the plural of the very common 'hisself', as in "He shot hisself in the foot."  Maybe it is a reanalysis of 'himself' with 'his' simply possessing the noun 'self'.  It can't be possessing 'foot' because plain "He hurt hisself." is just as good.  These 3rd person forms are only distinctive in the masculine, of course.  Moreover, 1st person forms like 'myself, ourself/ourselves' also show the possessive pronoun.  '*usself' is not possible, so maybe the possessives are the older forms here.

Note the mix of accusative and genitive pronominals though.  It looks as though sometimes the accusative pronoun won out and sometimes the genitive one did.

literary      less-literary
myself      me-self (common in Britain)
yourself    you-self (common in AVE)
herself      herself
himself     his-self
themself   theirself (selves)

I also wonder if 'themself' is really restricted to collective nouns.  It wouldn't bother me at all to say "Two kids out of 10 hurt themself."  It seems to me that 'kids' are being counted individually here.  But, again, that's "Southern."  I have to admit that I've heard "theyself/theyselves" from not-very-literate people, but I wonder if that isn't more underlyingly "theirself/ves" with syllable final R dropping plus a little analogy.  

There's a nice term paper topic for some enterprising student.  With the enormous text collections available on line, one could check all these forms in all kinds of literature going back to the Middle Ages probably.

Bob

________________________________________
> Both 'themself' and 'theirselves' have been around a while. I first
noticed 'themself' in the '80s and might even use it myself.
'Themself' presumably arose as a result of the use of 'they' as a
gender-neutral 3rd person singular pronoun. Also note that 'themself'
gets 1.7 million Google hits.

It's discussed some here: http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/004285.html

Dave Costa

>
> Dear Colleagues,
>
>       In my English grammar class a few days ago my undergraduates
> claimed to have two reflexive pronouns that I have never heard
> before.  I wonder how wide-spread this is, or what other comments
> you might have about it.
>       The first is "themself", used for collective nouns.  The example
> was "The team really hurt themself by not cooperating more."  We're
> already ambivalent about number agreement in collectives (observe:
> "The team is playing well this year -- I hope they keep it up" with
> singular verb agreement but plural for the anaphoric pronoun), so
> this seems like a reasonable development.
>       The second is "theirselves", which for these kids, at least,
> contrasts with "themselves".  "The class taught theirselves the
> lesson" is said to mean that they got together in little groups or
> otherwise informally mixed and helped each other learn.  This is
> different from "The class taught themselves the lesson", in which
> each person taught him or herself, without cooperation, and also
> different from "the class taught each other the lesson", in which
> there has to be more deliberate one-to-one interaction.  I have no
> idea how to label this one.
> `     There are probably dialect differences across the Atlantic, too,
> since British speakers use plural verbs with collectives much more
> readily than we do ("the team are playing well this year" is very
> marginal for me, but easily accepted in England, I'm told).
>       Is there a new "University of Colorado undergraduate" dialect of
> English evolving, or have I just not been keeping up?  Seems like
> the contrast collective/indivduated may be expanding its grammatical
> effects.
>
> Best,
>       David
>
>
>
> David S. Rood
> Dept. of Linguistics
> Univ. of Colorado
> 295 UCB
> Boulder, CO 80309-0295
> USA
> rood at colorado.edu
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From Granta at edgehill.ac.uk  Mon Feb 14 11:06:47 2011
From: Granta at edgehill.ac.uk (Anthony Grant)
Date: Mon, 14 Feb 2011 11:06:47 +0000
Subject: English grammar innovation? New reflexive pronouns?
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.4.64.1102131110090.11470@spot.colorado.edu>
Message-ID: <MON.14.FEB.2011.110647.0000.>

David:

You can certainly hear both in Britain in less deliberate speech, and
plural concord with 'team' is widespread too.  I think 'theirselves' is
commoner than 'themself' here but both are available.

Anthony

>>> ROOD DAVID S <David.Rood at Colorado.EDU> 13/02/2011 18:49 >>>

Dear Colleagues,

 	In my English grammar class a few days ago my undergraduates
claimed to have two reflexive pronouns that I have never heard before.
I
wonder how wide-spread this is, or what other comments you might have
about it.
 	The first is "themself", used for collective nouns.  The
example
was "The team really hurt themself by not cooperating more."  We're
already ambivalent about number agreement in collectives (observe:
"The
team is playing well this year -- I hope they keep it up" with
singular
verb agreement but plural for the anaphoric pronoun), so this seems
like a
reasonable development.
 	The second is "theirselves", which for these kids, at least,
contrasts with "themselves".  "The class taught theirselves the lesson"
is
said to mean that they got together in little groups or otherwise
informally mixed and helped each other learn.  This is different from
"The class taught themselves the lesson", in which each person taught
him or herself, without cooperation, and also different from "the
class
taught each other the lesson", in which there has to be more
deliberate
one-to-one interaction.  I have no idea how to label this one.
`	There are probably dialect differences across the Atlantic,
too,
since British speakers use plural verbs with collectives much more
readily
than we do ("the team are playing well this year" is very marginal for
me,
but easily accepted in England, I'm told).
 	Is there a new "University of Colorado undergraduate" dialect
of
English evolving, or have I just not been keeping up?  Seems like the
contrast collective/indivduated may be expanding its grammatical
effects.

Best,
 	David



David S. Rood
Dept. of Linguistics
Univ. of Colorado
295 UCB
Boulder, CO 80309-0295
USA
rood at colorado.edu



Based on an award-winning 160-acre Campus near Liverpool, Edge Hill
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From erschler at gmail.com  Mon Feb 14 16:26:27 2011
From: erschler at gmail.com (David Erschler)
Date: Mon, 14 Feb 2011 17:26:27 +0100
Subject: English grammar innovation? New reflexive pronouns?
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.4.64.1102131110090.11470@spot.colorado.edu>
Message-ID: <MON.14.FEB.2011.172627.0100.>

The Google n-gram viewer apparently shows that these forms have been around
at least since early 19th c.
http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/graph?content=theirselves%2C+themself&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=0&smoothing=0

Best,
David

On Sun, Feb 13, 2011 at 7:49 PM, ROOD DAVID S <David.Rood at colorado.edu>wrote:

>
> Dear Colleagues,
>
>        In my English grammar class a few days ago my undergraduates claimed
> to have two reflexive pronouns that I have never heard before.  I wonder how
> wide-spread this is, or what other comments you might have about it.
>        The first is "themself", used for collective nouns.  The example was
> "The team really hurt themself by not cooperating more."  We're already
> ambivalent about number agreement in collectives (observe: "The team is
> playing well this year -- I hope they keep it up" with singular verb
> agreement but plural for the anaphoric pronoun), so this seems like a
> reasonable development.
>        The second is "theirselves", which for these kids, at least,
> contrasts with "themselves".  "The class taught theirselves the lesson" is
> said to mean that they got together in little groups or otherwise informally
> mixed and helped each other learn.  This is different from "The class taught
> themselves the lesson", in which each person taught him or herself, without
> cooperation, and also different from "the class taught each other the
> lesson", in which there has to be more deliberate one-to-one interaction.  I
> have no idea how to label this one.
> `       There are probably dialect differences across the Atlantic, too,
> since British speakers use plural verbs with collectives much more readily
> than we do ("the team are playing well this year" is very marginal for me,
> but easily accepted in England, I'm told).
>        Is there a new "University of Colorado undergraduate" dialect of
> English evolving, or have I just not been keeping up?  Seems like the
> contrast collective/indivduated may be expanding its grammatical effects.
>
> Best,
>        David
>
>
>
> David S. Rood
> Dept. of Linguistics
> Univ. of Colorado
> 295 UCB
> Boulder, CO 80309-0295
> USA
> rood at colorado.edu
>



-- 
Dr. David Erschler

Tübinger Zentrum für Linguistik (SFB 833)
Nauklerstrasse 35
D - 72074  Tuebingen/Germany
Tel. +49 (0)7071-2977437
Fax. +49 (0)7071-295830

and

Department for Protein Evolution
Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology
Spemannstrasse 35
72076 Tuebingen/Germany
Tel. +49-(0)7071-601451
Fax  +49-(0)7071-601352
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From David.Rood at Colorado.EDU  Mon Feb 14 20:34:10 2011
From: David.Rood at Colorado.EDU (ROOD DAVID S)
Date: Mon, 14 Feb 2011 13:34:10 -0700
Subject: New English reflexive pronouns?
In-Reply-To: <4D58405C0200008E0002C867@hermes.wsc.edu>
Message-ID: <MON.14.FEB.2011.133410.0700.>

Thanks, Bob.  I am not surprised at the forms -- the mixture of accusative 
and possessive before "self" has been part of the ESL "things to watch out 
for" literature for a long time.  It's their use in weird kinds of 
collectives that I find intriguing.

D/

David S. Rood
Dept. of Linguistics
Univ. of Colorado
295 UCB
Boulder, CO 80309-0295
USA
rood at colorado.edu

On Sun, 13 Feb 2011, Catherine Rudin wrote:

> I use themself.  Always have, I think ...   Among other things, it's the only way to do the reflexive of the gender-neutral they, as in "any student who hurts themself should go to the nurse" or "if you don't shovel that sidewalk someone's going to fall and hurt themself".
>
> I don't use theirselves, but I certainly hear it, and again, I don't think it's new... on the other hand, I wouldn't have guessed that it could have a different meaning from themselves.
>
> Catherine
>
>>>> "Rankin, Robert L"  02/13/11 4:22 PM >>>
> I don't find either of the forms David cites strange.  Both could easily occur in my "Southern" dialect.  'Theirselves' is just the plural of the very common 'hisself', as in "He shot hisself in the foot."  Maybe it is a reanalysis of 'himself' with 'his' simply possessing the noun 'self'.  It can't be possessing 'foot' because plain "He hurt hisself." is just as good.  These 3rd person forms are only distinctive in the masculine, of course.  Moreover, 1st person forms like 'myself, ourself/ourselves' also show the possessive pronoun.  '*usself' is not possible, so maybe the possessives are the older forms here.
>
> Note the mix of accusative and genitive pronominals though.  It looks as though sometimes the accusative pronoun won out and sometimes the genitive one did.
>
> literary      less-literary
> myself      me-self (common in Britain)
> yourself    you-self (common in AVE)
> herself      herself
> himself     his-self
> themself   theirself (selves)
>
> I also wonder if 'themself' is really restricted to collective nouns.  It wouldn't bother me at all to say "Two kids out of 10 hurt themself."  It seems to me that 'kids' are being counted individually here.  But, again, that's "Southern."  I have to admit that I've heard "theyself/theyselves" from not-very-literate people, but I wonder if that isn't more underlyingly "theirself/ves" with syllable final R dropping plus a little analogy.
>
> There's a nice term paper topic for some enterprising student.  With the enormous text collections available on line, one could check all these forms in all kinds of literature going back to the Middle Ages probably.
>
> Bob
>
> ________________________________________
>> Both 'themself' and 'theirselves' have been around a while. I first
> noticed 'themself' in the '80s and might even use it myself.
> 'Themself' presumably arose as a result of the use of 'they' as a
> gender-neutral 3rd person singular pronoun. Also note that 'themself'
> gets 1.7 million Google hits.
>
> It's discussed some here: http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/004285.html
>
> Dave Costa
>
>>
>> Dear Colleagues,
>>
>>       In my English grammar class a few days ago my undergraduates
>> claimed to have two reflexive pronouns that I have never heard
>> before.  I wonder how wide-spread this is, or what other comments
>> you might have about it.
>>       The first is "themself", used for collective nouns.  The example
>> was "The team really hurt themself by not cooperating more."  We're
>> already ambivalent about number agreement in collectives (observe:
>> "The team is playing well this year -- I hope they keep it up" with
>> singular verb agreement but plural for the anaphoric pronoun), so
>> this seems like a reasonable development.
>>       The second is "theirselves", which for these kids, at least,
>> contrasts with "themselves".  "The class taught theirselves the
>> lesson" is said to mean that they got together in little groups or
>> otherwise informally mixed and helped each other learn.  This is
>> different from "The class taught themselves the lesson", in which
>> each person taught him or herself, without cooperation, and also
>> different from "the class taught each other the lesson", in which
>> there has to be more deliberate one-to-one interaction.  I have no
>> idea how to label this one.
>> `     There are probably dialect differences across the Atlantic, too,
>> since British speakers use plural verbs with collectives much more
>> readily than we do ("the team are playing well this year" is very
>> marginal for me, but easily accepted in England, I'm told).
>>       Is there a new "University of Colorado undergraduate" dialect of
>> English evolving, or have I just not been keeping up?  Seems like
>> the contrast collective/indivduated may be expanding its grammatical
>> effects.
>>
>> Best,
>>       David
>>
>>
>>
>> David S. Rood
>> Dept. of Linguistics
>> Univ. of Colorado
>> 295 UCB
>> Boulder, CO 80309-0295
>> USA
>> rood at colorado.edu
>


From David.Rood at Colorado.EDU  Sun Feb 20 15:11:41 2011
From: David.Rood at Colorado.EDU (ROOD DAVID S)
Date: Sun, 20 Feb 2011 08:11:41 -0700
Subject: cross-linguistic metaphors (fwd)
Message-ID: <SUN.20.FEB.2011.081141.0700.>

David S. Rood
Dept. of Linguistics
Univ. of Colorado
295 UCB
Boulder, CO 80309-0295
USA
rood at colorado.edu

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sat, 19 Feb 2011 16:02:32 -0700 (MST)
From: ROOD DAVID S <David.Rood at colorado.edu>
To: linguistics faculty <ling-fac at lists.Colorado.EDU>
Cc: linguistics grads <ling-grads at lists.Colorado.EDU>,
     siounists at spot.colorado.edu
Subject: cross-linguistic metaphors


Dear Colleagues:

 	I'm trying to tap into the biggest database I know of for knowledge of 
languages, namely all of you.  I have a query from someone who wants to know 
whether a language exists that does not equate "bright" and "dim" in the sense 
of light and shadow/dark with the same words used to describe intellectual 
acuity or lack thereof.  In English we can call people "bright" and 
"dim(witted)" to mean 'smart' and 'not so smart'.

  Do you know of a language that lacks that equation?

 	Thanks for your help.

Best,
 	David


David S. Rood
Dept. of Linguistics
Univ. of Colorado
295 UCB
Boulder, CO 80309-0295
USA
rood at colorado.edu


From erschler at gmail.com  Sun Feb 20 15:20:59 2011
From: erschler at gmail.com (David Erschler)
Date: Sun, 20 Feb 2011 16:20:59 +0100
Subject: cross-linguistic metaphors (fwd)
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.4.64.1102200811060.18490@spot.colorado.edu>
Message-ID: <SUN.20.FEB.2011.162059.0100.>

I don't think that this exists in Russian. t'omny 'dark' is actually used in
the sense "uneducated/benighted", and not "unintelligent", whereas I can't
think of any uses of whatever word meaning "bright" in the relevant sense.

Best,
David

On Sun, Feb 20, 2011 at 4:11 PM, ROOD DAVID S <David.Rood at colorado.edu>wrote:

>
>
> David S. Rood
> Dept. of Linguistics
> Univ. of Colorado
> 295 UCB
> Boulder, CO 80309-0295
> USA
> rood at colorado.edu
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> Date: Sat, 19 Feb 2011 16:02:32 -0700 (MST)
> From: ROOD DAVID S <David.Rood at colorado.edu>
> To: linguistics faculty <ling-fac at lists.Colorado.EDU>
> Cc: linguistics grads <ling-grads at lists.Colorado.EDU>,
>    siounists at spot.colorado.edu
> Subject: cross-linguistic metaphors
>
>
> Dear Colleagues:
>
>        I'm trying to tap into the biggest database I know of for knowledge
> of languages, namely all of you.  I have a query from someone who wants to
> know whether a language exists that does not equate "bright" and "dim" in
> the sense of light and shadow/dark with the same words used to describe
> intellectual acuity or lack thereof.  In English we can call people "bright"
> and "dim(witted)" to mean 'smart' and 'not so smart'.
>
>  Do you know of a language that lacks that equation?
>
>        Thanks for your help.
>
> Best,
>        David
>
>
> David S. Rood
> Dept. of Linguistics
> Univ. of Colorado
> 295 UCB
> Boulder, CO 80309-0295
> USA
> rood at colorado.edu
>



-- 
Dr. David Erschler

Tübinger Zentrum für Linguistik (SFB 833)
Nauklerstrasse 35
D - 72074  Tuebingen/Germany
Tel. +49 (0)7071-2977437
Fax. +49 (0)7071-295830

and

Department for Protein Evolution
Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology
Spemannstrasse 35
72076 Tuebingen/Germany
Tel. +49-(0)7071-601451
Fax  +49-(0)7071-601352
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From rankin at ku.edu  Sun Feb 20 15:51:26 2011
From: rankin at ku.edu (Rankin, Robert L)
Date: Sun, 20 Feb 2011 15:51:26 +0000
Subject: cross-linguistic metaphors (fwd)
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.4.64.1102200811060.18490@spot.colorado.edu>
Message-ID: <SUN.20.FEB.2011.155126.0000.>


________________________________________
From: owner-siouan at lists.Colorado.EDU [owner-siouan at lists.Colorado.EDU] on behalf of ROOD DAVID S [David.Rood at Colorado.EDU]
Sent: Sunday, February 20, 2011 9:11 AM
To: siouan at lists.Colorado.EDU
Subject: cross-linguistic metaphors (fwd)

David S. Rood
Dept. of Linguistics
Univ. of Colorado
295 UCB
Boulder, CO 80309-0295
USA
rood at colorado.edu

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sat, 19 Feb 2011 16:02:32 -0700 (MST)
From: ROOD DAVID S <David.Rood at colorado.edu>
To: linguistics faculty <ling-fac at lists.Colorado.EDU>
Cc: linguistics grads <ling-grads at lists.Colorado.EDU>,
     siounists at spot.colorado.edu
Subject: cross-linguistic metaphors


Dear Colleagues:

        I'm trying to tap into the biggest database I know of for knowledge of
languages, namely all of you.  I have a query from someone who wants to know
whether a language exists that does not equate "bright" and "dim" in the sense
of light and shadow/dark with the same words used to describe intellectual
acuity or lack thereof.  In English we can call people "bright" and
"dim(witted)" to mean 'smart' and 'not so smart'.

  Do you know of a language that lacks that equation?

        Thanks for your help.

Best,
        David


David S. Rood
Dept. of Linguistics
Univ. of Colorado
295 UCB
Boulder, CO 80309-0295
USA
rood at colorado.edu


From Granta at edgehill.ac.uk  Sun Feb 20 15:54:53 2011
From: Granta at edgehill.ac.uk (Anthony Grant)
Date: Sun, 20 Feb 2011 15:54:53 +0000
Subject: cross-linguistic metaphors (fwd)
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.4.64.1102200811060.18490@spot.colorado.edu>
Message-ID: <SUN.20.FEB.2011.155453.0000.>

David: I don't have any good counterexamples, but I assume you know the
very modern sense of 'bright' as meaning 'atheist'?
Anthony
>>> ROOD DAVID S <David.Rood at Colorado.EDU> 20/02/2011 15:11 >>>


David S. Rood
Dept. of Linguistics
Univ. of Colorado
295 UCB
Boulder, CO 80309-0295
USA
rood at colorado.edu

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sat, 19 Feb 2011 16:02:32 -0700 (MST)
From: ROOD DAVID S <David.Rood at colorado.edu>
To: linguistics faculty <ling-fac at lists.Colorado.EDU>
Cc: linguistics grads <ling-grads at lists.Colorado.EDU>,
     siounists at spot.colorado.edu
Subject: cross-linguistic metaphors


Dear Colleagues:

 	I'm trying to tap into the biggest database I know of for
knowledge of
languages, namely all of you.  I have a query from someone who wants to
know
whether a language exists that does not equate "bright" and "dim" in
the sense
of light and shadow/dark with the same words used to describe
intellectual
acuity or lack thereof.  In English we can call people "bright" and
"dim(witted)" to mean 'smart' and 'not so smart'.

  Do you know of a language that lacks that equation?

 	Thanks for your help.

Best,
 	David


David S. Rood
Dept. of Linguistics
Univ. of Colorado
295 UCB
Boulder, CO 80309-0295
USA
rood at colorado.edu



Based on an award-winning 160-acre Campus near Liverpool, Edge Hill
University has over 125 years of history as an innovative, successful
and distinctive higher education provider.

• Shortlisted for Times Higher Education University of the Year 2007 and
2010
• Top in the North West for overall student satisfaction (Sunday Times
University Guide 2011)
• Second in England for graduate employment (HESA 2009, full
universities, full and part-time, first and foundation degrees)
• Top 20 position, and the highest ranked university in 'The Sunday
Times Best Places to Work in the Public Sector 2010'

-----------------------------------------------------
This message is private and confidential. If you have received this
message in error, please notify the sender and remove it from your
system. Any views or opinions presented are solely those of the author
and do not necessarily represent those of Edge Hill or associated
companies.  Edge Hill University may monitor email traffic data and also
the content of email for the purposes of security and business
communications during staff absence.

-----------------------------------------------------


From shokoohbanou at yahoo.co.uk  Sun Feb 20 17:53:42 2011
From: shokoohbanou at yahoo.co.uk (shokooh Ingham)
Date: Sun, 20 Feb 2011 17:53:42 +0000
Subject: cross-linguistic metaphors (fwd)
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.4.64.1102200811060.18490@spot.colorado.edu>
Message-ID: <SUN.20.FEB.2011.175342.0000.>

Dear David,
I know that Persian uses roshan fekr meaning 'bright in thought', rather like our 'enlightened', but I don't think it uses 'dark' or 'dim' in the same way. I don't think Arabic uses either, but I'll try to think about it a bit more.
Yours
Bruce

--- On Sun, 20/2/11, ROOD DAVID S <David.Rood at Colorado.EDU> wrote:

> From: ROOD DAVID S <David.Rood at Colorado.EDU>
> Subject: cross-linguistic metaphors (fwd)
> To: siouan at lists.Colorado.EDU
> Date: Sunday, 20 February, 2011, 15:11
> 
> 
> David S. Rood
> Dept. of Linguistics
> Univ. of Colorado
> 295 UCB
> Boulder, CO 80309-0295
> USA
> rood at colorado.edu
> 
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> Date: Sat, 19 Feb 2011 16:02:32 -0700 (MST)
> From: ROOD DAVID S <David.Rood at colorado.edu>
> To: linguistics faculty <ling-fac at lists.Colorado.EDU>
> Cc: linguistics grads <ling-grads at lists.Colorado.EDU>,
>     siounists at spot.colorado.edu
> Subject: cross-linguistic metaphors
> 
> 
> Dear Colleagues:
> 
>     I'm trying to tap into the biggest
> database I know of for knowledge of languages, namely all of
> you.  I have a query from someone who wants to know
> whether a language exists that does not equate "bright" and
> "dim" in the sense of light and shadow/dark with the same
> words used to describe intellectual acuity or lack
> thereof.  In English we can call people "bright" and
> "dim(witted)" to mean 'smart' and 'not so smart'.
> 
>  Do you know of a language that lacks that equation?
> 
>     Thanks for your help.
> 
> Best,
>     David
> 
> 
> David S. Rood
> Dept. of Linguistics
> Univ. of Colorado
> 295 UCB
> Boulder, CO 80309-0295
> USA
> rood at colorado.edu
> 


      


From mary.marino at usask.ca  Mon Feb 21 06:24:28 2011
From: mary.marino at usask.ca (Mary C Marino)
Date: Mon, 21 Feb 2011 00:24:28 -0600
Subject: cross-linguistic metaphors (fwd)
In-Reply-To: <4D61394D.6AA4.00A6.0@edgehill.ac.uk>
Message-ID: <MON.21.FEB.2011.002428.0600.>

Hello Anthony:  As far as I know this is not current anywhere in N 
America - I certainly haven't heard it in Canada.  If 'bright' has come 
to mean 'atheist', does it follow that 'dim' means 'believer' (of 
whatever faith community)?  Mary




On 20/02/2011 9:54 AM, Anthony Grant wrote:
> David: I don't have any good counterexamples, but I assume you know the
> very modern sense of 'bright' as meaning 'atheist'?
> Anthony
>>>> ROOD DAVID S<David.Rood at Colorado.EDU>  20/02/2011 15:11>>>
>
> David S. Rood
> Dept. of Linguistics
> Univ. of Colorado
> 295 UCB
> Boulder, CO 80309-0295
> USA
> rood at colorado.edu
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> Date: Sat, 19 Feb 2011 16:02:32 -0700 (MST)
> From: ROOD DAVID S<David.Rood at colorado.edu>
> To: linguistics faculty<ling-fac at lists.Colorado.EDU>
> Cc: linguistics grads<ling-grads at lists.Colorado.EDU>,
>       siounists at spot.colorado.edu
> Subject: cross-linguistic metaphors
>
>
> Dear Colleagues:
>
>   	I'm trying to tap into the biggest database I know of for
> knowledge of
> languages, namely all of you.  I have a query from someone who wants to
> know
> whether a language exists that does not equate "bright" and "dim" in
> the sense
> of light and shadow/dark with the same words used to describe
> intellectual
> acuity or lack thereof.  In English we can call people "bright" and
> "dim(witted)" to mean 'smart' and 'not so smart'.
>
>    Do you know of a language that lacks that equation?
>
>   	Thanks for your help.
>
> Best,
>   	David
>
>
> David S. Rood
> Dept. of Linguistics
> Univ. of Colorado
> 295 UCB
> Boulder, CO 80309-0295
> USA
> rood at colorado.edu
>
>
>
> Based on an award-winning 160-acre Campus near Liverpool, Edge Hill
> University has over 125 years of history as an innovative, successful
> and distinctive higher education provider.
>
> • Shortlisted for Times Higher Education University of the Year 2007 and
> 2010
> • Top in the North West for overall student satisfaction (Sunday Times
> University Guide 2011)
> • Second in England for graduate employment (HESA 2009, full
> universities, full and part-time, first and foundation degrees)
> • Top 20 position, and the highest ranked university in 'The Sunday
> Times Best Places to Work in the Public Sector 2010'
>
> -----------------------------------------------------
> This message is private and confidential. If you have received this
> message in error, please notify the sender and remove it from your
> system. Any views or opinions presented are solely those of the author
> and do not necessarily represent those of Edge Hill or associated
> companies.  Edge Hill University may monitor email traffic data and also
> the content of email for the purposes of security and business
> communications during staff absence.
>
> -----------------------------------------------------


From Granta at edgehill.ac.uk  Mon Feb 21 10:43:31 2011
From: Granta at edgehill.ac.uk (Anthony Grant)
Date: Mon, 21 Feb 2011 10:43:31 +0000
Subject: cross-linguistic metaphors (fwd)
In-Reply-To: <4D62051C.7050201@usask.ca>
Message-ID: <MON.21.FEB.2011.104331.0000.>

Hi Mary:  Apparently so; I believe the expression was coined by Richard
Dawkins.

Best, Anthony

>>> Mary C Marino <mary.marino at usask.ca> 21/02/2011 06:24 >>>
Hello Anthony:  As far as I know this is not current anywhere in N
America - I certainly haven't heard it in Canada.  If 'bright' has
come
to mean 'atheist', does it follow that 'dim' means 'believer' (of
whatever faith community)?  Mary




On 20/02/2011 9:54 AM, Anthony Grant wrote:
> David: I don't have any good counterexamples, but I assume you know
the
> very modern sense of 'bright' as meaning 'atheist'?
> Anthony
>>>> ROOD DAVID S<David.Rood at Colorado.EDU>  20/02/2011 15:11>>>
>
> David S. Rood
> Dept. of Linguistics
> Univ. of Colorado
> 295 UCB
> Boulder, CO 80309-0295
> USA
> rood at colorado.edu
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> Date: Sat, 19 Feb 2011 16:02:32 -0700 (MST)
> From: ROOD DAVID S<David.Rood at colorado.edu>
> To: linguistics faculty<ling-fac at lists.Colorado.EDU>
> Cc: linguistics grads<ling-grads at lists.Colorado.EDU>,
>       siounists at spot.colorado.edu
> Subject: cross-linguistic metaphors
>
>
> Dear Colleagues:
>
>   	I'm trying to tap into the biggest database I know of for
> knowledge of
> languages, namely all of you.  I have a query from someone who wants
to
> know
> whether a language exists that does not equate "bright" and "dim" in
> the sense
> of light and shadow/dark with the same words used to describe
> intellectual
> acuity or lack thereof.  In English we can call people "bright" and
> "dim(witted)" to mean 'smart' and 'not so smart'.
>
>    Do you know of a language that lacks that equation?
>
>   	Thanks for your help.
>
> Best,
>   	David
>
>
> David S. Rood
> Dept. of Linguistics
> Univ. of Colorado
> 295 UCB
> Boulder, CO 80309-0295
> USA
> rood at colorado.edu
>
>
>
> Based on an award-winning 160-acre Campus near Liverpool, Edge Hill
> University has over 125 years of history as an innovative,
successful
> and distinctive higher education provider.
>
> ● Shortlisted for Times Higher Education University of the Year
2007 and
> 2010
> ● Top in the North West for overall student satisfaction (Sunday
Times
> University Guide 2011)
> ● Second in England for graduate employment (HESA 2009, full
> universities, full and part-time, first and foundation degrees)
> ● Top 20 position, and the highest ranked university in 'The
Sunday
> Times Best Places to Work in the Public Sector 2010'
>
> -----------------------------------------------------
> This message is private and confidential. If you have received this
> message in error, please notify the sender and remove it from your
> system. Any views or opinions presented are solely those of the
author
> and do not necessarily represent those of Edge Hill or associated
> companies.  Edge Hill University may monitor email traffic data and
also
> the content of email for the purposes of security and business
> communications during staff absence.
>
> -----------------------------------------------------




Based on an award-winning 160-acre Campus near Liverpool, Edge Hill
University has over 125 years of history as an innovative, successful
and distinctive higher education provider.

• Shortlisted for Times Higher Education University of the Year 2007 and
2010
• Top in the North West for overall student satisfaction (Sunday Times
University Guide 2011)
• Second in England for graduate employment (HESA 2009, full
universities, full and part-time, first and foundation degrees)
• Top 20 position, and the highest ranked university in 'The Sunday
Times Best Places to Work in the Public Sector 2010'

-----------------------------------------------------
This message is private and confidential. If you have received this
message in error, please notify the sender and remove it from your
system. Any views or opinions presented are solely those of the author
and do not necessarily represent those of Edge Hill or associated
companies.  Edge Hill University may monitor email traffic data and also
the content of email for the purposes of security and business
communications during staff absence.

-----------------------------------------------------


From rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu  Mon Feb 21 16:19:02 2011
From: rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu (Rory M Larson)
Date: Mon, 21 Feb 2011 10:19:02 -0600
Subject: cross-linguistic metaphors (fwd)
In-Reply-To: <126449.13647.qm@web29504.mail.ird.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <MON.21.FEB.2011.101902.0600.>

David wrote:
>     I'm trying to tap into the biggest
> database I know of for knowledge of languages, namely all of
> you.  I have a query from someone who wants to know
> whether a language exists that does not equate "bright" and
> "dim" in the sense of light and shadow/dark with the same
> words used to describe intellectual acuity or lack
> thereof.  In English we can call people "bright" and
> "dim(witted)" to mean 'smart' and 'not so smart'.
> 
>  Do you know of a language that lacks that equation?

Japanese uses atama ga ii, 'has a good head', or surudoi, 'sharp/keen', 
for "intelligent", and a special word, baka, for 
'foolish/stupid/ridiculous'.  Metaphorically, akarui, 'bright', means 
"happy" or "lively".  As far as I can tell from my dictionary, it lacks 
that equation.

But since this is a Siouanist list, what about Siouan and other native 
North American languages?  For Omaha, we have wazhiN-ska listed in the 
Stabler-Swetland dictionary for 'smart/intelligent', along with 'wise', 
'knowledge', 'clever' and 'sober'.  wazhiN seems to mean something like 
'disposition', 'will', 'mentality' or 'anger', perhaps like the early 
Germanic meaning of /mood/.  ska means 'white', and is also said to mean 
'clear' or 'bright', although I've never been able to make that 
connection.  So the term actually seems to mean something like 
"white-disposition", with the main implication of wisdom and sobriety of 
conduct, not so much what we're looking for here as the ability to grasp 
ideas quickly.  No word is listed for 'stupid', and the closest I can get 
is 'foolish', which merges with groNriN, 'crazy', as the opposite of 
wisdom and sobriety.

In Carolyn Quintero's Osage Dictionary, wadhilaNhtaNaN is listed for 
'smart/intelligent'.  That should correspond to Omaha warigroN-ttoN, 
'having brain/thoughts/mind'.  This is more the concept we are looking 
for, but without the bright/dim metaphor.  Again, nothing is listed for 
'stupid', and the closest we get is c?eka, 'crazy'.

In John P. Williamson's 1902 English-Dakota Dictionary, we find wasdonya, 
'knowledgeable', listed for 'intelligent', and for 'smart' waciNksapa, 
'wise/prudent waciN', where waciN should be cognate to Omaha wazhiN and 
means 'thinking' or 'purpose'.  'Stupid' gets tawaciNtata, apparently 
'dull mind', and waciNksapes^ni, 'not waciNksapa', i.e. 'imprudent'.

None of these languages, with the possible exception of Omaha, seems to 
use "bright" as a metaphor for 'intelligent'.  So I'm going to turn the 
question around and ask what languages do use the metaphor.  What 
languages outside of English equate brightness with intelligence and 
dimness with stupidity?  Also, do languages exist that simply don't have 
words for 'intelligent' or 'stupid' in the sense we are looking for?  It 
seems to me that this whole concern for evaluating people in terms of 
intellectual acuity parallels the rise of the educational establishment in 
recent history.  Prior to that, I think interest was more in a person's 
sensibility of conduct rather than their I.Q.

Rory
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From jfu at lakhota.org  Tue Feb 22 14:01:38 2011
From: jfu at lakhota.org (Jan Ullrich)
Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2011 15:01:38 +0100
Subject: cross-linguistic metaphors (fwd)
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.4.64.1102200811060.18490@spot.colorado.edu>
Message-ID: <TUE.22.FEB.2011.150138.0100.>

Hi David,

I am not aware that "bright" and "dim(witted)" would be use to mean 'smart'
and 'not so smart' in my native language, Czech.

Jan


-----Original Message-----
From: owner-siouan at lists.Colorado.EDU
[mailto:owner-siouan at lists.Colorado.EDU] On Behalf Of ROOD DAVID S
Sent: Sunday, February 20, 2011 4:12 PM
To: siouan at lists.Colorado.EDU
Subject: cross-linguistic metaphors (fwd)



David S. Rood
Dept. of Linguistics
Univ. of Colorado
295 UCB
Boulder, CO 80309-0295
USA
rood at colorado.edu

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sat, 19 Feb 2011 16:02:32 -0700 (MST)
From: ROOD DAVID S <David.Rood at colorado.edu>
To: linguistics faculty <ling-fac at lists.Colorado.EDU>
Cc: linguistics grads <ling-grads at lists.Colorado.EDU>,
     siounists at spot.colorado.edu
Subject: cross-linguistic metaphors


Dear Colleagues:

 	I'm trying to tap into the biggest database I know of for knowledge
of 
languages, namely all of you.  I have a query from someone who wants to know

whether a language exists that does not equate "bright" and "dim" in the
sense 
of light and shadow/dark with the same words used to describe intellectual 
acuity or lack thereof.  In English we can call people "bright" and 
"dim(witted)" to mean 'smart' and 'not so smart'.

  Do you know of a language that lacks that equation?

 	Thanks for your help.

Best,
 	David


David S. Rood
Dept. of Linguistics
Univ. of Colorado
295 UCB
Boulder, CO 80309-0295
USA
rood at colorado.edu


From shokoohbanou at yahoo.co.uk  Tue Feb 22 17:11:07 2011
From: shokoohbanou at yahoo.co.uk (shokooh Ingham)
Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2011 17:11:07 +0000
Subject: cross-linguistic metaphors (fwd)
In-Reply-To: <4D6241D2.6AA4.00A6.0@edgehill.ac.uk>
Message-ID: <TUE.22.FEB.2011.171107.0000.>

While we are at it, what do your languages do for high and low pitch.  In Persian boland 'high' and khafif 'light' mean 'loud' and 'quiet', while 'high' and 'low' are rendered by naazok 'thin' and koloft 'thick'
Bruce

--- On Mon, 21/2/11, Anthony Grant <Granta at edgehill.ac.uk> wrote:

> From: Anthony Grant <Granta at edgehill.ac.uk>
> Subject: Re: cross-linguistic metaphors (fwd)
> To: siouan at lists.Colorado.EDU
> Date: Monday, 21 February, 2011, 10:43
> Hi Mary:  Apparently so; I
> believe the expression was coined by Richard
> Dawkins.
> 
> Best, Anthony
> 
> >>> Mary C Marino <mary.marino at usask.ca>
> 21/02/2011 06:24 >>>
> Hello Anthony:  As far as I know this is not current
> anywhere in N
> America - I certainly haven't heard it in Canada.  If
> 'bright' has
> come
> to mean 'atheist', does it follow that 'dim' means
> 'believer' (of
> whatever faith community)?  Mary
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On 20/02/2011 9:54 AM, Anthony Grant wrote:
> > David: I don't have any good counterexamples, but I
> assume you know
> the
> > very modern sense of 'bright' as meaning 'atheist'?
> > Anthony
> >>>> ROOD DAVID S<David.Rood at Colorado.EDU> 
> 20/02/2011 15:11>>>
> >
> > David S. Rood
> > Dept. of Linguistics
> > Univ. of Colorado
> > 295 UCB
> > Boulder, CO 80309-0295
> > USA
> > rood at colorado.edu
> >
> > ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> > Date: Sat, 19 Feb 2011 16:02:32 -0700 (MST)
> > From: ROOD DAVID S<David.Rood at colorado.edu>
> > To: linguistics faculty<ling-fac at lists.Colorado.EDU>
> > Cc: linguistics grads<ling-grads at lists.Colorado.EDU>,
> >       siounists at spot.colorado.edu
> > Subject: cross-linguistic metaphors
> >
> >
> > Dear Colleagues:
> >
> >       I'm trying to tap
> into the biggest database I know of for
> > knowledge of
> > languages, namely all of you.  I have a query
> from someone who wants
> to
> > know
> > whether a language exists that does not equate
> "bright" and "dim" in
> > the sense
> > of light and shadow/dark with the same words used to
> describe
> > intellectual
> > acuity or lack thereof.  In English we can call
> people "bright" and
> > "dim(witted)" to mean 'smart' and 'not so smart'.
> >
> >    Do you know of a language that lacks that
> equation?
> >
> >       Thanks for your
> help.
> >
> > Best,
> >       David
> >
> >
> > David S. Rood
> > Dept. of Linguistics
> > Univ. of Colorado
> > 295 UCB
> > Boulder, CO 80309-0295
> > USA
> > rood at colorado.edu
> >
> >
> >
> > Based on an award-winning 160-acre Campus near
> Liverpool, Edge Hill
> > University has over 125 years of history as an
> innovative,
> successful
> > and distinctive higher education provider.
> >
> > ● Shortlisted for Times Higher Education University
> of the Year
> 2007 and
> > 2010
> > ● Top in the North West for overall student
> satisfaction (Sunday
> Times
> > University Guide 2011)
> > ● Second in England for graduate employment (HESA
> 2009, full
> > universities, full and part-time, first and foundation
> degrees)
> > ● Top 20 position, and the highest ranked university
> in 'The
> Sunday
> > Times Best Places to Work in the Public Sector 2010'
> >
> > -----------------------------------------------------
> > This message is private and confidential. If you have
> received this
> > message in error, please notify the sender and remove
> it from your
> > system. Any views or opinions presented are solely
> those of the
> author
> > and do not necessarily represent those of Edge Hill or
> associated
> > companies.  Edge Hill University may monitor
> email traffic data and
> also
> > the content of email for the purposes of security and
> business
> > communications during staff absence.
> >
> > -----------------------------------------------------
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Based on an award-winning 160-acre Campus near Liverpool,
> Edge Hill
> University has over 125 years of history as an innovative,
> successful
> and distinctive higher education provider.
> 
> • Shortlisted for Times Higher Education University of
> the Year 2007 and
> 2010
> • Top in the North West for overall student satisfaction
> (Sunday Times
> University Guide 2011)
> • Second in England for graduate employment (HESA 2009,
> full
> universities, full and part-time, first and foundation
> degrees)
> • Top 20 position, and the highest ranked university in
> 'The Sunday
> Times Best Places to Work in the Public Sector 2010'
> 
> -----------------------------------------------------
> This message is private and confidential. If you have
> received this
> message in error, please notify the sender and remove it
> from your
> system. Any views or opinions presented are solely those of
> the author
> and do not necessarily represent those of Edge Hill or
> associated
> companies.  Edge Hill University may monitor email
> traffic data and also
> the content of email for the purposes of security and
> business
> communications during staff absence.
> 
> -----------------------------------------------------
> 


      


From linguista at gmail.com  Tue Feb 22 20:58:55 2011
From: linguista at gmail.com (Bryan James Gordon)
Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2011 13:58:55 -0700
Subject: cross-linguistic metaphors (fwd)
In-Reply-To: <OFA8B95EBE.03E803D8-ON8625783E.0050F7DC-8625783E.0059A211@unl.edu>
Message-ID: <TUE.22.FEB.2011.135855.0700.>

>
>
>
> But since this is a Siouanist list, what about Siouan and other native
> North American languages?  For Omaha, we have wazhiN-ska listed in the
> Stabler-Swetland dictionary for 'smart/intelligent', along with 'wise',
> 'knowledge', 'clever' and 'sober'.  wazhiN seems to mean something like
> 'disposition', 'will', 'mentality' or 'anger', perhaps like the early
> Germanic meaning of /mood/.  ska means 'white', and is also said to mean
> 'clear' or 'bright', although I've never been able to make that connection.
>  So the term actually seems to mean something like "white-disposition", with
> the main implication of wisdom and sobriety of conduct, not so much what
> we're looking for here as the ability to grasp ideas quickly.  No word is
> listed for 'stupid', and the closest I can get is 'foolish', which merges
> with groNriN, 'crazy', as the opposite of wisdom and sobriety.
>

What if the -ska in wazhíⁿska is not the same as "white"? There are also
other words, like tápuska, iyéska, which confer the impression that it might
be nothing more than an agent-nominaliser, perhaps historically related to
shkoⁿ "active/move/do" (which would go some way towards explaining the
apparent part-cognate-part-loanword set hethúshka iróska ilóⁿska where some
languages have s and others sh). I think I recall hearing some words in Macy
that indicated a productive use of this suffix on verbal predicates that
don't show any signs of taking -ska in either Dorsey or the Swetland-Stabler
lexicon. I've even heard an interpretation of "pahaska" (Pawhuska) as
meaning "person who stands forward" instead of "white head/scalp", although
that might be a creative back-formation.

On the other hand, however, the Báxoje word for translator is "ich^é brédhe"
"speaks clearly", which hints that clarity if not colour may well have
something to do with the semantics of this family of concepts. I think what
we need is either luck in finding a section of discourse documented that
confirms or rejects the hypothesis, or a native speaker who has the relevant
intuition.

- Bryan
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From rankin at ku.edu  Tue Feb 22 21:13:30 2011
From: rankin at ku.edu (Rankin, Robert L)
Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2011 21:13:30 +0000
Subject: cross-linguistic metaphors (fwd)
In-Reply-To: <AANLkTim6rUwtzOwHBE+cZObQx67DuumUezZAq0ROiJqq@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <TUE.22.FEB.2011.211330.0000.>

I'm pretty sure the -ska of wazhiNska and ieska is the one meaning 'clear' (also 'white'), as in the Kansas place name ni hni ska 'clear spring'..  So wazhiNska would be 'clear thinker' and ieska 'clear speaker' (interpreter).  As for the other skas, who knows?  The secret is to realize it means 'clear' as well as 'white'.

Bob

________________________________
From: owner-siouan at lists.Colorado.EDU [owner-siouan at lists.Colorado.EDU] on behalf of Bryan James Gordon [linguista at gmail.com]
Sent: Tuesday, February 22, 2011 2:58 PM
To: siouan at lists.Colorado.EDU
Subject: Re: cross-linguistic metaphors (fwd)



But since this is a Siouanist list, what about Siouan and other native North American languages?  For Omaha, we have wazhiN-ska listed in the Stabler-Swetland dictionary for 'smart/intelligent', along with 'wise', 'knowledge', 'clever' and 'sober'.  wazhiN seems to mean something like 'disposition', 'will', 'mentality' or 'anger', perhaps like the early Germanic meaning of /mood/.  ska means 'white', and is also said to mean 'clear' or 'bright', although I've never been able to make that connection.  So the term actually seems to mean something like "white-disposition", with the main implication of wisdom and sobriety of conduct, not so much what we're looking for here as the ability to grasp ideas quickly.  No word is listed for 'stupid', and the closest I can get is 'foolish', which merges with groNriN, 'crazy', as the opposite of wisdom and sobriety.

What if the -ska in wazhíⁿska is not the same as "white"? There are also other words, like tápuska, iyéska, which confer the impression that it might be nothing more than an agent-nominaliser, perhaps historically related to shkoⁿ "active/move/do" (which would go some way towards explaining the apparent part-cognate-part-loanword set hethúshka iróska ilóⁿska where some languages have s and others sh). I think I recall hearing some words in Macy that indicated a productive use of this suffix on verbal predicates that don't show any signs of taking -ska in either Dorsey or the Swetland-Stabler lexicon. I've even heard an interpretation of "pahaska" (Pawhuska) as meaning "person who stands forward" instead of "white head/scalp", although that might be a creative back-formation.

On the other hand, however, the Báxoje word for translator is "ich^é brédhe" "speaks clearly", which hints that clarity if not colour may well have something to do with the semantics of this family of concepts. I think what we need is either luck in finding a section of discourse documented that confirms or rejects the hypothesis, or a native speaker who has the relevant intuition.

- Bryan

From Greer-J at MSSU.EDU  Tue Feb 22 22:15:59 2011
From: Greer-J at MSSU.EDU (Jill Greer)
Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2011 16:15:59 -0600
Subject: cross-linguistic metaphors (fwd)
In-Reply-To: <AANLkTim6rUwtzOwHBE+cZObQx67DuumUezZAq0ROiJqq@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <TUE.22.FEB.2011.161559.0600.>

Bryan,
 
Perhaps one might also gloss the Jiwere form as "makes speech clear" 
as in taking the confusion of an unknown tongue, and making it
understood (or clear) to the listener.  Still,  that seems a different
metaphor.  Cross-sensory description (sight/hearing) is not the same as 
intelligence vs. stupidity...  I liked Rory's comment about the
potential innate bias in such a concept anyway,  especially considering
that individuals who Europeans might have once labeled "idiots" could be
seen as possessing special qualities and different, rather than inferior
"intelligence."  And different elders commented about a mentally
retarded individual that traditionally,  such a person would be taught
to do work or be "useful" to their abilities.  Unfortunately the
conversation was in English, and no Ioway or Otoe words were used in
that context which might contribute to the discussion here.  
 
Where would we find a native speaker of a Siouan language who isn't
potentially influenced by having the English metaphor already known in
their bilingual speech repertoire???
 
And just for curiosity,  are there any other metaphors believed to be
universal?
 
For us, light/bright also equates good vs. dark/evil,  and quick vs.
slow can be mapped to wit instead of visible activity.  
 
 
Jill Greer
 
 
>>> Bryan James Gordon <linguista at gmail.com> 2/22/2011 2:58 PM >>>




But since this is a Siouanist list, what about Siouan and other native
North American languages? For Omaha, we have wazhiN-ska listed in the
Stabler-Swetland dictionary for 'smart/intelligent', along with 'wise',
'knowledge', 'clever' and 'sober'. wazhiN seems to mean something like
'disposition', 'will', 'mentality' or 'anger', perhaps like the early
Germanic meaning of /mood/. ska means 'white', and is also said to mean
'clear' or 'bright', although I've never been able to make that
connection. So the term actually seems to mean something like
"white-disposition", with the main implication of wisdom and sobriety of
conduct, not so much what we're looking for here as the ability to grasp
ideas quickly. No word is listed for 'stupid', and the closest I can get
is 'foolish', which merges with groNriN, 'crazy', as the opposite of
wisdom and sobriety. 


What if the -ska in wazhíⁿska is not the same as "white"? There are
also other words, like tápuska, iyéska, which confer the impression that
it might be nothing more than an agent-nominaliser, perhaps historically
related to shkoⁿ "active/move/do" (which would go some way towards
explaining the apparent part-cognate-part-loanword set hethúshka iróska
ilóⁿska where some languages have s and others sh). I think I recall
hearing some words in Macy that indicated a productive use of this
suffix on verbal predicates that don't show any signs of taking -ska in
either Dorsey or the Swetland-Stabler lexicon. I've even heard an
interpretation of "pahaska" (Pawhuska) as meaning "person who stands
forward" instead of "white head/scalp", although that might be a
creative back-formation.

On the other hand, however, the Báxoje word for translator is "ich^é
brédhe" "speaks clearly", which hints that clarity if not colour may
well have something to do with the semantics of this family of concepts.
I think what we need is either luck in finding a section of discourse
documented that confirms or rejects the hypothesis, or a native speaker
who has the relevant intuition. 

- Bryan
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From rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu  Wed Feb 23 01:48:29 2011
From: rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu (Rory M Larson)
Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2011 19:48:29 -0600
Subject: cross-linguistic metaphors (fwd)
In-Reply-To: <5E87B4AFA471B543884CD3128A7C8CC6019027@EXCH10-MBX-05.home.ku.edu>
Message-ID: <TUE.22.FEB.2011.194829.0600.>

Bob wrote:
> I'm pretty sure the -ska of wazhiNska and ieska is the one
> meaning 'clear' (also 'white'), as in the Kansas place name
> ni hni ska 'clear spring'..  So wazhiNska would be 'clear thinker'
> and ieska 'clear speaker' (interpreter).  As for the other skas,
> who knows?  The secret is to realize it means 'clear' as well
> as 'white'.

I agree that this makes the best sense in these contexts.  I know too that 
many other languages handle color terms in ways very different from what 
we are used to.  It's just that I have a hard time putting my head around 
the commonality of 'white' with 'clear'.  It would be nice to have more 
examples of the latter use of ska, especially in productive usage.  I 
should check with our speakers, but I strongly doubt that they would use 
ska to describe clear water or a transparent window glass.


Bryan wrote:
> What if the -ska in wazhíⁿska is not the same as "white"?
> There are also other words, like tápuska, iyéska, which confer the 
> impression that it might be nothing more than an agent-nominaliser,
> perhaps historically related to shkoⁿ "active/move/do" (which would
> go some way towards explaining the apparent part-cognate-part-loanword
> set hethúshka iróska ilóⁿska where some languages have s and others sh).
> I think I recall hearing some words in Macy that indicated a productive
> use of this suffix on verbal predicates that don't show any signs of
> taking -ska in either Dorsey or the Swetland-Stabler lexicon.
> I've even heard an interpretation of "pahaska" (Pawhuska) as meaning
> "person who stands forward" instead of "white head/scalp",
> although that might be a creative back-formation.

> On the other hand, however, the Báxoje word for translator is
> "ich^é brédhe" "speaks clearly", which hints that clarity if not colour
> may well have something to do with the semantics of this family
> of concepts. I think what we need is either luck in finding a section
> of discourse documented that confirms or rejects the hypothesis,
> or a native speaker who has the relevant intuition.

I've toyed with the idea that the meaning of ska was extended in 
pre-reservation contact times to mean "special type of [BASENOUN] that you 
want to collect".  Thus, moNze-ska, "white-metal", or 'silver/money'; 
hiN-ska, "white-animalhair", for porcupine quills and later beads; 
tte-ska, "white-buffalo", for European cattle.  These all arguably have 
some degree of whiteness about them, but they fall more clearly into the 
"collectible" class.

I believe the ska in ttappuska definitely means 'white'.  (This word is 
especially interesting, and I'm thinking of giving a short paper on it at 
the Siouanist conference if they still have time slots.)  For ieska and 
wazhiNska, I can't offer better than Bob does above, which nevertheless 
requires metaphorical cross-sensory extension of a meaning that may be 
hard to establish for the plain use of the word.  I'm open to the 
possibility that some ska's might be a different word, perhaps related to 
shkoN.  To make that connection, we'd have to both lose the nasalization 
and do a Siouan sound-symbolic fricative ablaut shift.

Have you looked at -shka as a suffix?  Mark may have mentioned a 
distinction one of our speakers explained to us recently, that wagri is a 
maggot, while wagri-shka is a bug with legs.

Also, is there an OP cognate to Báxoje brédhe ?  I assume that should be 
breze in Omaha and Ponka, but I'm not familiar with any such word.

Cheers,
Rory

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From linguista at gmail.com  Wed Feb 23 06:34:56 2011
From: linguista at gmail.com (Bryan James Gordon)
Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2011 23:34:56 -0700
Subject: cross-linguistic metaphors (fwd)
In-Reply-To: <OF8A91F38D.88ECA4EA-ON86257840.0000F9C9-86257840.0009EEA3@unl.edu>
Message-ID: <TUE.22.FEB.2011.233456.0700.>

Wow this is an engaging thread! I miss when we had more of these.

Hi Jill, how are you? I think, unfortunately, a native speaker could only
help us to reject, not to confirm, the hypothesis, because of course you're
right, if she or he did confirm that it's the colour term ska being used, we
would not be able to rule out English influence. Universal metaphors have
attracted some research lately in cognitive science, where they go under
names like spreading activation and stereotypic processing. For a while this
very question of whiteness/clearness-as-good/skillful/safe, darkness-as-bad,
was getting referenced in cog-sci colloquia every other week. Ugh. There are
some metaphors that have indeed proved robust cross-culturally in labs
(inasmuch as labs can be cross-cultural!) - things that are generic like
horoscopes - things like high-pitch-as-piercing/whining/uppity. I'm guessing
most universal metaphors are this trivial or more so. The only truly
inescapable metaphor is the linguistic expression as a metaphor for its
referent.

One thing that makes me skeptical of the clarity-metaphor's necessity is
that many languages, including Umoⁿhoⁿ and Baxoje, have a word for "clear"
that is *not *ska, but rather the other common Siouan word for white, sóⁿ
[są] (U) / tháⁿ [θą] (B).

But the arguments Bob, Rory and others have made in favour of the metaphor
are also quite compelling.

It's hard to decide.

2011/2/22 Rory M Larson <rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu>

> I'm open to the possibility that some ska's might be a different word,
> perhaps related to shkoN.  To make that connection, we'd have to both lose
> the nasalization and do a Siouan sound-symbolic fricative ablaut shift.
>
How distinctive is nasality on unstressed final low vowels anyway? Think
about gthéboⁿ "ten", which only a few people pronounce that way anymore: it
has become gthéba for many others. The sound-symbolic fricative ablaut is a
nifty proposal. A connection to -shka would be interesting. I'd given it
some thought, but nothing obvious really sticks out. Of course in Baxoje
forms like shga~sga~thga~xga~hga often vary sociolinguistically or
stylistically (i.e. some of them are "old" forms, others are "Jiwere" forms,
etc.), so maybe this has something to do with how Baxoje uses non-cognates
to express the same meaning.

In the dictionary Jimm gives Lakȟota bléza "sane", Dakhota mdéza "clear",
Hocąk péres "clear, sane, intelligent" as cognates of brédhe. I suspect a
connection also with grédhe "many-coloured". Interestingly, rédhe is
"tongue". Umoⁿhoⁿ gthéze is "spotted/rippled", maybe they don't say bthéze
because they say wazhíⁿska instead, maybe one of the speakers has heard a
word like bthéze before?
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From greer-j at MSSU.EDU  Wed Feb 23 16:16:35 2011
From: greer-j at MSSU.EDU (Jill Greer)
Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2011 10:16:35 -0600
Subject: cross-linguistic metaphors (fwd)
Message-ID: <WED.23.FEB.2011.101635.0600.>

Could there be an element of light reflection/shiny involved - since
silver is called mathe-ska 'white metal', and obviously it is not
"white" at all nore transparent (forgive the th for eth here)? Bodies of
(clear) water are also highly reflective, and light rather than dark in
color...
Jill Greer



>>> Rory M Larson 02/22/11 7:49 PM >>>
Bob wrote: 
> I'm pretty sure the -ska of wazhiNska and ieska is the one 
> meaning 'clear' (also 'white'), as in the Kansas place name 
> ni hni ska 'clear spring'.. So wazhiNska would be 'clear thinker' 
> and ieska 'clear speaker' (interpreter). As for the other skas, 
> who knows? The secret is to realize it means 'clear' as well 
> as 'white'.

I agree that this makes the best sense in these contexts. I know too
that many other languages handle color terms in ways very different from
what we are used to. It's just that I have a hard time putting my head
around the commonality of 'white' with 'clear'. It would be nice to have
more examples of the latter use of ska, especially in productive usage.
I should check with our speakers, but I strongly doubt that they would
use ska to describe clear water or a transparent window glass. 


Bryan wrote: 
> What if the -ska in wazhíⁿska is not the same as "white"? 
> There are also other words, like tápuska, iyéska, which confer the 
> impression that it might be nothing more than an agent-nominaliser, 
> perhaps historically related to shkoⁿ "active/move/do" (which would 
> go some way towards explaining the apparent part-cognate-part-loanword

> set hethúshka iróska ilóⁿska where some languages have s and others
sh). 
> I think I recall hearing some words in Macy that indicated a
productive 
> use of this suffix on verbal predicates that don't show any signs of 
> taking -ska in either Dorsey or the Swetland-Stabler lexicon. 
> I've even heard an interpretation of "pahaska" (Pawhuska) as meaning 
> "person who stands forward" instead of "white head/scalp", 
> although that might be a creative back-formation.

> On the other hand, however, the Báxoje word for translator is 
> "ich^é brédhe" "speaks clearly", which hints that clarity if not
colour 
> may well have something to do with the semantics of this family 
> of concepts. I think what we need is either luck in finding a section 
> of discourse documented that confirms or rejects the hypothesis, 
> or a native speaker who has the relevant intuition.

I've toyed with the idea that the meaning of ska was extended in
pre-reservation contact times to mean "special type of [BASENOUN] that
you want to collect". Thus, moNze-ska, "white-metal", or 'silver/money';
hiN-ska, "white-animalhair", for porcupine quills and later beads;
tte-ska, "white-buffalo", for European cattle. These all arguably have
some degree of whiteness about them, but they fall more clearly into the
"collectible" class. 

I believe the ska in ttappuska definitely means 'white'. (This word is
especially interesting, and I'm thinking of giving a short paper on it
at the Siouanist conference if they still have time slots.) For ieska
and wazhiNska, I can't offer better than Bob does above, which
nevertheless requires metaphorical cross-sensory extension of a meaning
that may be hard to establish for the plain use of the word. I'm open to
the possibility that some ska's might be a different word, perhaps
related to shkoN. To make that connection, we'd have to both lose the
nasalization and do a Siouan sound-symbolic fricative ablaut shift. 

Have you looked at -shka as a suffix? Mark may have mentioned a
distinction one of our speakers explained to us recently, that wagri is
a maggot, while wagri-shka is a bug with legs. 

Also, is there an OP cognate to Báxoje brédhe ? I assume that should be
breze in Omaha and Ponka, but I'm not familiar with any such word. 

Cheers, 
Rory 
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From jgoodtracks at gmail.com  Wed Feb 23 16:26:36 2011
From: jgoodtracks at gmail.com (Jimm G. GoodTracks)
Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2011 10:26:36 -0600
Subject: cross-linguistic metaphors (fwd)
In-Reply-To: <AANLkTi=A+4MXbXKmajCE286LUfyPdGX_xP23GfWxUi98@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <WED.23.FEB.2011.102636.0600.>

It seems to me, that there are several tangents in motion here after the original question was prompted.  As to that original question, it seems to be one of a cultural context based on English (Anglo-American Language/ word use) and then trying to fit that onto other language and cultures.

Meanwhile, it is good that the discussion was redirected to Siouan applications.  Both Jill and Bryon have clerified the direction and discussion.  Sometimes, we get our English mindset in motion to force or squeeze out applications of Siouan words/ terms that are applied in ways unfamiliar to the English speaker.  The IOM term  šgán is diferent than the term "thka ~ hga" (white color) and "thkan" (opaque, clear, transparent).   The šgán  of IOM refers to a particular energy that may be manifested physically or in non-material/ organic format.  Perhaps one could even say in a spiritual format.   In Lakota, I have seen a discussion at length of the term, but I am on the road and have to way to explore my resources nor check my new consortium Lakota Dictionary.  Someone else can do that, as well as get someone well versed in Lakota terms.

For IOM, taken from my revised dictionary files, I have the following concrete offering:   

šgán; skán  n/v.i.  (to be) diligent, active.  [L/D.šgan].  **SEE: active.   šgánwexa  adj/v.i.  hard; diligent, diligently; active, actively.   šgánwéxa wa^ún  v.i.  work hard.   Šgánwéxa ke,  Uxré wa^ún rušdán gúnana,  He worked hard to get done early.   wósgan  n.  tradition; custom; habit; talent (FM).



From: Bryan James Gordon 
Sent: Wednesday, February 23, 2011 12:34 AM
To: siouan at lists.Colorado.EDU 
Subject: Re: cross-linguistic metaphors (fwd)


Wow this is an engaging thread! I miss when we had more of these. 


Hi Jill, how are you? I think, unfortunately, a native speaker could only help us to reject, not to confirm, the hypothesis, because of course you're right, if she or he did confirm that it's the colour term ska being used, we would not be able to rule out English influence. Universal metaphors have attracted some research lately in cognitive science, where they go under names like spreading activation and stereotypic processing. For a while this very question of whiteness/clearness-as-good/skillful/safe, darkness-as-bad, was getting referenced in cog-sci colloquia every other week. Ugh. There are some metaphors that have indeed proved robust cross-culturally in labs (inasmuch as labs can be cross-cultural!) - things that are generic like horoscopes - things like high-pitch-as-piercing/whining/uppity. I'm guessing most universal metaphors are this trivial or more so. The only truly inescapable metaphor is the linguistic expression as a metaphor for its referent.


One thing that makes me skeptical of the clarity-metaphor's necessity is that many languages, including Umoⁿhoⁿ and Baxoje, have a word for "clear" that is not ska, but rather the other common Siouan word for white, sóⁿ [są] (U) / tháⁿ [θą] (B).


But the arguments Bob, Rory and others have made in favour of the metaphor are also quite compelling.


It's hard to decide.


2011/2/22 Rory M Larson <rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu>

  I'm open to the possibility that some ska's might be a different word, perhaps related to shkoN.  To make that connection, we'd have to both lose the nasalization and do a Siouan sound-symbolic fricative ablaut shift.
How distinctive is nasality on unstressed final low vowels anyway? Think about gthéboⁿ "ten", which only a few people pronounce that way anymore: it has become gthéba for many others. The sound-symbolic fricative ablaut is a nifty proposal. A connection to -shka would be interesting. I'd given it some thought, but nothing obvious really sticks out. Of course in Baxoje forms like shga~sga~thga~xga~hga often vary sociolinguistically or stylistically (i.e. some of them are "old" forms, others are "Jiwere" forms, etc.), so maybe this has something to do with how Baxoje uses non-cognates to express the same meaning.


In the dictionary Jimm gives Lakȟota bléza "sane", Dakhota mdéza "clear", Hocąk péres "clear, sane, intelligent" as cognates of brédhe. I suspect a connection also with grédhe "many-coloured". Interestingly, rédhe is "tongue". Umoⁿhoⁿ gthéze is "spotted/rippled", maybe they don't say bthéze because they say wazhíⁿska instead, maybe one of the speakers has heard a word like bthéze before?

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From greer-j at MSSU.EDU  Wed Feb 23 16:25:46 2011
From: greer-j at MSSU.EDU (Jill Greer)
Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2011 10:25:46 -0600
Subject: cross-linguistic metaphors (fwd)
Message-ID: <WED.23.FEB.2011.102546.0600.>

Thanks, Brian - I'm fine, and you are well versed in diverse fields, as
always! We could go even further than the cog-sci folks, and posit that
there is a universal human fear of the dark from when dangers and demons
went bump in the night, and a universal gravitation toward (sun)light,
for life itself, excluding those nocturnal critters, of course :) ! 


>>> Bryan James Gordon 02/23/11 12:35 AM >>>
Wow this is an engaging thread! I miss when we had more of these. 
Hi Jill, how are you? I think, unfortunately, a native speaker could
only help us to reject, not to confirm, the hypothesis, because of
course you're right, if she or he did confirm that it's the colour term
ska being used, we would not be able to rule out English influence.
Universal metaphors have attracted some research lately in cognitive
science, where they go under names like spreading activation and
stereotypic processing. For a while this very question of
whiteness/clearness-as-good/skillful/safe, darkness-as-bad, was getting
referenced in cog-sci colloquia every other week. Ugh. There are some
metaphors that have indeed proved robust cross-culturally in labs
(inasmuch as labs can be cross-cultural!) - things that are generic like
horoscopes - things like high-pitch-as-piercing/whining/uppity. I'm
guessing most universal metaphors are this trivial or more so. The only
truly inescapable metaphor is the linguistic expression as a metaphor
for its referent.

One thing that makes me skeptical of the clarity-metaphor's necessity is
that many languages, including Umoⁿhoⁿ and Baxoje, have a word for
"clear" that is not ska, but rather the other common Siouan word for
white, sóⁿ [są] (U) / tháⁿ [θą] (B).

But the arguments Bob, Rory and others have made in favour of the
metaphor are also quite compelling.

It's hard to decide.

2011/2/22 Rory M Larson <rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu>
I'm open to the possibility that some ska's might be a different word,
perhaps related to shkoN. To make that connection, we'd have to both
lose the nasalization and do a Siouan sound-symbolic fricative ablaut
shift.
How distinctive is nasality on unstressed final low vowels anyway? Think
about gthéboⁿ "ten", which only a few people pronounce that way anymore:
it has become gthéba for many others. The sound-symbolic fricative
ablaut is a nifty proposal. A connection to -shka would be interesting.
I'd given it some thought, but nothing obvious really sticks out. Of
course in Baxoje forms like shga~sga~thga~xga~hga often vary
sociolinguistically or stylistically (i.e. some of them are "old" forms,
others are "Jiwere" forms, etc.), so maybe this has something to do with
how Baxoje uses non-cognates to express the same meaning.

In the dictionary Jimm gives Lakȟota bléza "sane", Dakhota mdéza
"clear", Hocąk péres "clear, sane, intelligent" as cognates of brédhe. I
suspect a connection also with grédhe "many-coloured". Interestingly,
rédhe is "tongue". Umoⁿhoⁿ gthéze is "spotted/rippled", maybe they
don't say bthéze because they say wazhíⁿska instead, maybe one of the
speakers has heard a word like bthéze before?
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From jgoodtracks at gmail.com  Wed Feb 23 16:35:01 2011
From: jgoodtracks at gmail.com (Jimm G. GoodTracks)
Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2011 10:35:01 -0600
Subject: Fw: [TalkIndianOK] Happy International Mother Language Day
Message-ID: <WED.23.FEB.2011.103501.0600.>




From: Alice Anderton 
Sent: Tuesday, February 22, 2011 1:40 PM
To: talkindianok at yahoogroups.com 
Subject: [TalkIndianOK] Happy International Mother Language Day


  

Happy International Mother Language Day to all!

The date was actually this weekend, but I guess this can be IML Week, as it was so declared by Gov. Henry in Oklahoma in 2008.

This date was picked by UNESCO, because folks died for their language on that date (see below).  What have you done for your language lately?

I encourage you all in your efforts! 




Alice

============

International Mother Language Day has been observed every year since February 2000 to promote linguistic and cultural diversity and multilingualism. The date represents the day in 1952 when students demonstrating for recognition of their language, Bangla, as one of the two national languages of the then Pakistan, were shot and killed by police in Dhaka, the capital of what is now Bangladesh.

Languages are the most powerful instruments of preserving and developing our tangible and intangible heritage. All moves to promote the dissemination of mother tongues will serve not only to encourage linguistic diversity and multilingual education but also to develop fuller awareness of linguistic and cultural traditions throughout the world and to inspire solidarity based on understanding, tolerance and dialogue




Source:  www.un.org/en/events/motherlanguageday/

 
Alice Anderton, Executive Director
Intertribal Wordpath Society
1506 Barkley St., Norman, OK 73071
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(405) 447-6103
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From rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu  Wed Feb 23 16:59:46 2011
From: rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu (Rory M Larson)
Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2011 10:59:46 -0600
Subject: cross-linguistic metaphors (fwd)
In-Reply-To: <AANLkTi=A+4MXbXKmajCE286LUfyPdGX_xP23GfWxUi98@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <WED.23.FEB.2011.105946.0600.>

Bryan wrote:
How distinctive is nasality on unstressed final low vowels anyway? Think 
about gthéboⁿ "ten", which only a few people pronounce that way anymore: 
it has become gthéba for many others.

I agree, at least for the modern epoch.  I believe Dorsey used shinudaN 
for 'dog', but I have been corrected by more than one modern speaker when 
I tried to pronounce it that way.  When I was working with recordings in 
Audacity, I noticed that nasality in longish, stressed syllables at least 
was actually segmented toward the end, rather than being a part of the 
whole vowel.  So the first part of a "nasal" vowel is often actually oral, 
and followed by a generic nasal sound almost as a separate mora.  When I 
realized that, I happily accepted the orthographic raised n instead of 
using the underhook.  I think the reason we lose nasality so easily on 
those unstressed final vowels is that that last nasal segment is simply 
truncated.


One thing that makes me skeptical of the clarity-metaphor's necessity is 
that many languages, including Umoⁿhoⁿ and Baxoje, have a word for "clear" 
that is not ska, but rather the other common Siouan word for white, sóⁿ 
[są] (U) / tháⁿ [θą] (B).


That's interesting.  Can you offer some examples?


In the dictionary Jimm gives Lakȟota bléza "sane", Dakhota mdéza "clear", 
Hocąk péres "clear, sane, intelligent" as cognates of brédhe. I suspect a 
connection also with grédhe "many-coloured". Interestingly, rédhe is 
"tongue". Umoⁿhoⁿ gthéze is "spotted/rippled", maybe they don't say bthéze 
because they say wazhíⁿska instead, maybe one of the speakers has heard a 
word like bthéze before?

Good idea!  I'm working with one this semester to brush up the 
Stabler-Swetland dictionary.  I'll try to remember to ask her.

Rory

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From rankin at ku.edu  Wed Feb 23 17:54:11 2011
From: rankin at ku.edu (Rankin, Robert L)
Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2011 17:54:11 +0000
Subject: cross-linguistic metaphors (fwd)
In-Reply-To: <AANLkTi=A+4MXbXKmajCE286LUfyPdGX_xP23GfWxUi98@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <WED.23.FEB.2011.175411.0000.>

What I find interesting is the fact that, after centuries of interactions with Germans and lots of bilingualism, this metaphor hasn't penetrated Czech.  I'd have expected it to be more or less pan-European.

Bob


________________________________
From: owner-siouan at lists.Colorado.EDU [owner-siouan at lists.Colorado.EDU] on behalf of Bryan James Gordon [linguista at gmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, February 23, 2011 12:34 AM
To: siouan at lists.Colorado.EDU
Subject: Re: cross-linguistic metaphors (fwd)

Wow this is an engaging thread! I miss when we had more of these.

Hi Jill, how are you? I think, unfortunately, a native speaker could only help us to reject, not to confirm, the hypothesis, because of course you're right, if she or he did confirm that it's the colour term ska being used, we would not be able to rule out English influence. Universal metaphors have attracted some research lately in cognitive science, where they go under names like spreading activation and stereotypic processing. For a while this very question of whiteness/clearness-as-good/skillful/safe, darkness-as-bad, was getting referenced in cog-sci colloquia every other week. Ugh. There are some metaphors that have indeed proved robust cross-culturally in labs (inasmuch as labs can be cross-cultural!) - things that are generic like horoscopes - things like high-pitch-as-piercing/whining/uppity. I'm guessing most universal metaphors are this trivial or more so. The only truly inescapable metaphor is the linguistic expression as a metaphor for its referent.

One thing that makes me skeptical of the clarity-metaphor's necessity is that many languages, including Umoⁿhoⁿ and Baxoje, have a word for "clear" that is not ska, but rather the other common Siouan word for white, sóⁿ [są] (U) / tháⁿ [θą] (B).

But the arguments Bob, Rory and others have made in favour of the metaphor are also quite compelling.

It's hard to decide.

2011/2/22 Rory M Larson <rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu<mailto:rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu>>
I'm open to the possibility that some ska's might be a different word, perhaps related to shkoN.  To make that connection, we'd have to both lose the nasalization and do a Siouan sound-symbolic fricative ablaut shift.
How distinctive is nasality on unstressed final low vowels anyway? Think about gthéboⁿ "ten", which only a few people pronounce that way anymore: it has become gthéba for many others. The sound-symbolic fricative ablaut is a nifty proposal. A connection to -shka would be interesting. I'd given it some thought, but nothing obvious really sticks out. Of course in Baxoje forms like shga~sga~thga~xga~hga often vary sociolinguistically or stylistically (i.e. some of them are "old" forms, others are "Jiwere" forms, etc.), so maybe this has something to do with how Baxoje uses non-cognates to express the same meaning.

In the dictionary Jimm gives Lakȟota bléza "sane", Dakhota mdéza "clear", Hocąk péres "clear, sane, intelligent" as cognates of brédhe. I suspect a connection also with grédhe "many-coloured". Interestingly, rédhe is "tongue". Umoⁿhoⁿ gthéze is "spotted/rippled", maybe they don't say bthéze because they say wazhíⁿska instead, maybe one of the speakers has heard a word like bthéze before?


From David.Rood at Colorado.EDU  Thu Feb 24 04:00:11 2011
From: David.Rood at Colorado.EDU (ROOD DAVID S)
Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2011 21:00:11 -0700
Subject: cross-linguistic metaphors (fwd)
In-Reply-To: <BAA8BAFBD1D945828CBE5D3D66257FD9@JGLaptop>
Message-ID: <WED.23.FEB.2011.210011.0700.>



Jimm, let's be very cautious about linguistic details here.  At least in 
Lakota, and I assume for the other languages as well, ska 'white' is a 
very different word from s^kaN.  The former is used in e.g. the name 
for the Rocky Mountains, literally 'white mountains'.  Jill's 
suggestion of 'reflective' might work here.

The latter is used for a great many spiritual concepts.  It's usually 
glossed "moving", but it refers to the movement of spirits or mysterious 
beings, or the rustling of weeds and bushes in the wind (especially if 
it's dark), and is loaded with religious connotations.  It is not at all 
the same as 'white'.  S^kaN can have mundane uses, too.  A clock is 
"mazas^kaNs^kaN" 'moving metal', with reference to the pendulum of a 19th 
century clock.  Your glosses of 'diligent, active' etc. belong with this 
word, not the 'white' word.

David

David S. Rood
Dept. of Linguistics
Univ. of Colorado
295 UCB
Boulder, CO 80309-0295
USA
rood at colorado.edu

On Wed, 23 Feb 2011, Jimm G. GoodTracks wrote:

> It seems to me, that there are several tangents in motion here after the original question was prompted.  As to that original question, it seems to be one of a cultural context based on English (Anglo-American Language/ word use) and then trying to fit that onto other language and cultures.
>
> Meanwhile, it is good that the discussion was redirected to Siouan applications.  Both Jill and Bryon have clerified the direction and discussion.  Sometimes, we get our English mindset in motion to force or squeeze out applications of Siouan words/ terms that are applied in ways unfamiliar to the English speaker.  The IOM term  šgán is diferent than the term "thka ~ hga" (white color) and "thkan" (opaque, clear, transparent).   The šgán  of IOM refers to a particular energy that may be manifested physically or in non-material/ organic format.  Perhaps one could even say in a spiritual format.   In Lakota, I have seen a discussion at length of the term, but I am on the road and have to way to explore my resources nor check my new consortium Lakota Dictionary.  Someone else can do that, as well as get someone well versed in Lakota terms.
>
> For IOM, taken from my revised dictionary files, I have the following 
> concrete offering:
>
> šgán; skán n/v.i.  (to be) diligent, active.  [L/D.šgan].  **SEE: 
> active.  šgánwexa adj/v.i.  hard; diligent, diligently; active, 
> actively.  šgánwéxa wa^ún v.i.  work hard.  Šgánwéxa ke, Uxré 
> wa^ún rušdán gúnana, He worked hard to get done early.  wósgan n. 
> tradition; custom; habit; talent (FM).
>
>
>
> From: Bryan James Gordon
> Sent: Wednesday, February 23, 2011 12:34 AM
> To: siouan at lists.Colorado.EDU
> Subject: Re: cross-linguistic metaphors (fwd)
>
>
> Wow this is an engaging thread! I miss when we had more of these.
>
>
> Hi Jill, how are you? I think, unfortunately, a native speaker could only help us to reject, not to confirm, the hypothesis, because of course you're right, if she or he did confirm that it's the colour term ska being used, we would not be able to rule out English influence. Universal metaphors have attracted some research lately in cognitive science, where they go under names like spreading activation and stereotypic processing. For a while this very question of whiteness/clearness-as-good/skillful/safe, darkness-as-bad, was getting referenced in cog-sci colloquia every other week. Ugh. There are some metaphors that have indeed proved robust cross-culturally in labs (inasmuch as labs can be cross-cultural!) - things that are generic like horoscopes - things like high-pitch-as-piercing/whining/uppity. I'm guessing most universal metaphors are this trivial or more so. The only truly inescapable metaphor is the linguistic expression as a metaphor for its referent.
>
>
> One thing that makes me skeptical of the clarity-metaphor's necessity is that many languages, including Umoⁿhoⁿ and Baxoje, have a word for "clear" that is not ska, but rather the other common Siouan word for white, sóⁿ [są] (U) / tháⁿ [θą] (B).
>
>
> But the arguments Bob, Rory and others have made in favour of the metaphor are also quite compelling.
>
>
> It's hard to decide.
>
>
> 2011/2/22 Rory M Larson <rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu>
>
>  I'm open to the possibility that some ska's might be a different word, perhaps related to shkoN.  To make that connection, we'd have to both lose the nasalization and do a Siouan sound-symbolic fricative ablaut shift.
> How distinctive is nasality on unstressed final low vowels anyway? Think about gthéboⁿ "ten", which only a few people pronounce that way anymore: it has become gthéba for many others. The sound-symbolic fricative ablaut is a nifty proposal. A connection to -shka would be interesting. I'd given it some thought, but nothing obvious really sticks out. Of course in Baxoje forms like shga~sga~thga~xga~hga often vary sociolinguistically or stylistically (i.e. some of them are "old" forms, others are "Jiwere" forms, etc.), so maybe this has something to do with how Baxoje uses non-cognates to express the same meaning.
>
>
> In the dictionary Jimm gives Lakȟota bléza "sane", Dakhota mdéza "clear", Hocąk péres "clear, sane, intelligent" as cognates of brédhe. I suspect a connection also with grédhe "many-coloured". Interestingly, rédhe is "tongue". Umoⁿhoⁿ gthéze is "spotted/rippled", maybe they don't say bthéze because they say wazhíⁿska instead, maybe one of the speakers has heard a word like bthéze before?
>
>

From linguista at gmail.com  Thu Feb 24 04:08:55 2011
From: linguista at gmail.com (Bryan James Gordon)
Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2011 21:08:55 -0700
Subject: cross-linguistic metaphors (fwd)
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.4.64.1102231905410.5898@spot.colorado.edu>
Message-ID: <WED.23.FEB.2011.210855.0700.>

I believe Jimm meant to say the same thing as David - that IOM shgaⁿ is not
the same as hga/thga/shga "white". The confusion is probably my fault,
because one of the things I wondered about in writing was whether the -ska
"metaphors" in Umoⁿhoⁿ might be a reduced form of shkoⁿ instead of actual
colour words. I think our consensus is still in favour of analysing it as a
colour word, not related to shkoⁿ. And even if it's not the same as the
colour word that still doesn't mean it's related to shkoⁿ. That is only a
very remote possibility in a very uncertain puzzle.

2011/2/23 ROOD DAVID S <David.Rood at colorado.edu>

>
>
> Jimm, let's be very cautious about linguistic details here.  At least in
> Lakota, and I assume for the other languages as well, ska 'white' is a very
> different word from s^kaN.  The former is used in e.g. the name for the
> Rocky Mountains, literally 'white mountains'.  Jill's suggestion of
> 'reflective' might work here.
>
> The latter is used for a great many spiritual concepts.  It's usually
> glossed "moving", but it refers to the movement of spirits or mysterious
> beings, or the rustling of weeds and bushes in the wind (especially if it's
> dark), and is loaded with religious connotations.  It is not at all the same
> as 'white'.  S^kaN can have mundane uses, too.  A clock is "mazas^kaNs^kaN"
> 'moving metal', with reference to the pendulum of a 19th century clock.
>  Your glosses of 'diligent, active' etc. belong with this word, not the
> 'white' word.
>
>
> David
>
> David S. Rood
> Dept. of Linguistics
> Univ. of Colorado
> 295 UCB
> Boulder, CO 80309-0295
> USA
> rood at colorado.edu
>
> On Wed, 23 Feb 2011, Jimm G. GoodTracks wrote:
>
>  It seems to me, that there are several tangents in motion here after the
>> original question was prompted.  As to that original question, it seems to
>> be one of a cultural context based on English (Anglo-American Language/ word
>> use) and then trying to fit that onto other language and cultures.
>>
>> Meanwhile, it is good that the discussion was redirected to Siouan
>> applications.  Both Jill and Bryon have clerified the direction and
>> discussion.  Sometimes, we get our English mindset in motion to force or
>> squeeze out applications of Siouan words/ terms that are applied in ways
>> unfamiliar to the English speaker.  The IOM term  šgán is diferent than the
>> term "thka ~ hga" (white color) and "thkan" (opaque, clear, transparent).
>> The šgán  of IOM refers to a particular energy that may be manifested
>> physically or in non-material/ organic format.  Perhaps one could even say
>> in a spiritual format.   In Lakota, I have seen a discussion at length of
>> the term, but I am on the road and have to way to explore my resources nor
>> check my new consortium Lakota Dictionary.  Someone else can do that, as
>> well as get someone well versed in Lakota terms.
>>
>> For IOM, taken from my revised dictionary files, I have the following
>> concrete offering:
>>
>> šgán; skán n/v.i.  (to be) diligent, active.  [L/D.šgan].  **SEE: active.
>>  šgánwexa adj/v.i.  hard; diligent, diligently; active, actively.  šgánwéxa
>> wa^ún v.i.  work hard.  Šgánwéxa ke, Uxré wa^ún rušdán gúnana, He worked
>> hard to get done early.  wósgan n. tradition; custom; habit; talent (FM).
>>
>>
>>
>> From: Bryan James Gordon
>> Sent: Wednesday, February 23, 2011 12:34 AM
>> To: siouan at lists.Colorado.EDU
>> Subject: Re: cross-linguistic metaphors (fwd)
>>
>>
>> Wow this is an engaging thread! I miss when we had more of these.
>>
>>
>> Hi Jill, how are you? I think, unfortunately, a native speaker could only
>> help us to reject, not to confirm, the hypothesis, because of course you're
>> right, if she or he did confirm that it's the colour term ska being used, we
>> would not be able to rule out English influence. Universal metaphors have
>> attracted some research lately in cognitive science, where they go under
>> names like spreading activation and stereotypic processing. For a while this
>> very question of whiteness/clearness-as-good/skillful/safe, darkness-as-bad,
>> was getting referenced in cog-sci colloquia every other week. Ugh. There are
>> some metaphors that have indeed proved robust cross-culturally in labs
>> (inasmuch as labs can be cross-cultural!) - things that are generic like
>> horoscopes - things like high-pitch-as-piercing/whining/uppity. I'm guessing
>> most universal metaphors are this trivial or more so. The only truly
>> inescapable metaphor is the linguistic expression as a metaphor for its
>> referent.
>>
>>
>> One thing that makes me skeptical of the clarity-metaphor's necessity is
>> that many languages, including Umoⁿhoⁿ and Baxoje, have a word for "clear"
>> that is not ska, but rather the other common Siouan word for white, sóⁿ [są]
>> (U) / tháⁿ [θą] (B).
>>
>>
>> But the arguments Bob, Rory and others have made in favour of the metaphor
>> are also quite compelling.
>>
>>
>> It's hard to decide.
>>
>>
>> 2011/2/22 Rory M Larson <rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu>
>>
>>  I'm open to the possibility that some ska's might be a different word,
>> perhaps related to shkoN.  To make that connection, we'd have to both lose
>> the nasalization and do a Siouan sound-symbolic fricative ablaut shift.
>> How distinctive is nasality on unstressed final low vowels anyway? Think
>> about gthéboⁿ "ten", which only a few people pronounce that way anymore: it
>> has become gthéba for many others. The sound-symbolic fricative ablaut is a
>> nifty proposal. A connection to -shka would be interesting. I'd given it
>> some thought, but nothing obvious really sticks out. Of course in Baxoje
>> forms like shga~sga~thga~xga~hga often vary sociolinguistically or
>> stylistically (i.e. some of them are "old" forms, others are "Jiwere" forms,
>> etc.), so maybe this has something to do with how Baxoje uses non-cognates
>> to express the same meaning.
>>
>>
>> In the dictionary Jimm gives Lakȟota bléza "sane", Dakhota mdéza "clear",
>> Hocąk péres "clear, sane, intelligent" as cognates of brédhe. I suspect a
>> connection also with grédhe "many-coloured". Interestingly, rédhe is
>> "tongue". Umoⁿhoⁿ gthéze is "spotted/rippled", maybe they don't say bthéze
>> because they say wazhíⁿska instead, maybe one of the speakers has heard a
>> word like bthéze before?
>>
>>


-- 
***********************************************************
Bryan James Gordon, MA
Joint PhD Program in Linguistics and Anthropology
University of Arizona
***********************************************************
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From rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu  Thu Feb 24 05:05:40 2011
From: rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu (Rory M Larson)
Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2011 23:05:40 -0600
Subject: cross-linguistic metaphors (fwd)
In-Reply-To: <5E87B4AFA471B543884CD3128A7C8CC6019288@EXCH10-MBX-05.home.ku.edu>
Message-ID: <WED.23.FEB.2011.230540.0600.>

Bob wrote:
> What I find interesting is the fact that, after centuries
> of interactions with Germans and lots of bilingualism,
> this metaphor hasn't penetrated Czech.  I'd have expected
> it to be more or less pan-European.

Does this metaphor exist even in German?  I'm looking in an unabridged 
Collins dictionary, and I see almost nothing in there to support what 
we're looking for.  An idea can be glaenzend, which means 'shiny' or 
'lustrous', as can a success or one's prospects.  But a person is 
intelligent, klug, schlau, aufgeweckt ("woken-up"), gewitzt or gescheit. 
As far as I know, none of these indicates luminousity.  'Stupid', 
'fool(ish)' or 'dimwit' gets dumm, bloed, Narr, Tor, Schwachkopf 
("weak-head") and daemlich.  Daemlich looks like it might possibly be 
related to a set of "daemmer" words that float around the meaning of 
'dusk' or 'twilight'.  If so, it's the only German usage I see that really 
works for this metaphor.

In a (much smaller) French dictionary, I find even less support for it. 
'Intelligent', 'smart' and 'clever' get intelligent, vif ("lively"), 
eveille ("wide-awake"), habile ("able") and adroit ("right-handed"?). 
'Stupid', 'dumb' and 'fool(ish)' get stupide, sot, imbecile, fou, bouffon 
and bete ("beast").  'Dim' merely gets us sombre, indistinct and terne, 
which seem to have no reference to intelligence.  Both dictionaries 
recognize the metaphorical English use of "bright" and offer "intelligent" 
as a translation, but no native luminousity metaphor for the same idea.

I took a quick look at some Oxford English Dictionary entries for 
"bright", "brilliant", "dim" and "dim-wit".  It looks to me like the 
metaphor developed in two stages in English.  In the early 18th century, 
philosophers were using such luminousity terms as metaphors for 
"enlightenment" and understanding.  "Dim" as a metaphor for poor vision 
goes back to the 16th century and probably played a supporting role in the 
inability-to-see/understand metaphor.  "Bright" and "dim" as terms for 
native intelligence seem to have developed in the 19th century as a 
humorous colloquialization of the enlightenment metaphor.  The term 
"dim-wit" seems to have appeared first in the 1920s.  Prior to the 18th 
century, "bright" was used metaphorically on people to say that they were 
beautiful, fair and comely; "brilliant" meant that they were 
distinguished, elegant and high-class.

Equation of intelligence to luminousity does not seem to be a universal 
metaphor at all, or even pan-European.  As far as I can tell, it is a 
peculiar development in English that took place in the last three hundred 
years.

Rory
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From rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu  Thu Feb 24 05:49:29 2011
From: rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu (Rory M Larson)
Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2011 23:49:29 -0600
Subject: cross-linguistic metaphors (fwd)
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.4.64.1102231905410.5898@spot.colorado.edu>
Message-ID: <WED.23.FEB.2011.234929.0600.>

David wrote:
> Jimm, let's be very cautious about linguistic details here.  At least in 

> Lakota, and I assume for the other languages as well, ska 'white' is a 
> very different word from s^kaN.  ...

As Bryan indicated, he and I are responsible for the confusion here, and 
Jimm was cautioning us in the same vein as David.  I think we are all 
agreed that ska 'white' and s^kaN 'movement' are very different words. 
Bryan and I were discussing the question of whether what seems to be -ska 
in some less well-understood compounds could in fact be a misunderstanding 
of some other morpheme, possibly related to s^kaN.

Part of the confusion may be due to our lazy habit of including the entire 
preceding conversation in our replies.  In this thread, I've seen a 
paragraph I wrote commented on by Bryan, whose message was then replied to 
by another poster whose system removed Bryan's formatting and made my 
paragraph that he was replying to appear to be a part of his message, 
which then agglutinated with many more.  When John Koontz was active, he 
used to scold us frequently for this practice.  It uses up server space 
unnecessarily, and it puts the same text into the Siouan Archives again 
and again and again for word searches to pull up equally many times.  In 
posting, we should all try to pull out only the quotes we are actually 
replying to, and remove the rest.  (I sometimes forget to do this too.)

Cheers,
Rory
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From wipamankere at hotmail.com  Thu Feb 24 08:51:55 2011
From: wipamankere at hotmail.com (Iren Hartmann)
Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2011 02:51:55 -0600
Subject: cross-linguistic metaphors (fwd)
In-Reply-To: <OFD769EA5D.300BC58B-ON86257841.0009F19D-86257841.001BFC08@unl.edu>
Message-ID: <THU.24.FEB.2011.025155.0600.>


Hi Rory,

just a very quick answer to your questions bout German:

Does this metaphor exist even in German?  I'm
looking in an unabridged Collins dictionary, and I see almost nothing in
there to support what we're looking for.  An idea can be glaenzend,
which means 'shiny' or 'lustrous', as can a success or one's prospects.
 But a person is intelligent, klug, schlau, aufgeweckt ("woken-up"),
gewitzt or gescheit.  As far as I know, none of these indicates luminousity. 


This is true, but there is a (maybe nowadays somewhat more old-fashioned(?)) use of hell(e) 'bright' in the sense of smart/intelligent/clever. You can call someone "ein helles Koepfchen" (lit. a bright head) meaning that person is smart, or you can say Der ist nicht so ganz helle ('He isn't quite so smart'), I guess it gets mostly used in negated sentences, though I've heard people say thigs like Der ist ziemlich helle ('He's quite smart'). I cannot, however, think of any metaphoric use of a word meaning 'dim/dark' and also something like dim-witted.

All the best,
Iren


 		 	   		  
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From rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu  Thu Feb 24 15:22:20 2011
From: rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu (Rory M Larson)
Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2011 09:22:20 -0600
Subject: cross-linguistic metaphors (fwd)
In-Reply-To: <BAY132-W6AB838391CD17734257CFBBDA0@phx.gbl>
Message-ID: <THU.24.FEB.2011.092220.0600.>

Hi Iren,

> This is true, but there is a (maybe nowadays somewhat more 
old-fashioned(?)) use of hell(e) 'bright' in the sense of 
smart/intelligent/clever. You can call someone "ein helles Koepfchen" 
(lit. a bright head) meaning that person is smart, or you can say Der ist 
nicht so ganz helle ('He isn't quite so smart'), I guess it gets mostly 
used in negated sentences, though I've heard people say thigs like Der ist 
ziemlich helle ('He's quite smart'). I cannot, however, think of any 
metaphoric use of a word meaning 'dim/dark' and also something like 
dim-witted.

I think that one (hell) fully qualifies.  It's definitely a word meaning 
'bright' or 'luminous', and metaphorically 'intelligent'.

I wonder what its history is.  You describe its metaphorical use as 
possibly old-fashioned.  Would it be used that way prior to about the 18th 
or 19th century?

I'd also like to mention another German word that was shared with me 
privately by Dr. Marlene Hilzensauer.  "Unterbelichtet", literally 
"under-lighted", has the primary photographic meaning of 'underexposed', 
but is used metaphorically and humorously on a person to mean that they 
are a bit dim.

Best,
Rory
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From rankin at ku.edu  Thu Feb 24 16:53:23 2011
From: rankin at ku.edu (rankin at ku.edu)
Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2011 16:53:23 +0000
Subject: cross-linguistic metaphors (fwd)
In-Reply-To: <AANLkTimaa+n6f5hSx2tLe3Pjmuua0c+QDTd64xQ+8ssa@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <THU.24.FEB.2011.165323.0000.>

In Kaw when aN denasalizes it becomes o rather than a.

Bob
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

-----Original Message-----
From: Bryan James Gordon <linguista at gmail.com>
Sender: <owner-siouan at lists.Colorado.EDU>
Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2011 21:08:55 
To: <siouan at lists.Colorado.EDU>
Reply-To: <siouan at lists.Colorado.EDU>
Subject: Re: cross-linguistic metaphors (fwd)

I believe Jimm meant to say the same thing as David - that IOM shgaⁿ is not
the same as hga/thga/shga "white". The confusion is probably my fault,
because one of the things I wondered about in writing was whether the -ska
"metaphors" in Umoⁿhoⁿ might be a reduced form of shkoⁿ instead of actual
colour words. I think our consensus is still in favour of analysing it as a
colour word, not related to shkoⁿ. And even if it's not the same as the
colour word that still doesn't mean it's related to shkoⁿ. That is only a
very remote possibility in a very uncertain puzzle.

2011/2/23 ROOD DAVID S <David.Rood at colorado.edu>

>
>
> Jimm, let's be very cautious about linguistic details here.  At least in
> Lakota, and I assume for the other languages as well, ska 'white' is a very
> different word from s^kaN.  The former is used in e.g. the name for the
> Rocky Mountains, literally 'white mountains'.  Jill's suggestion of
> 'reflective' might work here.
>
> The latter is used for a great many spiritual concepts.  It's usually
> glossed "moving", but it refers to the movement of spirits or mysterious
> beings, or the rustling of weeds and bushes in the wind (especially if it's
> dark), and is loaded with religious connotations.  It is not at all the same
> as 'white'.  S^kaN can have mundane uses, too.  A clock is "mazas^kaNs^kaN"
> 'moving metal', with reference to the pendulum of a 19th century clock.
>  Your glosses of 'diligent, active' etc. belong with this word, not the
> 'white' word.
>
>
> David
>
> David S. Rood
> Dept. of Linguistics
> Univ. of Colorado
> 295 UCB
> Boulder, CO 80309-0295
> USA
> rood at colorado.edu
>
> On Wed, 23 Feb 2011, Jimm G. GoodTracks wrote:
>
>  It seems to me, that there are several tangents in motion here after the
>> original question was prompted.  As to that original question, it seems to
>> be one of a cultural context based on English (Anglo-American Language/ word
>> use) and then trying to fit that onto other language and cultures.
>>
>> Meanwhile, it is good that the discussion was redirected to Siouan
>> applications.  Both Jill and Bryon have clerified the direction and
>> discussion.  Sometimes, we get our English mindset in motion to force or
>> squeeze out applications of Siouan words/ terms that are applied in ways
>> unfamiliar to the English speaker.  The IOM term  šgán is diferent than the
>> term "thka ~ hga" (white color) and "thkan" (opaque, clear, transparent).
>> The šgán  of IOM refers to a particular energy that may be manifested
>> physically or in non-material/ organic format.  Perhaps one could even say
>> in a spiritual format.   In Lakota, I have seen a discussion at length of
>> the term, but I am on the road and have to way to explore my resources nor
>> check my new consortium Lakota Dictionary.  Someone else can do that, as
>> well as get someone well versed in Lakota terms.
>>
>> For IOM, taken from my revised dictionary files, I have the following
>> concrete offering:
>>
>> šgán; skán n/v.i.  (to be) diligent, active.  [L/D.šgan].  **SEE: active.
>>  šgánwexa adj/v.i.  hard; diligent, diligently; active, actively.  šgánwéxa
>> wa^ún v.i.  work hard.  Šgánwéxa ke, Uxré wa^ún rušdán gúnana, He worked
>> hard to get done early.  wósgan n. tradition; custom; habit; talent (FM).
>>
>>
>>
>> From: Bryan James Gordon
>> Sent: Wednesday, February 23, 2011 12:34 AM
>> To: siouan at lists.Colorado.EDU
>> Subject: Re: cross-linguistic metaphors (fwd)
>>
>>
>> Wow this is an engaging thread! I miss when we had more of these.
>>
>>
>> Hi Jill, how are you? I think, unfortunately, a native speaker could only
>> help us to reject, not to confirm, the hypothesis, because of course you're
>> right, if she or he did confirm that it's the colour term ska being used, we
>> would not be able to rule out English influence. Universal metaphors have
>> attracted some research lately in cognitive science, where they go under
>> names like spreading activation and stereotypic processing. For a while this
>> very question of whiteness/clearness-as-good/skillful/safe, darkness-as-bad,
>> was getting referenced in cog-sci colloquia every other week. Ugh. There are
>> some metaphors that have indeed proved robust cross-culturally in labs
>> (inasmuch as labs can be cross-cultural!) - things that are generic like
>> horoscopes - things like high-pitch-as-piercing/whining/uppity. I'm guessing
>> most universal metaphors are this trivial or more so. The only truly
>> inescapable metaphor is the linguistic expression as a metaphor for its
>> referent.
>>
>>
>> One thing that makes me skeptical of the clarity-metaphor's necessity is
>> that many languages, including Umoⁿhoⁿ and Baxoje, have a word for "clear"
>> that is not ska, but rather the other common Siouan word for white, sóⁿ [są]
>> (U) / tháⁿ [θą] (B).
>>
>>
>> But the arguments Bob, Rory and others have made in favour of the metaphor
>> are also quite compelling.
>>
>>
>> It's hard to decide.
>>
>>
>> 2011/2/22 Rory M Larson <rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu>
>>
>>  I'm open to the possibility that some ska's might be a different word,
>> perhaps related to shkoN.  To make that connection, we'd have to both lose
>> the nasalization and do a Siouan sound-symbolic fricative ablaut shift.
>> How distinctive is nasality on unstressed final low vowels anyway? Think
>> about gthéboⁿ "ten", which only a few people pronounce that way anymore: it
>> has become gthéba for many others. The sound-symbolic fricative ablaut is a
>> nifty proposal. A connection to -shka would be interesting. I'd given it
>> some thought, but nothing obvious really sticks out. Of course in Baxoje
>> forms like shga~sga~thga~xga~hga often vary sociolinguistically or
>> stylistically (i.e. some of them are "old" forms, others are "Jiwere" forms,
>> etc.), so maybe this has something to do with how Baxoje uses non-cognates
>> to express the same meaning.
>>
>>
>> In the dictionary Jimm gives Lakȟota bléza "sane", Dakhota mdéza "clear",
>> Hocąk péres "clear, sane, intelligent" as cognates of brédhe. I suspect a
>> connection also with grédhe "many-coloured". Interestingly, rédhe is
>> "tongue". Umoⁿhoⁿ gthéze is "spotted/rippled", maybe they don't say bthéze
>> because they say wazhíⁿska instead, maybe one of the speakers has heard a
>> word like bthéze before?
>>
>>


-- 
***********************************************************
Bryan James Gordon, MA
Joint PhD Program in Linguistics and Anthropology
University of Arizona
***********************************************************

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From David.Rood at Colorado.EDU  Thu Feb 24 17:24:26 2011
From: David.Rood at Colorado.EDU (ROOD DAVID S)
Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2011 10:24:26 -0700
Subject: cross-linguistic metaphors (fwd)
In-Reply-To: <OFDA2499E1.410A3661-ON86257841.001C9977-86257841.001FFF1E@unl.edu>
Message-ID: <THU.24.FEB.2011.102426.0700.>

Jimm, Rory, Bryan --
 	My apologies for reading Jimm's comments too quickly and 
carelessly -- and thanks to Rory and Bryan for stepping in to correct 
that.  I have a very quick knee-jerk reaction to people who try to equate 
the wrong things in linguistics, based on many years of experience.  That 
was clearly not the appropriate reaction this time.

 	Best,
 	David


David S. Rood
Dept. of Linguistics
Univ. of Colorado
295 UCB
Boulder, CO 80309-0295
USA
rood at colorado.edu

On Wed, 23 Feb 2011, Rory M Larson wrote:

> David wrote:

>> Jimm, let's be very cautious about linguistic details here.  At least in
>
>
> As Bryan indicated, he and I are responsible for the confusion here, and
> Jimm was cautioning us in the same vein as David.  I think we are all
> agreed that ska 'white' and s^kaN 'movement' are very different words.
> Bryan and I were discussing the question of whether what seems to be -ska
> in some less well-understood compounds could in fact be a misunderstanding
> of some other morpheme, possibly related to s^kaN.


From ti at fa-kuan.muc.de  Thu Feb 24 17:35:26 2011
From: ti at fa-kuan.muc.de (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?=22Alfred_W._T=FCting=22?=)
Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2011 18:35:26 +0100
Subject: cross-linguistic metaphors (fwd)
In-Reply-To: <OFD769EA5D.300BC58B-ON86257841.0009F19D-86257841.001BFC08@unl.edu>
Message-ID: <THU.24.FEB.2011.183526.0100.>

In principle I share Rory's view.

As for the German language, I only come up with expressions like "er  
ist ein heller Kopf/helles Köpfchen", about: he's a light (i.e.  
bright) head/little head = canny) or still more coll. "er ist hell auf  
der Platte" (panel/plate etc. maybe also ref. to head). Whereas re.  
"dim-witted" there seems to be just the negation of it: "er ist kein  
großes (Kirchen-)Licht" (not a big church-light).

Alfred


Am 24.02.2011 um 06:05 schrieb Rory M Larson:

> Bob wrote:
> > What I find interesting is the fact that, after centuries
> > of interactions with Germans and lots of bilingualism,
> > this metaphor hasn't penetrated Czech.  I'd have expected
> > it to be more or less pan-European.
>
> Does this metaphor exist even in German?  I'm looking in an  
> unabridged Collins dictionary, and I see almost nothing in there to  
> support what we're looking for.  An idea can be glaenzend, which  
> means 'shiny' or 'lustrous', as can a success or one's prospects.   
> But a person is intelligent, klug, schlau, aufgeweckt ("woken-up"),  
> gewitzt or gescheit.  As far as I know, none of these indicates  
> luminousity.  'Stupid', 'fool(ish)' or 'dimwit' gets dumm, bloed,  
> Narr, Tor, Schwachkopf ("weak-head") and daemlich.  Daemlich looks  
> like it might possibly be related to a set of "daemmer" words that  
> float around the meaning of 'dusk' or 'twilight'.  If so, it's the  
> only German usage I see that really works for this metaphor.
>
> In a (much smaller) French dictionary, I find even less support for  
> it.  'Intelligent', 'smart' and 'clever' get intelligent, vif  
> ("lively"), eveille ("wide-awake"), habile ("able") and adroit  
> ("right-handed"?).  'Stupid', 'dumb' and 'fool(ish)' get stupide,  
> sot, imbecile, fou, bouffon and bete ("beast").  'Dim' merely gets  
> us sombre, indistinct and terne, which seem to have no reference to  
> intelligence.  Both dictionaries recognize the metaphorical English  
> use of "bright" and offer "intelligent" as a translation, but no  
> native luminousity metaphor for the same idea.
>
> I took a quick look at some Oxford English Dictionary entries for  
> "bright", "brilliant", "dim" and "dim-wit".  It looks to me like the  
> metaphor developed in two stages in English.  In the early 18th  
> century, philosophers were using such luminousity terms as metaphors  
> for "enlightenment" and understanding.  "Dim" as a metaphor for poor  
> vision goes back to the 16th century and probably played a  
> supporting role in the inability-to-see/understand metaphor.   
> "Bright" and "dim" as terms for native intelligence seem to have  
> developed in the 19th century as a humorous colloquialization of the  
> enlightenment metaphor.  The term "dim-wit" seems to have appeared  
> first in the 1920s.  Prior to the 18th century, "bright" was used  
> metaphorically on people to say that they were beautiful, fair and  
> comely; "brilliant" meant that they were distinguished, elegant and  
> high-class.
>
> Equation of intelligence to luminousity does not seem to be a  
> universal metaphor at all, or even pan-European.  As far as I can  
> tell, it is a peculiar development in English that took place in the  
> last three hundred years.
>
> Rory

_______________

Alfred W. Tüting
ti at fa-kuan.muc.de



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From rankin at ku.edu  Thu Feb 24 19:24:15 2011
From: rankin at ku.edu (Rankin, Robert L)
Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2011 19:24:15 +0000
Subject: cross-linguistic metaphors (fwd)
In-Reply-To: <AABFD603-20D2-4493-BF03-4C8BA23B53B5@fa-kuan.muc.de>
Message-ID: <THU.24.FEB.2011.192415.0000.>

My grandmother-in-law used "dunkel" for 'dimwitted', but this may have been Milwaukee German.

Bob

________________________________
From: owner-siouan at lists.Colorado.EDU [owner-siouan at lists.Colorado.EDU] on behalf of "Alfred W. Tüting" [ti at fa-kuan.muc.de]
Sent: Thursday, February 24, 2011 11:35 AM
To: siouan at lists.Colorado.EDU
Subject: Re: cross-linguistic metaphors (fwd)

In principle I share Rory's view.

As for the German language, I only come up with expressions like "er ist ein heller Kopf/helles Köpfchen", about: he's a light (i.e. bright) head/little head = canny) or still more coll. "er ist hell auf der Platte" (panel/plate etc. maybe also ref. to head). Whereas re. "dim-witted" there seems to be just the negation of it: "er ist kein großes (Kirchen-)Licht" (not a big church-light).

Alfred


Am 24.02.2011 um 06:05 schrieb Rory M Larson:

Bob wrote:
> What I find interesting is the fact that, after centuries
> of interactions with Germans and lots of bilingualism,
> this metaphor hasn't penetrated Czech.  I'd have expected
> it to be more or less pan-European.

Does this metaphor exist even in German?  I'm looking in an unabridged Collins dictionary, and I see almost nothing in there to support what we're looking for.  An idea can be glaenzend, which means 'shiny' or 'lustrous', as can a success or one's prospects.  But a person is intelligent, klug, schlau, aufgeweckt ("woken-up"), gewitzt or gescheit.  As far as I know, none of these indicates luminousity.  'Stupid', 'fool(ish)' or 'dimwit' gets dumm, bloed, Narr, Tor, Schwachkopf ("weak-head") and daemlich.  Daemlich looks like it might possibly be related to a set of "daemmer" words that float around the meaning of 'dusk' or 'twilight'.  If so, it's the only German usage I see that really works for this metaphor.

In a (much smaller) French dictionary, I find even less support for it.  'Intelligent', 'smart' and 'clever' get intelligent, vif ("lively"), eveille ("wide-awake"), habile ("able") and adroit ("right-handed"?).  'Stupid', 'dumb' and 'fool(ish)' get stupide, sot, imbecile, fou, bouffon and bete ("beast").  'Dim' merely gets us sombre, indistinct and terne, which seem to have no reference to intelligence.  Both dictionaries recognize the metaphorical English use of "bright" and offer "intelligent" as a translation, but no native luminousity metaphor for the same idea.

I took a quick look at some Oxford English Dictionary entries for "bright", "brilliant", "dim" and "dim-wit".  It looks to me like the metaphor developed in two stages in English.  In the early 18th century, philosophers were using such luminousity terms as metaphors for "enlightenment" and understanding.  "Dim" as a metaphor for poor vision goes back to the 16th century and probably played a supporting role in the inability-to-see/understand metaphor.  "Bright" and "dim" as terms for native intelligence seem to have developed in the 19th century as a humorous colloquialization of the enlightenment metaphor.  The term "dim-wit" seems to have appeared first in the 1920s.  Prior to the 18th century, "bright" was used metaphorically on people to say that they were beautiful, fair and comely; "brilliant" meant that they were distinguished, elegant and high-class.

Equation of intelligence to luminousity does not seem to be a universal metaphor at all, or even pan-European.  As far as I can tell, it is a peculiar development in English that took place in the last three hundred years.

Rory

_______________

Alfred W. Tüting
ti at fa-kuan.muc.de<mailto:ti at fa-kuan.muc.de>


From dan.folkus at gmail.com  Fri Feb 25 03:14:11 2011
From: dan.folkus at gmail.com (Dan Folkus)
Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2011 22:14:11 -0500
Subject: cross-linguistic metaphors (fwd)
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.4.64.1102200811060.18490@spot.colorado.edu>
Message-ID: <THU.24.FEB.2011.221411.0500.>

My speculation is that your question may almost be answerable in
English, David. I'm wondering if the (archaic) English word for dusk,
"gloam" (twilight) http://www.myfavoriteword.com/2008/01/01/gloam/
might have a philological relationship to the word "glum?" Which is
the opposite of bright in the sense of daylight. But I'm not sure if
it also might mean the opposite of bright in the sense you mean (as in
'she said brightly,' for example, instead of 'she said glumly'). Glum
people are somewhat dull, right? So does gloam and glum come out of
the same origin? This blog at least speculates on the
word...http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2885/, saying it refers
to "persons: Sullen, frowning; having an air of dejection or
displeasure", or "Of things: Gloomy, dark; dismal". So I'm saying at
least there are these two senses of gloam, which MAY apply to your
question.

On 2/20/11, ROOD DAVID S <David.Rood at colorado.edu> wrote:
>
>
> David S. Rood
> Dept. of Linguistics
> Univ. of Colorado
> 295 UCB
> Boulder, CO 80309-0295
> USA
> rood at colorado.edu
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> Date: Sat, 19 Feb 2011 16:02:32 -0700 (MST)
> From: ROOD DAVID S <David.Rood at colorado.edu>
> To: linguistics faculty <ling-fac at lists.Colorado.EDU>
> Cc: linguistics grads <ling-grads at lists.Colorado.EDU>,
>      siounists at spot.colorado.edu
> Subject: cross-linguistic metaphors
>
>
> Dear Colleagues:
>
>  	I'm trying to tap into the biggest database I know of for knowledge of
> languages, namely all of you.  I have a query from someone who wants to know
> whether a language exists that does not equate "bright" and "dim" in the
> sense
> of light and shadow/dark with the same words used to describe intellectual
> acuity or lack thereof.  In English we can call people "bright" and
> "dim(witted)" to mean 'smart' and 'not so smart'.
>
>   Do you know of a language that lacks that equation?
>
>  	Thanks for your help.
>
> Best,
>  	David
>
>
> David S. Rood
> Dept. of Linguistics
> Univ. of Colorado
> 295 UCB
> Boulder, CO 80309-0295
> USA
> rood at colorado.edu
>


From linguista at gmail.com  Wed Feb  2 02:10:08 2011
From: linguista at gmail.com (Bryan James Gordon)
Date: Tue, 1 Feb 2011 19:10:08 -0700
Subject: Omaha and Ponca to Arabic: You're not so unique after all!
In-Reply-To: <AANLkTin0xHhz+QT12Qwi0DgzWPC=8RtNv1DbW80F+An-@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <TUE.1.FEB.2011.191008.0700.>

Kees Versteegh, writing on /?/ in the Encyclopedia of Arabic Language and
Linguistics:

S?bawayhi (Kit?b II, 405.8-9) describes [??d]'s place of articulation as
being "between the first part of the side of the tongue and the adjacent
molars" (*min bayna ?awwal ??fat al-lis?n wa-m? yal?hi min al-?a?r?s*). The
exact interpretation of this passage remains controversial. ... Cantineau
(1960:55) is probably right in interpreting it as a lateral or lateralized
velarized voiced interdental fricative ... IPA [??] .... This would make it,
indeed, a unique sound among the world's languages (cf. Ladefoged and
Maddieson 1966:154-56).


Ha!

Of course I use [??] or [??] all the time when I use IPA to represent Omaha
and Ponca words. Unique indeed. If the CSG has a phonology section, this
should definitely be in it.

S?bawayh's description is over 1200 years old, of course, so it is not true
of most forms of Arabic today, although many Arabic loanwords in other
languages have laterals where ??d should be.

-- 
***********************************************************
Bryan James Gordon, MA
Joint PhD Program in Linguistics and Anthropology
University of Arizona
***********************************************************
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From shokoohbanou at yahoo.co.uk  Wed Feb  2 11:14:32 2011
From: shokoohbanou at yahoo.co.uk (shokooh Ingham)
Date: Wed, 2 Feb 2011 11:14:32 +0000
Subject: Omaha and Ponca to Arabic: You're not so unique after all!
In-Reply-To: <AANLkTimO1am0GC3yREdnPu7zy5=AYA60jmVsnz9WnytQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <WED.2.FEB.2011.111432.0000.>

Interesting to hear of the Omaha Ponca sound.? The Arabic one, or possibly something similar, still occurs in dialects of the South West ie some parts of 'Asir in Saudi Arabia and in Yemen.? The Arabs used to refer to their language as Lughat al-[??d], the Language of [??d] or Lughat al -'Ain the Language of 'Ain (the pharyngeal voiced sound, fricative, continuant or plosive, depending on who you believe), presuming that these sounds were not used by other people.? The latter is less rare, also occurring in Somali and Amharic and I think some Caucasian languages.

Ethnocentricity is widespread.? I remember as a boy in primary school being shown a map of the world and being told proudly by the teacher to note that England was in the middle of the world. The Chinese obviously used a different map.

Bruce

--- On Wed, 2/2/11, Bryan James Gordon <linguista at gmail.com> wrote:

From: Bryan James Gordon <linguista at gmail.com>
Subject: Omaha and Ponca to Arabic: You're not so unique after all!
To: "Siouan Listserv" <siouan at lists.Colorado.EDU>
Date: Wednesday, 2 February, 2011, 2:10

Kees Versteegh, writing on /?/ in the Encyclopedia of Arabic Language and Linguistics:


S?bawayhi (Kit?b II, 405.8-9) describes [??d]'s place of articulation as being "between the first part of the side of the tongue and the adjacent molars" (min bayna ?awwal ??fat al-lis?n wa-m? yal?hi min al-?a?r?s). The exact interpretation of this passage remains controversial. ... Cantineau (1960:55) is probably right in interpreting it as a lateral or lateralized velarized voiced interdental fricative ... IPA [??] .... This would make it, indeed, a unique sound among the world's languages (cf. Ladefoged and Maddieson 1966:154-56).


Ha!
Of course I use [??] or [??] all the time when I use IPA to represent Omaha and Ponca words. Unique indeed. If the CSG has a phonology section, this should definitely be in it.


S?bawayh's description is over 1200 years old, of course, so it is not true of most forms of Arabic today, although many Arabic loanwords in other languages have laterals where ??d should be.



-- 
***********************************************************
Bryan James Gordon, MA
Joint PhD Program in Linguistics and Anthropology
University of Arizona
***********************************************************





      
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From carudin1 at wsc.edu  Wed Feb  2 14:24:08 2011
From: carudin1 at wsc.edu (Catherine Rudin)
Date: Wed, 2 Feb 2011 08:24:08 -0600
Subject: Omaha and Ponca to Arabic: You're not so unique after all!
Message-ID: <WED.2.FEB.2011.082408.0600.>

Interesting!  (And here I thought O-P was unique.)  :-)
Catherine

>>> shokooh Ingham  02/02/11 5:18 AM >>>
Interesting to hear of the Omaha Ponca sound.  The Arabic one, or
possibly something similar, still occurs in dialects of the South West
ie some parts of 'Asir in Saudi Arabia and in Yemen.  The Arabs used to
refer to their language as Lughat al-[??d], the Language of [??d] or
Lughat al -'Ain the Language of 'Ain (the pharyngeal voiced sound,
fricative, continuant or plosive, depending on who you believe),
presuming that these sounds were not used by other people.  The latter
is less rare, also occurring in Somali and Amharic and I think some
Caucasian languages.

Ethnocentricity is widespread.  I remember as a boy in primary school
being shown a map of the world and being told proudly by the teacher to
note that England was in the middle of the world. The Chinese obviously
used a different map.

Bruce

--- On Wed, 2/2/11, Bryan James Gordon  wrote:

From: Bryan James Gordon 
Subject: Omaha and Ponca to Arabic: You're not so unique after all!
To: "Siouan Listserv" 
Date: Wednesday, 2 February, 2011, 2:10

Kees Versteegh, writing on /?/ in the Encyclopedia of Arabic Language
and Linguistics:

S?bawayhi (Kit?b II, 405.8-9) describes [??d]'s place of articulation as
being "between the first part of the side of the tongue and the adjacent
molars" (min bayna ?awwal ??fat al-lis?n wa-m? yal?hi min al-?a?r?s).
The exact interpretation of this passage remains controversial. ...
Cantineau (1960:55) is probably right in interpreting it as a lateral or
lateralized velarized voiced interdental fricative ... IPA [??] ....
This would make it, indeed, a unique sound among the world's languages
(cf. Ladefoged and Maddieson 1966:154-56).


Ha!


Of course I use [??] or [??] all the time when I use IPA to represent
Omaha and Ponca words. Unique indeed. If the CSG has a phonology
section, this should definitely be in it.


S?bawayh's description is over 1200 years old, of course, so it is not
true of most forms of Arabic today, although many Arabic loanwords in
other languages have laterals where ??d should be.

-- 
***********************************************************
Bryan James Gordon, MA
Joint PhD Program in Linguistics and Anthropology
University of Arizona
***********************************************************





      
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From mawakuni-swetland2 at unlnotes.unl.edu  Fri Feb  4 00:37:27 2011
From: mawakuni-swetland2 at unlnotes.unl.edu (Mark J Awakuni-Swetland)
Date: Thu, 3 Feb 2011 18:37:27 -0600
Subject: SACC 2011 conference update
Message-ID: <THU.3.FEB.2011.183727.0600.>

Aloha all,
Saul asked me to forward along an update on the 2011 SACC event at White 
Cloud, KS
The original pdf choked the server, so here is a plain.doc version.
Best
Mark



Mark Awakuni-Swetland, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Anthropology & Ethnic Studies 
Native American Studies Program Liaison
University of Nebraska
Department of Anthropology
841 Oldfather Hall 
Lincoln, NE 68588-0368

http://omahalanguage.unl.edu
http://omahaponca.unl.edu
Phone 402-472-3455
FAX: 402-472-9642
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From jgoodtracks at gmail.com  Fri Feb  4 15:26:59 2011
From: jgoodtracks at gmail.com (Jimm GoodTracks)
Date: Fri, 4 Feb 2011 09:26:59 -0600
Subject: Emailing: 2011 SCLC UPDATES.doc
Message-ID: <FRI.4.FEB.2011.092659.0600.>

Conference Attendees:

There is another recent addition(s) to the expanding program for the 2011 SCLC:

Iren Hartman, on Thursday, "Project Valency Classes in/ on Hochank"

Iren Hartman, Thursday Evening Round Table Discussion: "Revival of the Wiki (CSG Project)." 

This will be at the Eagle's Nest Motel facilities, 7pm. Perhaps dinner together at the Motel, if the group desires.

Jimm Goodtracks & Saul Schwartz
Conference Organizers

PS:  We are experiencing technical difficulties with the ListServe. Colorado which may not accept .pdf attachments vs. a .doc attachment.

Another on-going issue is the year long stall on having Saul Schwartz installed, accepted to the ListServe. Colorado.

Please, stand by while these concerns are figured out by someone who knows how to address such issues.  It sure is not in my limited expertise.
jgt 


Jimm G. Goodtracks
B?xoje Jiw?re Language Program
POBox 122
White Cloud, Kansas 66094
785 595 3335

R?re h?nwegi ich^? ir?grat^a je?
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From carudin1 at wsc.edu  Fri Feb  4 16:16:49 2011
From: carudin1 at wsc.edu (Catherine Rudin)
Date: Fri, 4 Feb 2011 10:16:49 -0600
Subject: Emailing: 2011 SCLC UPDATES.doc
Message-ID: <FRI.4.FEB.2011.101649.0600.>

Jimm --
The conference is sounding great.  I'm impressed at how well organized
it all looks several months in advance!  

Unfortunately I am not so well organized.  I will probably miss the
first day of the conference, arriving late afternoon on Wed. the 15th. 
I knew the conference dates were the 15th-18th, but since 4 days is a
really long conference, I hoped/assumed this meant just an opening event
of some kind the evening of the 15th.  So I accepted an invitation to
conduct a mid-day workshop in Omaha on the 15th.  Looks like I guessed
wrong.   

I'll get there as early as I can, but ... can you move my talk from
Wednesday to Thursday or Friday?  

Thanks, and sorry for the mixup --
Catherine

>>> "Jimm GoodTracks"  02/04/11 9:31 AM >>>
?Conference Attendees:
 
There is another recent addition(s) to the expanding program for the
2011 SCLC:
 
Iren Hartman, on Thursday, "Project Valency Classes in/ on Hochank"

 
Iren Hartman, Thursday Evening Round Table Discussion: "Revival of the
Wiki (CSG Project)." 
 
This will be at the Eagle's Nest Motel facilities, 7pm. Perhaps dinner
together at the Motel, if the group desires.
 
Jimm Goodtracks & Saul Schwartz
Conference Organizers
 
PS:  We are experiencing technical difficulties with the ListServe.
Colorado which may not accept .pdf attachments vs. a .doc attachment.
 
Another on-going issue is the year long stall on having Saul Schwartz
installed, accepted to the ListServe. Colorado.
 
Please, stand by while these concerns are figured out by someone who
knows how to address such issues.  It sure is not in my limited
expertise.
jgt 
 
 


Jimm G. Goodtracks
B?xoje Jiw?re Language Program
POBox 122
White Cloud, Kansas 66094
785 595 3335

R?re h?nwegi ich^? ir?grat^a je?



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From jgoodtracks at gmail.com  Fri Feb  4 16:15:46 2011
From: jgoodtracks at gmail.com (Jimm GoodTracks)
Date: Fri, 4 Feb 2011 10:15:46 -0600
Subject: Fw: Emailing: 2011 SCLC UPDATES.doc
Message-ID: <FRI.4.FEB.2011.101546.0600.>


----- Original Message ----- 
From: Jimm GoodTracks 
To: TRhodd, Iowa Chairman ; siouan at lists.colorado.ed 
Sent: Friday, February 04, 2011 9:26 AM
Subject: Emailing: 2011 SCLC UPDATES.doc


Conference Attendees:

There is another recent addition(s) to the expanding program for the 2011 SCLC:

Iren Hartman, on Thursday, "Project Valency Classes in/ on Hochank"

Iren Hartman, Thursday Evening Round Table Discussion: "Revival of the Wiki (CSG Project)." 

This will be at the Eagle's Nest Motel facilities, 7pm. Perhaps dinner together at the Motel, if the group desires.

Jimm Goodtracks & Saul Schwartz
Conference Organizers

PS:  We are experiencing technical difficulties with the ListServe. Colorado which may not accept .pdf attachments vs. a .doc attachment.

Another on-going issue is the year long stall on having Saul Schwartz installed, accepted to the ListServe. Colorado.

Please, stand by while these concerns are figured out by someone who knows how to address such issues.  It sure is not in my limited expertise.
jgt 


Jimm G. Goodtracks
B?xoje Jiw?re Language Program
POBox 122
White Cloud, Kansas 66094
785 595 3335

R?re h?nwegi ich^? ir?grat^a je?
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From jgoodtracks at gmail.com  Fri Feb  4 17:06:00 2011
From: jgoodtracks at gmail.com (Jimm GoodTracks)
Date: Fri, 4 Feb 2011 11:06:00 -0600
Subject: Emailing: 2011 SCLC UPDATES.doc
In-Reply-To: <4D4BD2110200008E0002BC54@hermes.wsc.edu>
Message-ID: <FRI.4.FEB.2011.110600.0600.>

Catherine:
Yes, your presentation has been moved from Wednesday to Thursday.  All times and dates are tentative, including title and subjects of presentations.  The general format is for academic presentations to be presented before the applied linguistics presentations, which is why I preferred to begin the conference on Tuesday, June 14th, rather than the first day being Wednesday, June 15th, as it is easier for the community people, tribal members to get away as we move towards the weekend.
Saturday is reserved as a backup overflow of presentations that are unable to be scheduled within the week day time frame.

I also want to stress, that reservations should be made as soon as possible either at the tribal cabins or the Eagle Nest Motel, as I believe it is all on a First Come, First Served.  Of course, if need be there are several Motels in Hiawatha, KS, 22 miles to the Southwest.  
Of those available, we found that the Hiawatha Lodge, (on the south side across from McDonalds  fast foods), www.hiawatha-lodge.com (hiawathalodge at rainbowtel.net) (785 742 7401) is the better one, and has an in-house cafe, serving breakfast, lunch and dinner.  The Iowa Tribe Eagle Nest Motel also has an open restaurant.

The main advantage to Hiawatha Lodge, is that it is near town, services, shopping and Wal-Mart's on the west side of town.  I believe their typical room fee begins at $50; however, check with Saul who has that information.  He is en route from Denver at this moment, so it is inconvenient to call him.  There are still intermittent snow packed roads and slick spots on the highways, that require full attention w/o the distraction of answering an unnecessary cell phone call.
Jimm
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Catherine Rudin 
  To: siouan at lists.Colorado.EDU 
  Sent: Friday, February 04, 2011 10:16 AM
  Subject: Re: Emailing: 2011 SCLC UPDATES.doc


  Jimm --
  The conference is sounding great.  I'm impressed at how well organized it all looks several months in advance!  

  Unfortunately I am not so well organized.  I will probably miss the first day of the conference, arriving late afternoon on Wed. the 15th.  I knew the conference dates were the 15th-18th, but since 4 days is a really long conference, I hoped/assumed this meant just an opening event of some kind the evening of the 15th.  So I accepted an invitation to conduct a mid-day workshop in Omaha on the 15th.  Looks like I guessed wrong.   

  I'll get there as early as I can, but ... can you move my talk from Wednesday to Thursday or Friday?  

  Thanks, and sorry for the mixup --
  Catherine

  >>> "Jimm GoodTracks" 02/04/11 9:31 AM >>>
  ? 
  Conference Attendees:

  There is another recent addition(s) to the expanding program for the 2011 SCLC:

  Iren Hartman, on Thursday, "Project Valency Classes in/ on Hochank"

  Iren Hartman, Thursday Evening Round Table Discussion: "Revival of the Wiki (CSG Project)." 

  This will be at the Eagle's Nest Motel facilities, 7pm. Perhaps dinner together at the Motel, if the group desires.

  Jimm Goodtracks & Saul Schwartz
  Conference Organizers

  PS:  We are experiencing technical difficulties with the ListServe. Colorado which may not accept .pdf attachments vs. a .doc attachment.

  Another on-going issue is the year long stall on having Saul Schwartz installed, accepted to the ListServe. Colorado.

  Please, stand by while these concerns are figured out by someone who knows how to address such issues.  It sure is not in my limited expertise.
  jgt 


  Jimm G. Goodtracks
  B?xoje Jiw?re Language Program
  POBox 122
  White Cloud, Kansas 66094
  785 595 3335

  R?re h?nwegi ich^? ir?grat^a je?
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From jgoodtracks at gmail.com  Fri Feb  4 17:21:56 2011
From: jgoodtracks at gmail.com (Jimm GoodTracks)
Date: Fri, 4 Feb 2011 11:21:56 -0600
Subject: Fw: Emailing: 2011 SCLC UPDATES.doc
Message-ID: <FRI.4.FEB.2011.112156.0600.>


----- Original Message ----- 
From: Jimm GoodTracks 
To: Gwen Shunatona ; Jean P. RICE ; Red Corn, Ryan ; Veronica Pipestem 
Cc: W?rage W??kida GO ; Wilson K. Pipestem ; Elyse Towey Green ; Lori Stanley ; Dennis STANLEY ; SSILA ; Riley Sine ; Rebbeca Schlicht ; Duane & Melinda Scates ; John Sacoolidge ; Marilyn Roubidoux 
Sent: Friday, February 04, 2011 10:13 AM
Subject: Fw: Emailing: 2011 SCLC UPDATES.doc



----- Original Message ----- 
From: Jimm GoodTracks 
To: TRhodd, Iowa Chairman ; siouan at lists.colorado.ed 
Sent: Friday, February 04, 2011 9:26 AM
Subject: Emailing: 2011 SCLC UPDATES.doc


Conference Attendees:

There is another recent addition(s) to the expanding program for the 2011 SCLC:

Iren Hartman, on Thursday, "Project Valency Classes in/ on Hochank"

Iren Hartman, Thursday Evening Round Table Discussion: "Revival of the Wiki (CSG Project)." 

This will be at the Eagle's Nest Motel facilities, 7pm. Perhaps dinner together at the Motel, if the group desires.

Jimm Goodtracks & Saul Schwartz
Conference Organizers

PS:  We are experiencing technical difficulties with the ListServe. Colorado which may not accept .pdf attachments vs. a .doc attachment.

Another on-going issue is the year long stall on having Saul Schwartz installed, accepted to the ListServe. Colorado.

Please, stand by while these concerns are figured out by someone who knows how to address such issues.  It sure is not in my limited expertise.
jgt 


Jimm G. Goodtracks
B?xoje Jiw?re Language Program
POBox 122
White Cloud, Kansas 66094
785 595 3335

R?re h?nwegi ich^? ir?grat^a je?
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From David.Rood at Colorado.EDU  Sun Feb 13 18:49:27 2011
From: David.Rood at Colorado.EDU (ROOD DAVID S)
Date: Sun, 13 Feb 2011 11:49:27 -0700
Subject: English grammar innovation? New reflexive pronouns?
Message-ID: <SUN.13.FEB.2011.114927.0700.>

Dear Colleagues,

 	In my English grammar class a few days ago my undergraduates 
claimed to have two reflexive pronouns that I have never heard before.  I 
wonder how wide-spread this is, or what other comments you might have 
about it.
 	The first is "themself", used for collective nouns.  The example 
was "The team really hurt themself by not cooperating more."  We're 
already ambivalent about number agreement in collectives (observe: "The 
team is playing well this year -- I hope they keep it up" with singular 
verb agreement but plural for the anaphoric pronoun), so this seems like a 
reasonable development.
 	The second is "theirselves", which for these kids, at least, 
contrasts with "themselves".  "The class taught theirselves the lesson" is 
said to mean that they got together in little groups or otherwise 
informally mixed and helped each other learn.  This is different from 
"The class taught themselves the lesson", in which each person taught 
him or herself, without cooperation, and also different from "the class 
taught each other the lesson", in which there has to be more deliberate 
one-to-one interaction.  I have no idea how to label this one.
`	There are probably dialect differences across the Atlantic, too, 
since British speakers use plural verbs with collectives much more readily 
than we do ("the team are playing well this year" is very marginal for me, 
but easily accepted in England, I'm told).
 	Is there a new "University of Colorado undergraduate" dialect of 
English evolving, or have I just not been keeping up?  Seems like the 
contrast collective/indivduated may be expanding its grammatical effects.

Best,
 	David



David S. Rood
Dept. of Linguistics
Univ. of Colorado
295 UCB
Boulder, CO 80309-0295
USA
rood at colorado.edu


From pankihtamwa at earthlink.net  Sun Feb 13 18:59:46 2011
From: pankihtamwa at earthlink.net (David Costa)
Date: Sun, 13 Feb 2011 10:59:46 -0800
Subject: English grammar innovation? New reflexive pronouns?
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.4.64.1102131110090.11470@spot.colorado.edu>
Message-ID: <SUN.13.FEB.2011.105946.0800.>

Both 'themself' and 'theirselves' have been around a while. I first  
noticed 'themself' in the '80s and might even use it myself.  
'Themself' presumably arose as a result of the use of 'they' as a  
gender-neutral 3rd person singular pronoun. Also note that 'themself'  
gets 1.7 million Google hits.

It's discussed some here: http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/004285.html

Dave Costa

>
> Dear Colleagues,
>
> 	In my English grammar class a few days ago my undergraduates  
> claimed to have two reflexive pronouns that I have never heard  
> before.  I wonder how wide-spread this is, or what other comments  
> you might have about it.
> 	The first is "themself", used for collective nouns.  The example  
> was "The team really hurt themself by not cooperating more."  We're  
> already ambivalent about number agreement in collectives (observe:  
> "The team is playing well this year -- I hope they keep it up" with  
> singular verb agreement but plural for the anaphoric pronoun), so  
> this seems like a reasonable development.
> 	The second is "theirselves", which for these kids, at least,  
> contrasts with "themselves".  "The class taught theirselves the  
> lesson" is said to mean that they got together in little groups or  
> otherwise informally mixed and helped each other learn.  This is  
> different from "The class taught themselves the lesson", in which  
> each person taught him or herself, without cooperation, and also  
> different from "the class taught each other the lesson", in which  
> there has to be more deliberate one-to-one interaction.  I have no  
> idea how to label this one.
> `	There are probably dialect differences across the Atlantic, too,  
> since British speakers use plural verbs with collectives much more  
> readily than we do ("the team are playing well this year" is very  
> marginal for me, but easily accepted in England, I'm told).
> 	Is there a new "University of Colorado undergraduate" dialect of  
> English evolving, or have I just not been keeping up?  Seems like  
> the contrast collective/indivduated may be expanding its grammatical  
> effects.
>
> Best,
> 	David
>
>
>
> David S. Rood
> Dept. of Linguistics
> Univ. of Colorado
> 295 UCB
> Boulder, CO 80309-0295
> USA
> rood at colorado.edu


From rankin at ku.edu  Sun Feb 13 22:18:38 2011
From: rankin at ku.edu (Rankin, Robert L)
Date: Sun, 13 Feb 2011 22:18:38 +0000
Subject: New English reflexive pronouns?
Message-ID: <SUN.13.FEB.2011.221838.0000.>

I don't find either of the forms David cites strange.  Both could easily occur in my "Southern" dialect.  'Theirselves' is just the plural of the very common 'hisself', as in "He shot hisself in the foot."  Maybe it is a reanalysis of 'himself' with 'his' simply possessing the noun 'self'.  It can't be possessing 'foot' because plain "He hurt hisself." is just as good.  These 3rd person forms are only distinctive in the masculine, of course.  Moreover, 1st person forms like 'myself, ourself/ourselves' also show the possessive pronoun.  '*usself' is not possible, so maybe the possessives are the older forms here.

Note the mix of accusative and genitive pronominals though.  It looks as though sometimes the accusative pronoun won out and sometimes the genitive one did.

literary      less-literary
myself      me-self (common in Britain)
yourself    you-self (common in AVE)
herself      herself
himself     his-self
themself   theirself (selves)

I also wonder if 'themself' is really restricted to collective nouns.  It wouldn't bother me at all to say "Two kids out of 10 hurt themself."  It seems to me that 'kids' are being counted individually here.  But, again, that's "Southern."  I have to admit that I've heard "theyself/theyselves" from not-very-literate people, but I wonder if that isn't more underlyingly "theirself/ves" with syllable final R dropping plus a little analogy.  

There's a nice term paper topic for some enterprising student.  With the enormous text collections available on line, one could check all these forms in all kinds of literature going back to the Middle Ages probably.

Bob

________________________________________
> Both 'themself' and 'theirselves' have been around a while. I first
noticed 'themself' in the '80s and might even use it myself.
'Themself' presumably arose as a result of the use of 'they' as a
gender-neutral 3rd person singular pronoun. Also note that 'themself'
gets 1.7 million Google hits.

It's discussed some here: http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/004285.html

Dave Costa

>
> Dear Colleagues,
>
>       In my English grammar class a few days ago my undergraduates
> claimed to have two reflexive pronouns that I have never heard
> before.  I wonder how wide-spread this is, or what other comments
> you might have about it.
>       The first is "themself", used for collective nouns.  The example
> was "The team really hurt themself by not cooperating more."  We're
> already ambivalent about number agreement in collectives (observe:
> "The team is playing well this year -- I hope they keep it up" with
> singular verb agreement but plural for the anaphoric pronoun), so
> this seems like a reasonable development.
>       The second is "theirselves", which for these kids, at least,
> contrasts with "themselves".  "The class taught theirselves the
> lesson" is said to mean that they got together in little groups or
> otherwise informally mixed and helped each other learn.  This is
> different from "The class taught themselves the lesson", in which
> each person taught him or herself, without cooperation, and also
> different from "the class taught each other the lesson", in which
> there has to be more deliberate one-to-one interaction.  I have no
> idea how to label this one.
> `     There are probably dialect differences across the Atlantic, too,
> since British speakers use plural verbs with collectives much more
> readily than we do ("the team are playing well this year" is very
> marginal for me, but easily accepted in England, I'm told).
>       Is there a new "University of Colorado undergraduate" dialect of
> English evolving, or have I just not been keeping up?  Seems like
> the contrast collective/indivduated may be expanding its grammatical
> effects.
>
> Best,
>       David
>
>
>
> David S. Rood
> Dept. of Linguistics
> Univ. of Colorado
> 295 UCB
> Boulder, CO 80309-0295
> USA
> rood at colorado.edu

From carudin1 at wsc.edu  Mon Feb 14 02:34:36 2011
From: carudin1 at wsc.edu (Catherine Rudin)
Date: Sun, 13 Feb 2011 20:34:36 -0600
Subject: New English reflexive pronouns?
Message-ID: <SUN.13.FEB.2011.203436.0600.>

I use themself.  Always have, I think ...   Among other things, it's the only way to do the reflexive of the gender-neutral they, as in "any student who hurts themself should go to the nurse" or "if you don't shovel that sidewalk someone's going to fall and hurt themself".   

I don't use theirselves, but I certainly hear it, and again, I don't think it's new... on the other hand, I wouldn't have guessed that it could have a different meaning from themselves.  

Catherine

>>> "Rankin, Robert L"  02/13/11 4:22 PM >>>
I don't find either of the forms David cites strange.  Both could easily occur in my "Southern" dialect.  'Theirselves' is just the plural of the very common 'hisself', as in "He shot hisself in the foot."  Maybe it is a reanalysis of 'himself' with 'his' simply possessing the noun 'self'.  It can't be possessing 'foot' because plain "He hurt hisself." is just as good.  These 3rd person forms are only distinctive in the masculine, of course.  Moreover, 1st person forms like 'myself, ourself/ourselves' also show the possessive pronoun.  '*usself' is not possible, so maybe the possessives are the older forms here.

Note the mix of accusative and genitive pronominals though.  It looks as though sometimes the accusative pronoun won out and sometimes the genitive one did.

literary      less-literary
myself      me-self (common in Britain)
yourself    you-self (common in AVE)
herself      herself
himself     his-self
themself   theirself (selves)

I also wonder if 'themself' is really restricted to collective nouns.  It wouldn't bother me at all to say "Two kids out of 10 hurt themself."  It seems to me that 'kids' are being counted individually here.  But, again, that's "Southern."  I have to admit that I've heard "theyself/theyselves" from not-very-literate people, but I wonder if that isn't more underlyingly "theirself/ves" with syllable final R dropping plus a little analogy.  

There's a nice term paper topic for some enterprising student.  With the enormous text collections available on line, one could check all these forms in all kinds of literature going back to the Middle Ages probably.

Bob

________________________________________
> Both 'themself' and 'theirselves' have been around a while. I first
noticed 'themself' in the '80s and might even use it myself.
'Themself' presumably arose as a result of the use of 'they' as a
gender-neutral 3rd person singular pronoun. Also note that 'themself'
gets 1.7 million Google hits.

It's discussed some here: http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/004285.html

Dave Costa

>
> Dear Colleagues,
>
>       In my English grammar class a few days ago my undergraduates
> claimed to have two reflexive pronouns that I have never heard
> before.  I wonder how wide-spread this is, or what other comments
> you might have about it.
>       The first is "themself", used for collective nouns.  The example
> was "The team really hurt themself by not cooperating more."  We're
> already ambivalent about number agreement in collectives (observe:
> "The team is playing well this year -- I hope they keep it up" with
> singular verb agreement but plural for the anaphoric pronoun), so
> this seems like a reasonable development.
>       The second is "theirselves", which for these kids, at least,
> contrasts with "themselves".  "The class taught theirselves the
> lesson" is said to mean that they got together in little groups or
> otherwise informally mixed and helped each other learn.  This is
> different from "The class taught themselves the lesson", in which
> each person taught him or herself, without cooperation, and also
> different from "the class taught each other the lesson", in which
> there has to be more deliberate one-to-one interaction.  I have no
> idea how to label this one.
> `     There are probably dialect differences across the Atlantic, too,
> since British speakers use plural verbs with collectives much more
> readily than we do ("the team are playing well this year" is very
> marginal for me, but easily accepted in England, I'm told).
>       Is there a new "University of Colorado undergraduate" dialect of
> English evolving, or have I just not been keeping up?  Seems like
> the contrast collective/indivduated may be expanding its grammatical
> effects.
>
> Best,
>       David
>
>
>
> David S. Rood
> Dept. of Linguistics
> Univ. of Colorado
> 295 UCB
> Boulder, CO 80309-0295
> USA
> rood at colorado.edu
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From Granta at edgehill.ac.uk  Mon Feb 14 11:06:47 2011
From: Granta at edgehill.ac.uk (Anthony Grant)
Date: Mon, 14 Feb 2011 11:06:47 +0000
Subject: English grammar innovation? New reflexive pronouns?
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.4.64.1102131110090.11470@spot.colorado.edu>
Message-ID: <MON.14.FEB.2011.110647.0000.>

David:

You can certainly hear both in Britain in less deliberate speech, and
plural concord with 'team' is widespread too.  I think 'theirselves' is
commoner than 'themself' here but both are available.

Anthony

>>> ROOD DAVID S <David.Rood at Colorado.EDU> 13/02/2011 18:49 >>>

Dear Colleagues,

 	In my English grammar class a few days ago my undergraduates
claimed to have two reflexive pronouns that I have never heard before.
I
wonder how wide-spread this is, or what other comments you might have
about it.
 	The first is "themself", used for collective nouns.  The
example
was "The team really hurt themself by not cooperating more."  We're
already ambivalent about number agreement in collectives (observe:
"The
team is playing well this year -- I hope they keep it up" with
singular
verb agreement but plural for the anaphoric pronoun), so this seems
like a
reasonable development.
 	The second is "theirselves", which for these kids, at least,
contrasts with "themselves".  "The class taught theirselves the lesson"
is
said to mean that they got together in little groups or otherwise
informally mixed and helped each other learn.  This is different from
"The class taught themselves the lesson", in which each person taught
him or herself, without cooperation, and also different from "the
class
taught each other the lesson", in which there has to be more
deliberate
one-to-one interaction.  I have no idea how to label this one.
`	There are probably dialect differences across the Atlantic,
too,
since British speakers use plural verbs with collectives much more
readily
than we do ("the team are playing well this year" is very marginal for
me,
but easily accepted in England, I'm told).
 	Is there a new "University of Colorado undergraduate" dialect
of
English evolving, or have I just not been keeping up?  Seems like the
contrast collective/indivduated may be expanding its grammatical
effects.

Best,
 	David



David S. Rood
Dept. of Linguistics
Univ. of Colorado
295 UCB
Boulder, CO 80309-0295
USA
rood at colorado.edu



Based on an award-winning 160-acre Campus near Liverpool, Edge Hill
University has over 125 years of history as an innovative, successful
and distinctive higher education provider.

? Shortlisted for Times Higher Education University of the Year 2007 and
2010
? Top in the North West for overall student satisfaction (Sunday Times
University Guide 2011)
? Second in England for graduate employment (HESA 2009, full
universities, full and part-time, first and foundation degrees)
? Top 20 position, and the highest ranked university in 'The Sunday
Times Best Places to Work in the Public Sector 2010'

-----------------------------------------------------
This message is private and confidential. If you have received this
message in error, please notify the sender and remove it from your
system. Any views or opinions presented are solely those of the author
and do not necessarily represent those of Edge Hill or associated
companies.  Edge Hill University may monitor email traffic data and also
the content of email for the purposes of security and business
communications during staff absence.

-----------------------------------------------------


From erschler at gmail.com  Mon Feb 14 16:26:27 2011
From: erschler at gmail.com (David Erschler)
Date: Mon, 14 Feb 2011 17:26:27 +0100
Subject: English grammar innovation? New reflexive pronouns?
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.4.64.1102131110090.11470@spot.colorado.edu>
Message-ID: <MON.14.FEB.2011.172627.0100.>

The Google n-gram viewer apparently shows that these forms have been around
at least since early 19th c.
http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/graph?content=theirselves%2C+themself&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=0&smoothing=0

Best,
David

On Sun, Feb 13, 2011 at 7:49 PM, ROOD DAVID S <David.Rood at colorado.edu>wrote:

>
> Dear Colleagues,
>
>        In my English grammar class a few days ago my undergraduates claimed
> to have two reflexive pronouns that I have never heard before.  I wonder how
> wide-spread this is, or what other comments you might have about it.
>        The first is "themself", used for collective nouns.  The example was
> "The team really hurt themself by not cooperating more."  We're already
> ambivalent about number agreement in collectives (observe: "The team is
> playing well this year -- I hope they keep it up" with singular verb
> agreement but plural for the anaphoric pronoun), so this seems like a
> reasonable development.
>        The second is "theirselves", which for these kids, at least,
> contrasts with "themselves".  "The class taught theirselves the lesson" is
> said to mean that they got together in little groups or otherwise informally
> mixed and helped each other learn.  This is different from "The class taught
> themselves the lesson", in which each person taught him or herself, without
> cooperation, and also different from "the class taught each other the
> lesson", in which there has to be more deliberate one-to-one interaction.  I
> have no idea how to label this one.
> `       There are probably dialect differences across the Atlantic, too,
> since British speakers use plural verbs with collectives much more readily
> than we do ("the team are playing well this year" is very marginal for me,
> but easily accepted in England, I'm told).
>        Is there a new "University of Colorado undergraduate" dialect of
> English evolving, or have I just not been keeping up?  Seems like the
> contrast collective/indivduated may be expanding its grammatical effects.
>
> Best,
>        David
>
>
>
> David S. Rood
> Dept. of Linguistics
> Univ. of Colorado
> 295 UCB
> Boulder, CO 80309-0295
> USA
> rood at colorado.edu
>



-- 
Dr. David Erschler

T?binger Zentrum f?r Linguistik (SFB 833)
Nauklerstrasse 35
D - 72074  Tuebingen/Germany
Tel. +49 (0)7071-2977437
Fax. +49 (0)7071-295830

and

Department for Protein Evolution
Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology
Spemannstrasse 35
72076 Tuebingen/Germany
Tel. +49-(0)7071-601451
Fax  +49-(0)7071-601352
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From David.Rood at Colorado.EDU  Mon Feb 14 20:34:10 2011
From: David.Rood at Colorado.EDU (ROOD DAVID S)
Date: Mon, 14 Feb 2011 13:34:10 -0700
Subject: New English reflexive pronouns?
In-Reply-To: <4D58405C0200008E0002C867@hermes.wsc.edu>
Message-ID: <MON.14.FEB.2011.133410.0700.>

Thanks, Bob.  I am not surprised at the forms -- the mixture of accusative 
and possessive before "self" has been part of the ESL "things to watch out 
for" literature for a long time.  It's their use in weird kinds of 
collectives that I find intriguing.

D/

David S. Rood
Dept. of Linguistics
Univ. of Colorado
295 UCB
Boulder, CO 80309-0295
USA
rood at colorado.edu

On Sun, 13 Feb 2011, Catherine Rudin wrote:

> I use themself.  Always have, I think ...   Among other things, it's the only way to do the reflexive of the gender-neutral they, as in "any student who hurts themself should go to the nurse" or "if you don't shovel that sidewalk someone's going to fall and hurt themself".
>
> I don't use theirselves, but I certainly hear it, and again, I don't think it's new... on the other hand, I wouldn't have guessed that it could have a different meaning from themselves.
>
> Catherine
>
>>>> "Rankin, Robert L"  02/13/11 4:22 PM >>>
> I don't find either of the forms David cites strange.  Both could easily occur in my "Southern" dialect.  'Theirselves' is just the plural of the very common 'hisself', as in "He shot hisself in the foot."  Maybe it is a reanalysis of 'himself' with 'his' simply possessing the noun 'self'.  It can't be possessing 'foot' because plain "He hurt hisself." is just as good.  These 3rd person forms are only distinctive in the masculine, of course.  Moreover, 1st person forms like 'myself, ourself/ourselves' also show the possessive pronoun.  '*usself' is not possible, so maybe the possessives are the older forms here.
>
> Note the mix of accusative and genitive pronominals though.  It looks as though sometimes the accusative pronoun won out and sometimes the genitive one did.
>
> literary      less-literary
> myself      me-self (common in Britain)
> yourself    you-self (common in AVE)
> herself      herself
> himself     his-self
> themself   theirself (selves)
>
> I also wonder if 'themself' is really restricted to collective nouns.  It wouldn't bother me at all to say "Two kids out of 10 hurt themself."  It seems to me that 'kids' are being counted individually here.  But, again, that's "Southern."  I have to admit that I've heard "theyself/theyselves" from not-very-literate people, but I wonder if that isn't more underlyingly "theirself/ves" with syllable final R dropping plus a little analogy.
>
> There's a nice term paper topic for some enterprising student.  With the enormous text collections available on line, one could check all these forms in all kinds of literature going back to the Middle Ages probably.
>
> Bob
>
> ________________________________________
>> Both 'themself' and 'theirselves' have been around a while. I first
> noticed 'themself' in the '80s and might even use it myself.
> 'Themself' presumably arose as a result of the use of 'they' as a
> gender-neutral 3rd person singular pronoun. Also note that 'themself'
> gets 1.7 million Google hits.
>
> It's discussed some here: http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/004285.html
>
> Dave Costa
>
>>
>> Dear Colleagues,
>>
>>       In my English grammar class a few days ago my undergraduates
>> claimed to have two reflexive pronouns that I have never heard
>> before.  I wonder how wide-spread this is, or what other comments
>> you might have about it.
>>       The first is "themself", used for collective nouns.  The example
>> was "The team really hurt themself by not cooperating more."  We're
>> already ambivalent about number agreement in collectives (observe:
>> "The team is playing well this year -- I hope they keep it up" with
>> singular verb agreement but plural for the anaphoric pronoun), so
>> this seems like a reasonable development.
>>       The second is "theirselves", which for these kids, at least,
>> contrasts with "themselves".  "The class taught theirselves the
>> lesson" is said to mean that they got together in little groups or
>> otherwise informally mixed and helped each other learn.  This is
>> different from "The class taught themselves the lesson", in which
>> each person taught him or herself, without cooperation, and also
>> different from "the class taught each other the lesson", in which
>> there has to be more deliberate one-to-one interaction.  I have no
>> idea how to label this one.
>> `     There are probably dialect differences across the Atlantic, too,
>> since British speakers use plural verbs with collectives much more
>> readily than we do ("the team are playing well this year" is very
>> marginal for me, but easily accepted in England, I'm told).
>>       Is there a new "University of Colorado undergraduate" dialect of
>> English evolving, or have I just not been keeping up?  Seems like
>> the contrast collective/indivduated may be expanding its grammatical
>> effects.
>>
>> Best,
>>       David
>>
>>
>>
>> David S. Rood
>> Dept. of Linguistics
>> Univ. of Colorado
>> 295 UCB
>> Boulder, CO 80309-0295
>> USA
>> rood at colorado.edu
>


From David.Rood at Colorado.EDU  Sun Feb 20 15:11:41 2011
From: David.Rood at Colorado.EDU (ROOD DAVID S)
Date: Sun, 20 Feb 2011 08:11:41 -0700
Subject: cross-linguistic metaphors (fwd)
Message-ID: <SUN.20.FEB.2011.081141.0700.>

David S. Rood
Dept. of Linguistics
Univ. of Colorado
295 UCB
Boulder, CO 80309-0295
USA
rood at colorado.edu

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sat, 19 Feb 2011 16:02:32 -0700 (MST)
From: ROOD DAVID S <David.Rood at colorado.edu>
To: linguistics faculty <ling-fac at lists.Colorado.EDU>
Cc: linguistics grads <ling-grads at lists.Colorado.EDU>,
     siounists at spot.colorado.edu
Subject: cross-linguistic metaphors


Dear Colleagues:

 	I'm trying to tap into the biggest database I know of for knowledge of 
languages, namely all of you.  I have a query from someone who wants to know 
whether a language exists that does not equate "bright" and "dim" in the sense 
of light and shadow/dark with the same words used to describe intellectual 
acuity or lack thereof.  In English we can call people "bright" and 
"dim(witted)" to mean 'smart' and 'not so smart'.

  Do you know of a language that lacks that equation?

 	Thanks for your help.

Best,
 	David


David S. Rood
Dept. of Linguistics
Univ. of Colorado
295 UCB
Boulder, CO 80309-0295
USA
rood at colorado.edu


From erschler at gmail.com  Sun Feb 20 15:20:59 2011
From: erschler at gmail.com (David Erschler)
Date: Sun, 20 Feb 2011 16:20:59 +0100
Subject: cross-linguistic metaphors (fwd)
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.4.64.1102200811060.18490@spot.colorado.edu>
Message-ID: <SUN.20.FEB.2011.162059.0100.>

I don't think that this exists in Russian. t'omny 'dark' is actually used in
the sense "uneducated/benighted", and not "unintelligent", whereas I can't
think of any uses of whatever word meaning "bright" in the relevant sense.

Best,
David

On Sun, Feb 20, 2011 at 4:11 PM, ROOD DAVID S <David.Rood at colorado.edu>wrote:

>
>
> David S. Rood
> Dept. of Linguistics
> Univ. of Colorado
> 295 UCB
> Boulder, CO 80309-0295
> USA
> rood at colorado.edu
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> Date: Sat, 19 Feb 2011 16:02:32 -0700 (MST)
> From: ROOD DAVID S <David.Rood at colorado.edu>
> To: linguistics faculty <ling-fac at lists.Colorado.EDU>
> Cc: linguistics grads <ling-grads at lists.Colorado.EDU>,
>    siounists at spot.colorado.edu
> Subject: cross-linguistic metaphors
>
>
> Dear Colleagues:
>
>        I'm trying to tap into the biggest database I know of for knowledge
> of languages, namely all of you.  I have a query from someone who wants to
> know whether a language exists that does not equate "bright" and "dim" in
> the sense of light and shadow/dark with the same words used to describe
> intellectual acuity or lack thereof.  In English we can call people "bright"
> and "dim(witted)" to mean 'smart' and 'not so smart'.
>
>  Do you know of a language that lacks that equation?
>
>        Thanks for your help.
>
> Best,
>        David
>
>
> David S. Rood
> Dept. of Linguistics
> Univ. of Colorado
> 295 UCB
> Boulder, CO 80309-0295
> USA
> rood at colorado.edu
>



-- 
Dr. David Erschler

T?binger Zentrum f?r Linguistik (SFB 833)
Nauklerstrasse 35
D - 72074  Tuebingen/Germany
Tel. +49 (0)7071-2977437
Fax. +49 (0)7071-295830

and

Department for Protein Evolution
Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology
Spemannstrasse 35
72076 Tuebingen/Germany
Tel. +49-(0)7071-601451
Fax  +49-(0)7071-601352
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From rankin at ku.edu  Sun Feb 20 15:51:26 2011
From: rankin at ku.edu (Rankin, Robert L)
Date: Sun, 20 Feb 2011 15:51:26 +0000
Subject: cross-linguistic metaphors (fwd)
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.4.64.1102200811060.18490@spot.colorado.edu>
Message-ID: <SUN.20.FEB.2011.155126.0000.>


________________________________________
From: owner-siouan at lists.Colorado.EDU [owner-siouan at lists.Colorado.EDU] on behalf of ROOD DAVID S [David.Rood at Colorado.EDU]
Sent: Sunday, February 20, 2011 9:11 AM
To: siouan at lists.Colorado.EDU
Subject: cross-linguistic metaphors (fwd)

David S. Rood
Dept. of Linguistics
Univ. of Colorado
295 UCB
Boulder, CO 80309-0295
USA
rood at colorado.edu

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sat, 19 Feb 2011 16:02:32 -0700 (MST)
From: ROOD DAVID S <David.Rood at colorado.edu>
To: linguistics faculty <ling-fac at lists.Colorado.EDU>
Cc: linguistics grads <ling-grads at lists.Colorado.EDU>,
     siounists at spot.colorado.edu
Subject: cross-linguistic metaphors


Dear Colleagues:

        I'm trying to tap into the biggest database I know of for knowledge of
languages, namely all of you.  I have a query from someone who wants to know
whether a language exists that does not equate "bright" and "dim" in the sense
of light and shadow/dark with the same words used to describe intellectual
acuity or lack thereof.  In English we can call people "bright" and
"dim(witted)" to mean 'smart' and 'not so smart'.

  Do you know of a language that lacks that equation?

        Thanks for your help.

Best,
        David


David S. Rood
Dept. of Linguistics
Univ. of Colorado
295 UCB
Boulder, CO 80309-0295
USA
rood at colorado.edu


From Granta at edgehill.ac.uk  Sun Feb 20 15:54:53 2011
From: Granta at edgehill.ac.uk (Anthony Grant)
Date: Sun, 20 Feb 2011 15:54:53 +0000
Subject: cross-linguistic metaphors (fwd)
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.4.64.1102200811060.18490@spot.colorado.edu>
Message-ID: <SUN.20.FEB.2011.155453.0000.>

David: I don't have any good counterexamples, but I assume you know the
very modern sense of 'bright' as meaning 'atheist'?
Anthony
>>> ROOD DAVID S <David.Rood at Colorado.EDU> 20/02/2011 15:11 >>>


David S. Rood
Dept. of Linguistics
Univ. of Colorado
295 UCB
Boulder, CO 80309-0295
USA
rood at colorado.edu

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sat, 19 Feb 2011 16:02:32 -0700 (MST)
From: ROOD DAVID S <David.Rood at colorado.edu>
To: linguistics faculty <ling-fac at lists.Colorado.EDU>
Cc: linguistics grads <ling-grads at lists.Colorado.EDU>,
     siounists at spot.colorado.edu
Subject: cross-linguistic metaphors


Dear Colleagues:

 	I'm trying to tap into the biggest database I know of for
knowledge of
languages, namely all of you.  I have a query from someone who wants to
know
whether a language exists that does not equate "bright" and "dim" in
the sense
of light and shadow/dark with the same words used to describe
intellectual
acuity or lack thereof.  In English we can call people "bright" and
"dim(witted)" to mean 'smart' and 'not so smart'.

  Do you know of a language that lacks that equation?

 	Thanks for your help.

Best,
 	David


David S. Rood
Dept. of Linguistics
Univ. of Colorado
295 UCB
Boulder, CO 80309-0295
USA
rood at colorado.edu



Based on an award-winning 160-acre Campus near Liverpool, Edge Hill
University has over 125 years of history as an innovative, successful
and distinctive higher education provider.

? Shortlisted for Times Higher Education University of the Year 2007 and
2010
? Top in the North West for overall student satisfaction (Sunday Times
University Guide 2011)
? Second in England for graduate employment (HESA 2009, full
universities, full and part-time, first and foundation degrees)
? Top 20 position, and the highest ranked university in 'The Sunday
Times Best Places to Work in the Public Sector 2010'

-----------------------------------------------------
This message is private and confidential. If you have received this
message in error, please notify the sender and remove it from your
system. Any views or opinions presented are solely those of the author
and do not necessarily represent those of Edge Hill or associated
companies.  Edge Hill University may monitor email traffic data and also
the content of email for the purposes of security and business
communications during staff absence.

-----------------------------------------------------


From shokoohbanou at yahoo.co.uk  Sun Feb 20 17:53:42 2011
From: shokoohbanou at yahoo.co.uk (shokooh Ingham)
Date: Sun, 20 Feb 2011 17:53:42 +0000
Subject: cross-linguistic metaphors (fwd)
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.4.64.1102200811060.18490@spot.colorado.edu>
Message-ID: <SUN.20.FEB.2011.175342.0000.>

Dear David,
I know that Persian uses roshan fekr meaning 'bright in thought', rather like our 'enlightened', but I don't think it uses 'dark' or 'dim' in the same way. I don't think Arabic uses either, but I'll try to think about it a bit more.
Yours
Bruce

--- On Sun, 20/2/11, ROOD DAVID S <David.Rood at Colorado.EDU> wrote:

> From: ROOD DAVID S <David.Rood at Colorado.EDU>
> Subject: cross-linguistic metaphors (fwd)
> To: siouan at lists.Colorado.EDU
> Date: Sunday, 20 February, 2011, 15:11
> 
> 
> David S. Rood
> Dept. of Linguistics
> Univ. of Colorado
> 295 UCB
> Boulder, CO 80309-0295
> USA
> rood at colorado.edu
> 
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> Date: Sat, 19 Feb 2011 16:02:32 -0700 (MST)
> From: ROOD DAVID S <David.Rood at colorado.edu>
> To: linguistics faculty <ling-fac at lists.Colorado.EDU>
> Cc: linguistics grads <ling-grads at lists.Colorado.EDU>,
>     siounists at spot.colorado.edu
> Subject: cross-linguistic metaphors
> 
> 
> Dear Colleagues:
> 
>     I'm trying to tap into the biggest
> database I know of for knowledge of languages, namely all of
> you.  I have a query from someone who wants to know
> whether a language exists that does not equate "bright" and
> "dim" in the sense of light and shadow/dark with the same
> words used to describe intellectual acuity or lack
> thereof.  In English we can call people "bright" and
> "dim(witted)" to mean 'smart' and 'not so smart'.
> 
>  Do you know of a language that lacks that equation?
> 
>     Thanks for your help.
> 
> Best,
>     David
> 
> 
> David S. Rood
> Dept. of Linguistics
> Univ. of Colorado
> 295 UCB
> Boulder, CO 80309-0295
> USA
> rood at colorado.edu
> 


      


From mary.marino at usask.ca  Mon Feb 21 06:24:28 2011
From: mary.marino at usask.ca (Mary C Marino)
Date: Mon, 21 Feb 2011 00:24:28 -0600
Subject: cross-linguistic metaphors (fwd)
In-Reply-To: <4D61394D.6AA4.00A6.0@edgehill.ac.uk>
Message-ID: <MON.21.FEB.2011.002428.0600.>

Hello Anthony:  As far as I know this is not current anywhere in N 
America - I certainly haven't heard it in Canada.  If 'bright' has come 
to mean 'atheist', does it follow that 'dim' means 'believer' (of 
whatever faith community)?  Mary




On 20/02/2011 9:54 AM, Anthony Grant wrote:
> David: I don't have any good counterexamples, but I assume you know the
> very modern sense of 'bright' as meaning 'atheist'?
> Anthony
>>>> ROOD DAVID S<David.Rood at Colorado.EDU>  20/02/2011 15:11>>>
>
> David S. Rood
> Dept. of Linguistics
> Univ. of Colorado
> 295 UCB
> Boulder, CO 80309-0295
> USA
> rood at colorado.edu
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> Date: Sat, 19 Feb 2011 16:02:32 -0700 (MST)
> From: ROOD DAVID S<David.Rood at colorado.edu>
> To: linguistics faculty<ling-fac at lists.Colorado.EDU>
> Cc: linguistics grads<ling-grads at lists.Colorado.EDU>,
>       siounists at spot.colorado.edu
> Subject: cross-linguistic metaphors
>
>
> Dear Colleagues:
>
>   	I'm trying to tap into the biggest database I know of for
> knowledge of
> languages, namely all of you.  I have a query from someone who wants to
> know
> whether a language exists that does not equate "bright" and "dim" in
> the sense
> of light and shadow/dark with the same words used to describe
> intellectual
> acuity or lack thereof.  In English we can call people "bright" and
> "dim(witted)" to mean 'smart' and 'not so smart'.
>
>    Do you know of a language that lacks that equation?
>
>   	Thanks for your help.
>
> Best,
>   	David
>
>
> David S. Rood
> Dept. of Linguistics
> Univ. of Colorado
> 295 UCB
> Boulder, CO 80309-0295
> USA
> rood at colorado.edu
>
>
>
> Based on an award-winning 160-acre Campus near Liverpool, Edge Hill
> University has over 125 years of history as an innovative, successful
> and distinctive higher education provider.
>
> ? Shortlisted for Times Higher Education University of the Year 2007 and
> 2010
> ? Top in the North West for overall student satisfaction (Sunday Times
> University Guide 2011)
> ? Second in England for graduate employment (HESA 2009, full
> universities, full and part-time, first and foundation degrees)
> ? Top 20 position, and the highest ranked university in 'The Sunday
> Times Best Places to Work in the Public Sector 2010'
>
> -----------------------------------------------------
> This message is private and confidential. If you have received this
> message in error, please notify the sender and remove it from your
> system. Any views or opinions presented are solely those of the author
> and do not necessarily represent those of Edge Hill or associated
> companies.  Edge Hill University may monitor email traffic data and also
> the content of email for the purposes of security and business
> communications during staff absence.
>
> -----------------------------------------------------


From Granta at edgehill.ac.uk  Mon Feb 21 10:43:31 2011
From: Granta at edgehill.ac.uk (Anthony Grant)
Date: Mon, 21 Feb 2011 10:43:31 +0000
Subject: cross-linguistic metaphors (fwd)
In-Reply-To: <4D62051C.7050201@usask.ca>
Message-ID: <MON.21.FEB.2011.104331.0000.>

Hi Mary:  Apparently so; I believe the expression was coined by Richard
Dawkins.

Best, Anthony

>>> Mary C Marino <mary.marino at usask.ca> 21/02/2011 06:24 >>>
Hello Anthony:  As far as I know this is not current anywhere in N
America - I certainly haven't heard it in Canada.  If 'bright' has
come
to mean 'atheist', does it follow that 'dim' means 'believer' (of
whatever faith community)?  Mary




On 20/02/2011 9:54 AM, Anthony Grant wrote:
> David: I don't have any good counterexamples, but I assume you know
the
> very modern sense of 'bright' as meaning 'atheist'?
> Anthony
>>>> ROOD DAVID S<David.Rood at Colorado.EDU>  20/02/2011 15:11>>>
>
> David S. Rood
> Dept. of Linguistics
> Univ. of Colorado
> 295 UCB
> Boulder, CO 80309-0295
> USA
> rood at colorado.edu
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> Date: Sat, 19 Feb 2011 16:02:32 -0700 (MST)
> From: ROOD DAVID S<David.Rood at colorado.edu>
> To: linguistics faculty<ling-fac at lists.Colorado.EDU>
> Cc: linguistics grads<ling-grads at lists.Colorado.EDU>,
>       siounists at spot.colorado.edu
> Subject: cross-linguistic metaphors
>
>
> Dear Colleagues:
>
>   	I'm trying to tap into the biggest database I know of for
> knowledge of
> languages, namely all of you.  I have a query from someone who wants
to
> know
> whether a language exists that does not equate "bright" and "dim" in
> the sense
> of light and shadow/dark with the same words used to describe
> intellectual
> acuity or lack thereof.  In English we can call people "bright" and
> "dim(witted)" to mean 'smart' and 'not so smart'.
>
>    Do you know of a language that lacks that equation?
>
>   	Thanks for your help.
>
> Best,
>   	David
>
>
> David S. Rood
> Dept. of Linguistics
> Univ. of Colorado
> 295 UCB
> Boulder, CO 80309-0295
> USA
> rood at colorado.edu
>
>
>
> Based on an award-winning 160-acre Campus near Liverpool, Edge Hill
> University has over 125 years of history as an innovative,
successful
> and distinctive higher education provider.
>
> ? Shortlisted for Times Higher Education University of the Year
2007 and
> 2010
> ? Top in the North West for overall student satisfaction (Sunday
Times
> University Guide 2011)
> ? Second in England for graduate employment (HESA 2009, full
> universities, full and part-time, first and foundation degrees)
> ? Top 20 position, and the highest ranked university in 'The
Sunday
> Times Best Places to Work in the Public Sector 2010'
>
> -----------------------------------------------------
> This message is private and confidential. If you have received this
> message in error, please notify the sender and remove it from your
> system. Any views or opinions presented are solely those of the
author
> and do not necessarily represent those of Edge Hill or associated
> companies.  Edge Hill University may monitor email traffic data and
also
> the content of email for the purposes of security and business
> communications during staff absence.
>
> -----------------------------------------------------




Based on an award-winning 160-acre Campus near Liverpool, Edge Hill
University has over 125 years of history as an innovative, successful
and distinctive higher education provider.

? Shortlisted for Times Higher Education University of the Year 2007 and
2010
? Top in the North West for overall student satisfaction (Sunday Times
University Guide 2011)
? Second in England for graduate employment (HESA 2009, full
universities, full and part-time, first and foundation degrees)
? Top 20 position, and the highest ranked university in 'The Sunday
Times Best Places to Work in the Public Sector 2010'

-----------------------------------------------------
This message is private and confidential. If you have received this
message in error, please notify the sender and remove it from your
system. Any views or opinions presented are solely those of the author
and do not necessarily represent those of Edge Hill or associated
companies.  Edge Hill University may monitor email traffic data and also
the content of email for the purposes of security and business
communications during staff absence.

-----------------------------------------------------


From rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu  Mon Feb 21 16:19:02 2011
From: rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu (Rory M Larson)
Date: Mon, 21 Feb 2011 10:19:02 -0600
Subject: cross-linguistic metaphors (fwd)
In-Reply-To: <126449.13647.qm@web29504.mail.ird.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <MON.21.FEB.2011.101902.0600.>

David wrote:
>     I'm trying to tap into the biggest
> database I know of for knowledge of languages, namely all of
> you.  I have a query from someone who wants to know
> whether a language exists that does not equate "bright" and
> "dim" in the sense of light and shadow/dark with the same
> words used to describe intellectual acuity or lack
> thereof.  In English we can call people "bright" and
> "dim(witted)" to mean 'smart' and 'not so smart'.
> 
>  Do you know of a language that lacks that equation?

Japanese uses atama ga ii, 'has a good head', or surudoi, 'sharp/keen', 
for "intelligent", and a special word, baka, for 
'foolish/stupid/ridiculous'.  Metaphorically, akarui, 'bright', means 
"happy" or "lively".  As far as I can tell from my dictionary, it lacks 
that equation.

But since this is a Siouanist list, what about Siouan and other native 
North American languages?  For Omaha, we have wazhiN-ska listed in the 
Stabler-Swetland dictionary for 'smart/intelligent', along with 'wise', 
'knowledge', 'clever' and 'sober'.  wazhiN seems to mean something like 
'disposition', 'will', 'mentality' or 'anger', perhaps like the early 
Germanic meaning of /mood/.  ska means 'white', and is also said to mean 
'clear' or 'bright', although I've never been able to make that 
connection.  So the term actually seems to mean something like 
"white-disposition", with the main implication of wisdom and sobriety of 
conduct, not so much what we're looking for here as the ability to grasp 
ideas quickly.  No word is listed for 'stupid', and the closest I can get 
is 'foolish', which merges with groNriN, 'crazy', as the opposite of 
wisdom and sobriety.

In Carolyn Quintero's Osage Dictionary, wadhilaNhtaNaN is listed for 
'smart/intelligent'.  That should correspond to Omaha warigroN-ttoN, 
'having brain/thoughts/mind'.  This is more the concept we are looking 
for, but without the bright/dim metaphor.  Again, nothing is listed for 
'stupid', and the closest we get is c?eka, 'crazy'.

In John P. Williamson's 1902 English-Dakota Dictionary, we find wasdonya, 
'knowledgeable', listed for 'intelligent', and for 'smart' waciNksapa, 
'wise/prudent waciN', where waciN should be cognate to Omaha wazhiN and 
means 'thinking' or 'purpose'.  'Stupid' gets tawaciNtata, apparently 
'dull mind', and waciNksapes^ni, 'not waciNksapa', i.e. 'imprudent'.

None of these languages, with the possible exception of Omaha, seems to 
use "bright" as a metaphor for 'intelligent'.  So I'm going to turn the 
question around and ask what languages do use the metaphor.  What 
languages outside of English equate brightness with intelligence and 
dimness with stupidity?  Also, do languages exist that simply don't have 
words for 'intelligent' or 'stupid' in the sense we are looking for?  It 
seems to me that this whole concern for evaluating people in terms of 
intellectual acuity parallels the rise of the educational establishment in 
recent history.  Prior to that, I think interest was more in a person's 
sensibility of conduct rather than their I.Q.

Rory
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From jfu at lakhota.org  Tue Feb 22 14:01:38 2011
From: jfu at lakhota.org (Jan Ullrich)
Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2011 15:01:38 +0100
Subject: cross-linguistic metaphors (fwd)
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.4.64.1102200811060.18490@spot.colorado.edu>
Message-ID: <TUE.22.FEB.2011.150138.0100.>

Hi David,

I am not aware that "bright" and "dim(witted)" would be use to mean 'smart'
and 'not so smart' in my native language, Czech.

Jan


-----Original Message-----
From: owner-siouan at lists.Colorado.EDU
[mailto:owner-siouan at lists.Colorado.EDU] On Behalf Of ROOD DAVID S
Sent: Sunday, February 20, 2011 4:12 PM
To: siouan at lists.Colorado.EDU
Subject: cross-linguistic metaphors (fwd)



David S. Rood
Dept. of Linguistics
Univ. of Colorado
295 UCB
Boulder, CO 80309-0295
USA
rood at colorado.edu

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sat, 19 Feb 2011 16:02:32 -0700 (MST)
From: ROOD DAVID S <David.Rood at colorado.edu>
To: linguistics faculty <ling-fac at lists.Colorado.EDU>
Cc: linguistics grads <ling-grads at lists.Colorado.EDU>,
     siounists at spot.colorado.edu
Subject: cross-linguistic metaphors


Dear Colleagues:

 	I'm trying to tap into the biggest database I know of for knowledge
of 
languages, namely all of you.  I have a query from someone who wants to know

whether a language exists that does not equate "bright" and "dim" in the
sense 
of light and shadow/dark with the same words used to describe intellectual 
acuity or lack thereof.  In English we can call people "bright" and 
"dim(witted)" to mean 'smart' and 'not so smart'.

  Do you know of a language that lacks that equation?

 	Thanks for your help.

Best,
 	David


David S. Rood
Dept. of Linguistics
Univ. of Colorado
295 UCB
Boulder, CO 80309-0295
USA
rood at colorado.edu


From shokoohbanou at yahoo.co.uk  Tue Feb 22 17:11:07 2011
From: shokoohbanou at yahoo.co.uk (shokooh Ingham)
Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2011 17:11:07 +0000
Subject: cross-linguistic metaphors (fwd)
In-Reply-To: <4D6241D2.6AA4.00A6.0@edgehill.ac.uk>
Message-ID: <TUE.22.FEB.2011.171107.0000.>

While we are at it, what do your languages do for high and low pitch.  In Persian boland 'high' and khafif 'light' mean 'loud' and 'quiet', while 'high' and 'low' are rendered by naazok 'thin' and koloft 'thick'
Bruce

--- On Mon, 21/2/11, Anthony Grant <Granta at edgehill.ac.uk> wrote:

> From: Anthony Grant <Granta at edgehill.ac.uk>
> Subject: Re: cross-linguistic metaphors (fwd)
> To: siouan at lists.Colorado.EDU
> Date: Monday, 21 February, 2011, 10:43
> Hi Mary:  Apparently so; I
> believe the expression was coined by Richard
> Dawkins.
> 
> Best, Anthony
> 
> >>> Mary C Marino <mary.marino at usask.ca>
> 21/02/2011 06:24 >>>
> Hello Anthony:  As far as I know this is not current
> anywhere in N
> America - I certainly haven't heard it in Canada.  If
> 'bright' has
> come
> to mean 'atheist', does it follow that 'dim' means
> 'believer' (of
> whatever faith community)?  Mary
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On 20/02/2011 9:54 AM, Anthony Grant wrote:
> > David: I don't have any good counterexamples, but I
> assume you know
> the
> > very modern sense of 'bright' as meaning 'atheist'?
> > Anthony
> >>>> ROOD DAVID S<David.Rood at Colorado.EDU> 
> 20/02/2011 15:11>>>
> >
> > David S. Rood
> > Dept. of Linguistics
> > Univ. of Colorado
> > 295 UCB
> > Boulder, CO 80309-0295
> > USA
> > rood at colorado.edu
> >
> > ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> > Date: Sat, 19 Feb 2011 16:02:32 -0700 (MST)
> > From: ROOD DAVID S<David.Rood at colorado.edu>
> > To: linguistics faculty<ling-fac at lists.Colorado.EDU>
> > Cc: linguistics grads<ling-grads at lists.Colorado.EDU>,
> >       siounists at spot.colorado.edu
> > Subject: cross-linguistic metaphors
> >
> >
> > Dear Colleagues:
> >
> >       I'm trying to tap
> into the biggest database I know of for
> > knowledge of
> > languages, namely all of you.  I have a query
> from someone who wants
> to
> > know
> > whether a language exists that does not equate
> "bright" and "dim" in
> > the sense
> > of light and shadow/dark with the same words used to
> describe
> > intellectual
> > acuity or lack thereof.  In English we can call
> people "bright" and
> > "dim(witted)" to mean 'smart' and 'not so smart'.
> >
> >    Do you know of a language that lacks that
> equation?
> >
> >       Thanks for your
> help.
> >
> > Best,
> >       David
> >
> >
> > David S. Rood
> > Dept. of Linguistics
> > Univ. of Colorado
> > 295 UCB
> > Boulder, CO 80309-0295
> > USA
> > rood at colorado.edu
> >
> >
> >
> > Based on an award-winning 160-acre Campus near
> Liverpool, Edge Hill
> > University has over 125 years of history as an
> innovative,
> successful
> > and distinctive higher education provider.
> >
> > ? Shortlisted for Times Higher Education University
> of the Year
> 2007 and
> > 2010
> > ? Top in the North West for overall student
> satisfaction (Sunday
> Times
> > University Guide 2011)
> > ? Second in England for graduate employment (HESA
> 2009, full
> > universities, full and part-time, first and foundation
> degrees)
> > ? Top 20 position, and the highest ranked university
> in 'The
> Sunday
> > Times Best Places to Work in the Public Sector 2010'
> >
> > -----------------------------------------------------
> > This message is private and confidential. If you have
> received this
> > message in error, please notify the sender and remove
> it from your
> > system. Any views or opinions presented are solely
> those of the
> author
> > and do not necessarily represent those of Edge Hill or
> associated
> > companies.  Edge Hill University may monitor
> email traffic data and
> also
> > the content of email for the purposes of security and
> business
> > communications during staff absence.
> >
> > -----------------------------------------------------
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Based on an award-winning 160-acre Campus near Liverpool,
> Edge Hill
> University has over 125 years of history as an innovative,
> successful
> and distinctive higher education provider.
> 
> ? Shortlisted for Times Higher Education University of
> the Year 2007 and
> 2010
> ? Top in the North West for overall student satisfaction
> (Sunday Times
> University Guide 2011)
> ? Second in England for graduate employment (HESA 2009,
> full
> universities, full and part-time, first and foundation
> degrees)
> ? Top 20 position, and the highest ranked university in
> 'The Sunday
> Times Best Places to Work in the Public Sector 2010'
> 
> -----------------------------------------------------
> This message is private and confidential. If you have
> received this
> message in error, please notify the sender and remove it
> from your
> system. Any views or opinions presented are solely those of
> the author
> and do not necessarily represent those of Edge Hill or
> associated
> companies.  Edge Hill University may monitor email
> traffic data and also
> the content of email for the purposes of security and
> business
> communications during staff absence.
> 
> -----------------------------------------------------
> 


      


From linguista at gmail.com  Tue Feb 22 20:58:55 2011
From: linguista at gmail.com (Bryan James Gordon)
Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2011 13:58:55 -0700
Subject: cross-linguistic metaphors (fwd)
In-Reply-To: <OFA8B95EBE.03E803D8-ON8625783E.0050F7DC-8625783E.0059A211@unl.edu>
Message-ID: <TUE.22.FEB.2011.135855.0700.>

>
>
>
> But since this is a Siouanist list, what about Siouan and other native
> North American languages?  For Omaha, we have wazhiN-ska listed in the
> Stabler-Swetland dictionary for 'smart/intelligent', along with 'wise',
> 'knowledge', 'clever' and 'sober'.  wazhiN seems to mean something like
> 'disposition', 'will', 'mentality' or 'anger', perhaps like the early
> Germanic meaning of /mood/.  ska means 'white', and is also said to mean
> 'clear' or 'bright', although I've never been able to make that connection.
>  So the term actually seems to mean something like "white-disposition", with
> the main implication of wisdom and sobriety of conduct, not so much what
> we're looking for here as the ability to grasp ideas quickly.  No word is
> listed for 'stupid', and the closest I can get is 'foolish', which merges
> with groNriN, 'crazy', as the opposite of wisdom and sobriety.
>

What if the -ska in wazh??ska is not the same as "white"? There are also
other words, like t?puska, iy?ska, which confer the impression that it might
be nothing more than an agent-nominaliser, perhaps historically related to
shko? "active/move/do" (which would go some way towards explaining the
apparent part-cognate-part-loanword set heth?shka ir?ska il??ska where some
languages have s and others sh). I think I recall hearing some words in Macy
that indicated a productive use of this suffix on verbal predicates that
don't show any signs of taking -ska in either Dorsey or the Swetland-Stabler
lexicon. I've even heard an interpretation of "pahaska" (Pawhuska) as
meaning "person who stands forward" instead of "white head/scalp", although
that might be a creative back-formation.

On the other hand, however, the B?xoje word for translator is "ich^? br?dhe"
"speaks clearly", which hints that clarity if not colour may well have
something to do with the semantics of this family of concepts. I think what
we need is either luck in finding a section of discourse documented that
confirms or rejects the hypothesis, or a native speaker who has the relevant
intuition.

- Bryan
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From rankin at ku.edu  Tue Feb 22 21:13:30 2011
From: rankin at ku.edu (Rankin, Robert L)
Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2011 21:13:30 +0000
Subject: cross-linguistic metaphors (fwd)
In-Reply-To: <AANLkTim6rUwtzOwHBE+cZObQx67DuumUezZAq0ROiJqq@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <TUE.22.FEB.2011.211330.0000.>

I'm pretty sure the -ska of wazhiNska and ieska is the one meaning 'clear' (also 'white'), as in the Kansas place name ni hni ska 'clear spring'..  So wazhiNska would be 'clear thinker' and ieska 'clear speaker' (interpreter).  As for the other skas, who knows?  The secret is to realize it means 'clear' as well as 'white'.

Bob

________________________________
From: owner-siouan at lists.Colorado.EDU [owner-siouan at lists.Colorado.EDU] on behalf of Bryan James Gordon [linguista at gmail.com]
Sent: Tuesday, February 22, 2011 2:58 PM
To: siouan at lists.Colorado.EDU
Subject: Re: cross-linguistic metaphors (fwd)



But since this is a Siouanist list, what about Siouan and other native North American languages?  For Omaha, we have wazhiN-ska listed in the Stabler-Swetland dictionary for 'smart/intelligent', along with 'wise', 'knowledge', 'clever' and 'sober'.  wazhiN seems to mean something like 'disposition', 'will', 'mentality' or 'anger', perhaps like the early Germanic meaning of /mood/.  ska means 'white', and is also said to mean 'clear' or 'bright', although I've never been able to make that connection.  So the term actually seems to mean something like "white-disposition", with the main implication of wisdom and sobriety of conduct, not so much what we're looking for here as the ability to grasp ideas quickly.  No word is listed for 'stupid', and the closest I can get is 'foolish', which merges with groNriN, 'crazy', as the opposite of wisdom and sobriety.

What if the -ska in wazh??ska is not the same as "white"? There are also other words, like t?puska, iy?ska, which confer the impression that it might be nothing more than an agent-nominaliser, perhaps historically related to shko? "active/move/do" (which would go some way towards explaining the apparent part-cognate-part-loanword set heth?shka ir?ska il??ska where some languages have s and others sh). I think I recall hearing some words in Macy that indicated a productive use of this suffix on verbal predicates that don't show any signs of taking -ska in either Dorsey or the Swetland-Stabler lexicon. I've even heard an interpretation of "pahaska" (Pawhuska) as meaning "person who stands forward" instead of "white head/scalp", although that might be a creative back-formation.

On the other hand, however, the B?xoje word for translator is "ich^? br?dhe" "speaks clearly", which hints that clarity if not colour may well have something to do with the semantics of this family of concepts. I think what we need is either luck in finding a section of discourse documented that confirms or rejects the hypothesis, or a native speaker who has the relevant intuition.

- Bryan

From Greer-J at MSSU.EDU  Tue Feb 22 22:15:59 2011
From: Greer-J at MSSU.EDU (Jill Greer)
Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2011 16:15:59 -0600
Subject: cross-linguistic metaphors (fwd)
In-Reply-To: <AANLkTim6rUwtzOwHBE+cZObQx67DuumUezZAq0ROiJqq@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <TUE.22.FEB.2011.161559.0600.>

Bryan,
 
Perhaps one might also gloss the Jiwere form as "makes speech clear" 
as in taking the confusion of an unknown tongue, and making it
understood (or clear) to the listener.  Still,  that seems a different
metaphor.  Cross-sensory description (sight/hearing) is not the same as 
intelligence vs. stupidity...  I liked Rory's comment about the
potential innate bias in such a concept anyway,  especially considering
that individuals who Europeans might have once labeled "idiots" could be
seen as possessing special qualities and different, rather than inferior
"intelligence."  And different elders commented about a mentally
retarded individual that traditionally,  such a person would be taught
to do work or be "useful" to their abilities.  Unfortunately the
conversation was in English, and no Ioway or Otoe words were used in
that context which might contribute to the discussion here.  
 
Where would we find a native speaker of a Siouan language who isn't
potentially influenced by having the English metaphor already known in
their bilingual speech repertoire???
 
And just for curiosity,  are there any other metaphors believed to be
universal?
 
For us, light/bright also equates good vs. dark/evil,  and quick vs.
slow can be mapped to wit instead of visible activity.  
 
 
Jill Greer
 
 
>>> Bryan James Gordon <linguista at gmail.com> 2/22/2011 2:58 PM >>>




But since this is a Siouanist list, what about Siouan and other native
North American languages? For Omaha, we have wazhiN-ska listed in the
Stabler-Swetland dictionary for 'smart/intelligent', along with 'wise',
'knowledge', 'clever' and 'sober'. wazhiN seems to mean something like
'disposition', 'will', 'mentality' or 'anger', perhaps like the early
Germanic meaning of /mood/. ska means 'white', and is also said to mean
'clear' or 'bright', although I've never been able to make that
connection. So the term actually seems to mean something like
"white-disposition", with the main implication of wisdom and sobriety of
conduct, not so much what we're looking for here as the ability to grasp
ideas quickly. No word is listed for 'stupid', and the closest I can get
is 'foolish', which merges with groNriN, 'crazy', as the opposite of
wisdom and sobriety. 


What if the -ska in wazh??ska is not the same as "white"? There are
also other words, like t?puska, iy?ska, which confer the impression that
it might be nothing more than an agent-nominaliser, perhaps historically
related to shko? "active/move/do" (which would go some way towards
explaining the apparent part-cognate-part-loanword set heth?shka ir?ska
il??ska where some languages have s and others sh). I think I recall
hearing some words in Macy that indicated a productive use of this
suffix on verbal predicates that don't show any signs of taking -ska in
either Dorsey or the Swetland-Stabler lexicon. I've even heard an
interpretation of "pahaska" (Pawhuska) as meaning "person who stands
forward" instead of "white head/scalp", although that might be a
creative back-formation.

On the other hand, however, the B?xoje word for translator is "ich^?
br?dhe" "speaks clearly", which hints that clarity if not colour may
well have something to do with the semantics of this family of concepts.
I think what we need is either luck in finding a section of discourse
documented that confirms or rejects the hypothesis, or a native speaker
who has the relevant intuition. 

- Bryan
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From rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu  Wed Feb 23 01:48:29 2011
From: rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu (Rory M Larson)
Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2011 19:48:29 -0600
Subject: cross-linguistic metaphors (fwd)
In-Reply-To: <5E87B4AFA471B543884CD3128A7C8CC6019027@EXCH10-MBX-05.home.ku.edu>
Message-ID: <TUE.22.FEB.2011.194829.0600.>

Bob wrote:
> I'm pretty sure the -ska of wazhiNska and ieska is the one
> meaning 'clear' (also 'white'), as in the Kansas place name
> ni hni ska 'clear spring'..  So wazhiNska would be 'clear thinker'
> and ieska 'clear speaker' (interpreter).  As for the other skas,
> who knows?  The secret is to realize it means 'clear' as well
> as 'white'.

I agree that this makes the best sense in these contexts.  I know too that 
many other languages handle color terms in ways very different from what 
we are used to.  It's just that I have a hard time putting my head around 
the commonality of 'white' with 'clear'.  It would be nice to have more 
examples of the latter use of ska, especially in productive usage.  I 
should check with our speakers, but I strongly doubt that they would use 
ska to describe clear water or a transparent window glass.


Bryan wrote:
> What if the -ska in wazh??ska is not the same as "white"?
> There are also other words, like t?puska, iy?ska, which confer the 
> impression that it might be nothing more than an agent-nominaliser,
> perhaps historically related to shko? "active/move/do" (which would
> go some way towards explaining the apparent part-cognate-part-loanword
> set heth?shka ir?ska il??ska where some languages have s and others sh).
> I think I recall hearing some words in Macy that indicated a productive
> use of this suffix on verbal predicates that don't show any signs of
> taking -ska in either Dorsey or the Swetland-Stabler lexicon.
> I've even heard an interpretation of "pahaska" (Pawhuska) as meaning
> "person who stands forward" instead of "white head/scalp",
> although that might be a creative back-formation.

> On the other hand, however, the B?xoje word for translator is
> "ich^? br?dhe" "speaks clearly", which hints that clarity if not colour
> may well have something to do with the semantics of this family
> of concepts. I think what we need is either luck in finding a section
> of discourse documented that confirms or rejects the hypothesis,
> or a native speaker who has the relevant intuition.

I've toyed with the idea that the meaning of ska was extended in 
pre-reservation contact times to mean "special type of [BASENOUN] that you 
want to collect".  Thus, moNze-ska, "white-metal", or 'silver/money'; 
hiN-ska, "white-animalhair", for porcupine quills and later beads; 
tte-ska, "white-buffalo", for European cattle.  These all arguably have 
some degree of whiteness about them, but they fall more clearly into the 
"collectible" class.

I believe the ska in ttappuska definitely means 'white'.  (This word is 
especially interesting, and I'm thinking of giving a short paper on it at 
the Siouanist conference if they still have time slots.)  For ieska and 
wazhiNska, I can't offer better than Bob does above, which nevertheless 
requires metaphorical cross-sensory extension of a meaning that may be 
hard to establish for the plain use of the word.  I'm open to the 
possibility that some ska's might be a different word, perhaps related to 
shkoN.  To make that connection, we'd have to both lose the nasalization 
and do a Siouan sound-symbolic fricative ablaut shift.

Have you looked at -shka as a suffix?  Mark may have mentioned a 
distinction one of our speakers explained to us recently, that wagri is a 
maggot, while wagri-shka is a bug with legs.

Also, is there an OP cognate to B?xoje br?dhe ?  I assume that should be 
breze in Omaha and Ponka, but I'm not familiar with any such word.

Cheers,
Rory

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From linguista at gmail.com  Wed Feb 23 06:34:56 2011
From: linguista at gmail.com (Bryan James Gordon)
Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2011 23:34:56 -0700
Subject: cross-linguistic metaphors (fwd)
In-Reply-To: <OF8A91F38D.88ECA4EA-ON86257840.0000F9C9-86257840.0009EEA3@unl.edu>
Message-ID: <TUE.22.FEB.2011.233456.0700.>

Wow this is an engaging thread! I miss when we had more of these.

Hi Jill, how are you? I think, unfortunately, a native speaker could only
help us to reject, not to confirm, the hypothesis, because of course you're
right, if she or he did confirm that it's the colour term ska being used, we
would not be able to rule out English influence. Universal metaphors have
attracted some research lately in cognitive science, where they go under
names like spreading activation and stereotypic processing. For a while this
very question of whiteness/clearness-as-good/skillful/safe, darkness-as-bad,
was getting referenced in cog-sci colloquia every other week. Ugh. There are
some metaphors that have indeed proved robust cross-culturally in labs
(inasmuch as labs can be cross-cultural!) - things that are generic like
horoscopes - things like high-pitch-as-piercing/whining/uppity. I'm guessing
most universal metaphors are this trivial or more so. The only truly
inescapable metaphor is the linguistic expression as a metaphor for its
referent.

One thing that makes me skeptical of the clarity-metaphor's necessity is
that many languages, including Umo?ho? and Baxoje, have a word for "clear"
that is *not *ska, but rather the other common Siouan word for white, s??
[s?] (U) / th?? [??] (B).

But the arguments Bob, Rory and others have made in favour of the metaphor
are also quite compelling.

It's hard to decide.

2011/2/22 Rory M Larson <rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu>

> I'm open to the possibility that some ska's might be a different word,
> perhaps related to shkoN.  To make that connection, we'd have to both lose
> the nasalization and do a Siouan sound-symbolic fricative ablaut shift.
>
How distinctive is nasality on unstressed final low vowels anyway? Think
about gth?bo? "ten", which only a few people pronounce that way anymore: it
has become gth?ba for many others. The sound-symbolic fricative ablaut is a
nifty proposal. A connection to -shka would be interesting. I'd given it
some thought, but nothing obvious really sticks out. Of course in Baxoje
forms like shga~sga~thga~xga~hga often vary sociolinguistically or
stylistically (i.e. some of them are "old" forms, others are "Jiwere" forms,
etc.), so maybe this has something to do with how Baxoje uses non-cognates
to express the same meaning.

In the dictionary Jimm gives Lak?ota bl?za "sane", Dakhota md?za "clear",
Hoc?k p?res "clear, sane, intelligent" as cognates of br?dhe. I suspect a
connection also with gr?dhe "many-coloured". Interestingly, r?dhe is
"tongue". Umo?ho? gth?ze is "spotted/rippled", maybe they don't say bth?ze
because they say wazh??ska instead, maybe one of the speakers has heard a
word like bth?ze before?
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From greer-j at MSSU.EDU  Wed Feb 23 16:16:35 2011
From: greer-j at MSSU.EDU (Jill Greer)
Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2011 10:16:35 -0600
Subject: cross-linguistic metaphors (fwd)
Message-ID: <WED.23.FEB.2011.101635.0600.>

Could there be an element of light reflection/shiny involved - since
silver is called mathe-ska 'white metal', and obviously it is not
"white" at all nore transparent (forgive the th for eth here)? Bodies of
(clear) water are also highly reflective, and light rather than dark in
color...
Jill Greer



>>> Rory M Larson 02/22/11 7:49 PM >>>
Bob wrote: 
> I'm pretty sure the -ska of wazhiNska and ieska is the one 
> meaning 'clear' (also 'white'), as in the Kansas place name 
> ni hni ska 'clear spring'.. So wazhiNska would be 'clear thinker' 
> and ieska 'clear speaker' (interpreter). As for the other skas, 
> who knows? The secret is to realize it means 'clear' as well 
> as 'white'.

I agree that this makes the best sense in these contexts. I know too
that many other languages handle color terms in ways very different from
what we are used to. It's just that I have a hard time putting my head
around the commonality of 'white' with 'clear'. It would be nice to have
more examples of the latter use of ska, especially in productive usage.
I should check with our speakers, but I strongly doubt that they would
use ska to describe clear water or a transparent window glass. 


Bryan wrote: 
> What if the -ska in wazh??ska is not the same as "white"? 
> There are also other words, like t?puska, iy?ska, which confer the 
> impression that it might be nothing more than an agent-nominaliser, 
> perhaps historically related to shko? "active/move/do" (which would 
> go some way towards explaining the apparent part-cognate-part-loanword

> set heth?shka ir?ska il??ska where some languages have s and others
sh). 
> I think I recall hearing some words in Macy that indicated a
productive 
> use of this suffix on verbal predicates that don't show any signs of 
> taking -ska in either Dorsey or the Swetland-Stabler lexicon. 
> I've even heard an interpretation of "pahaska" (Pawhuska) as meaning 
> "person who stands forward" instead of "white head/scalp", 
> although that might be a creative back-formation.

> On the other hand, however, the B?xoje word for translator is 
> "ich^? br?dhe" "speaks clearly", which hints that clarity if not
colour 
> may well have something to do with the semantics of this family 
> of concepts. I think what we need is either luck in finding a section 
> of discourse documented that confirms or rejects the hypothesis, 
> or a native speaker who has the relevant intuition.

I've toyed with the idea that the meaning of ska was extended in
pre-reservation contact times to mean "special type of [BASENOUN] that
you want to collect". Thus, moNze-ska, "white-metal", or 'silver/money';
hiN-ska, "white-animalhair", for porcupine quills and later beads;
tte-ska, "white-buffalo", for European cattle. These all arguably have
some degree of whiteness about them, but they fall more clearly into the
"collectible" class. 

I believe the ska in ttappuska definitely means 'white'. (This word is
especially interesting, and I'm thinking of giving a short paper on it
at the Siouanist conference if they still have time slots.) For ieska
and wazhiNska, I can't offer better than Bob does above, which
nevertheless requires metaphorical cross-sensory extension of a meaning
that may be hard to establish for the plain use of the word. I'm open to
the possibility that some ska's might be a different word, perhaps
related to shkoN. To make that connection, we'd have to both lose the
nasalization and do a Siouan sound-symbolic fricative ablaut shift. 

Have you looked at -shka as a suffix? Mark may have mentioned a
distinction one of our speakers explained to us recently, that wagri is
a maggot, while wagri-shka is a bug with legs. 

Also, is there an OP cognate to B?xoje br?dhe ? I assume that should be
breze in Omaha and Ponka, but I'm not familiar with any such word. 

Cheers, 
Rory 
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From jgoodtracks at gmail.com  Wed Feb 23 16:26:36 2011
From: jgoodtracks at gmail.com (Jimm G. GoodTracks)
Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2011 10:26:36 -0600
Subject: cross-linguistic metaphors (fwd)
In-Reply-To: <AANLkTi=A+4MXbXKmajCE286LUfyPdGX_xP23GfWxUi98@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <WED.23.FEB.2011.102636.0600.>

It seems to me, that there are several tangents in motion here after the original question was prompted.  As to that original question, it seems to be one of a cultural context based on English (Anglo-American Language/ word use) and then trying to fit that onto other language and cultures.

Meanwhile, it is good that the discussion was redirected to Siouan applications.  Both Jill and Bryon have clerified the direction and discussion.  Sometimes, we get our English mindset in motion to force or squeeze out applications of Siouan words/ terms that are applied in ways unfamiliar to the English speaker.  The IOM term  ?g?n is diferent than the term "thka ~ hga" (white color) and "thkan" (opaque, clear, transparent).   The ?g?n  of IOM refers to a particular energy that may be manifested physically or in non-material/ organic format.  Perhaps one could even say in a spiritual format.   In Lakota, I have seen a discussion at length of the term, but I am on the road and have to way to explore my resources nor check my new consortium Lakota Dictionary.  Someone else can do that, as well as get someone well versed in Lakota terms.

For IOM, taken from my revised dictionary files, I have the following concrete offering:   

?g?n; sk?n  n/v.i.  (to be) diligent, active.  [L/D.?gan].  **SEE: active.   ?g?nwexa  adj/v.i.  hard; diligent, diligently; active, actively.   ?g?nw?xa wa^?n  v.i.  work hard.   ?g?nw?xa ke,  Uxr? wa^?n ru?d?n g?nana,  He worked hard to get done early.   w?sgan  n.  tradition; custom; habit; talent (FM).



From: Bryan James Gordon 
Sent: Wednesday, February 23, 2011 12:34 AM
To: siouan at lists.Colorado.EDU 
Subject: Re: cross-linguistic metaphors (fwd)


Wow this is an engaging thread! I miss when we had more of these. 


Hi Jill, how are you? I think, unfortunately, a native speaker could only help us to reject, not to confirm, the hypothesis, because of course you're right, if she or he did confirm that it's the colour term ska being used, we would not be able to rule out English influence. Universal metaphors have attracted some research lately in cognitive science, where they go under names like spreading activation and stereotypic processing. For a while this very question of whiteness/clearness-as-good/skillful/safe, darkness-as-bad, was getting referenced in cog-sci colloquia every other week. Ugh. There are some metaphors that have indeed proved robust cross-culturally in labs (inasmuch as labs can be cross-cultural!) - things that are generic like horoscopes - things like high-pitch-as-piercing/whining/uppity. I'm guessing most universal metaphors are this trivial or more so. The only truly inescapable metaphor is the linguistic expression as a metaphor for its referent.


One thing that makes me skeptical of the clarity-metaphor's necessity is that many languages, including Umo?ho? and Baxoje, have a word for "clear" that is not ska, but rather the other common Siouan word for white, s?? [s?] (U) / th?? [??] (B).


But the arguments Bob, Rory and others have made in favour of the metaphor are also quite compelling.


It's hard to decide.


2011/2/22 Rory M Larson <rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu>

  I'm open to the possibility that some ska's might be a different word, perhaps related to shkoN.  To make that connection, we'd have to both lose the nasalization and do a Siouan sound-symbolic fricative ablaut shift.
How distinctive is nasality on unstressed final low vowels anyway? Think about gth?bo? "ten", which only a few people pronounce that way anymore: it has become gth?ba for many others. The sound-symbolic fricative ablaut is a nifty proposal. A connection to -shka would be interesting. I'd given it some thought, but nothing obvious really sticks out. Of course in Baxoje forms like shga~sga~thga~xga~hga often vary sociolinguistically or stylistically (i.e. some of them are "old" forms, others are "Jiwere" forms, etc.), so maybe this has something to do with how Baxoje uses non-cognates to express the same meaning.


In the dictionary Jimm gives Lak?ota bl?za "sane", Dakhota md?za "clear", Hoc?k p?res "clear, sane, intelligent" as cognates of br?dhe. I suspect a connection also with gr?dhe "many-coloured". Interestingly, r?dhe is "tongue". Umo?ho? gth?ze is "spotted/rippled", maybe they don't say bth?ze because they say wazh??ska instead, maybe one of the speakers has heard a word like bth?ze before?

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From greer-j at MSSU.EDU  Wed Feb 23 16:25:46 2011
From: greer-j at MSSU.EDU (Jill Greer)
Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2011 10:25:46 -0600
Subject: cross-linguistic metaphors (fwd)
Message-ID: <WED.23.FEB.2011.102546.0600.>

Thanks, Brian - I'm fine, and you are well versed in diverse fields, as
always! We could go even further than the cog-sci folks, and posit that
there is a universal human fear of the dark from when dangers and demons
went bump in the night, and a universal gravitation toward (sun)light,
for life itself, excluding those nocturnal critters, of course :) ! 


>>> Bryan James Gordon 02/23/11 12:35 AM >>>
Wow this is an engaging thread! I miss when we had more of these. 
Hi Jill, how are you? I think, unfortunately, a native speaker could
only help us to reject, not to confirm, the hypothesis, because of
course you're right, if she or he did confirm that it's the colour term
ska being used, we would not be able to rule out English influence.
Universal metaphors have attracted some research lately in cognitive
science, where they go under names like spreading activation and
stereotypic processing. For a while this very question of
whiteness/clearness-as-good/skillful/safe, darkness-as-bad, was getting
referenced in cog-sci colloquia every other week. Ugh. There are some
metaphors that have indeed proved robust cross-culturally in labs
(inasmuch as labs can be cross-cultural!) - things that are generic like
horoscopes - things like high-pitch-as-piercing/whining/uppity. I'm
guessing most universal metaphors are this trivial or more so. The only
truly inescapable metaphor is the linguistic expression as a metaphor
for its referent.

One thing that makes me skeptical of the clarity-metaphor's necessity is
that many languages, including Umo?ho? and Baxoje, have a word for
"clear" that is not ska, but rather the other common Siouan word for
white, s?? [s?] (U) / th?? [??] (B).

But the arguments Bob, Rory and others have made in favour of the
metaphor are also quite compelling.

It's hard to decide.

2011/2/22 Rory M Larson <rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu>
I'm open to the possibility that some ska's might be a different word,
perhaps related to shkoN. To make that connection, we'd have to both
lose the nasalization and do a Siouan sound-symbolic fricative ablaut
shift.
How distinctive is nasality on unstressed final low vowels anyway? Think
about gth?bo? "ten", which only a few people pronounce that way anymore:
it has become gth?ba for many others. The sound-symbolic fricative
ablaut is a nifty proposal. A connection to -shka would be interesting.
I'd given it some thought, but nothing obvious really sticks out. Of
course in Baxoje forms like shga~sga~thga~xga~hga often vary
sociolinguistically or stylistically (i.e. some of them are "old" forms,
others are "Jiwere" forms, etc.), so maybe this has something to do with
how Baxoje uses non-cognates to express the same meaning.

In the dictionary Jimm gives Lak?ota bl?za "sane", Dakhota md?za
"clear", Hoc?k p?res "clear, sane, intelligent" as cognates of br?dhe. I
suspect a connection also with gr?dhe "many-coloured". Interestingly,
r?dhe is "tongue". Umo?ho? gth?ze is "spotted/rippled", maybe they
don't say bth?ze because they say wazh??ska instead, maybe one of the
speakers has heard a word like bth?ze before?
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From jgoodtracks at gmail.com  Wed Feb 23 16:35:01 2011
From: jgoodtracks at gmail.com (Jimm G. GoodTracks)
Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2011 10:35:01 -0600
Subject: Fw: [TalkIndianOK] Happy International Mother Language Day
Message-ID: <WED.23.FEB.2011.103501.0600.>




From: Alice Anderton 
Sent: Tuesday, February 22, 2011 1:40 PM
To: talkindianok at yahoogroups.com 
Subject: [TalkIndianOK] Happy International Mother Language Day


  

Happy International Mother Language Day to all!

The date was actually this weekend, but I guess this can be IML Week, as it was so declared by Gov. Henry in Oklahoma in 2008.

This date was picked by UNESCO, because folks died for their language on that date (see below).  What have you done for your language lately?

I encourage you all in your efforts! 




Alice

============

International Mother Language Day has been observed every year since February 2000 to promote linguistic and cultural diversity and multilingualism. The date represents the day in 1952 when students demonstrating for recognition of their language, Bangla, as one of the two national languages of the then Pakistan, were shot and killed by police in Dhaka, the capital of what is now Bangladesh.

Languages are the most powerful instruments of preserving and developing our tangible and intangible heritage. All moves to promote the dissemination of mother tongues will serve not only to encourage linguistic diversity and multilingual education but also to develop fuller awareness of linguistic and cultural traditions throughout the world and to inspire solidarity based on understanding, tolerance and dialogue




Source:  www.un.org/en/events/motherlanguageday/

 
Alice Anderton, Executive Director
Intertribal Wordpath Society
1506 Barkley St., Norman, OK 73071
www.ahalenia.com/iws
(405) 447-6103
Join our listserve: TalkIndianOK-subscribe at yahoogroups.com
Oppose "English Only" laws! 



__._,_.___
Reply to sender | Reply to group | Reply via web post | Start a New Topic 
Messages in this topic (1) 
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From rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu  Wed Feb 23 16:59:46 2011
From: rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu (Rory M Larson)
Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2011 10:59:46 -0600
Subject: cross-linguistic metaphors (fwd)
In-Reply-To: <AANLkTi=A+4MXbXKmajCE286LUfyPdGX_xP23GfWxUi98@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <WED.23.FEB.2011.105946.0600.>

Bryan wrote:
How distinctive is nasality on unstressed final low vowels anyway? Think 
about gth?bo? "ten", which only a few people pronounce that way anymore: 
it has become gth?ba for many others.

I agree, at least for the modern epoch.  I believe Dorsey used shinudaN 
for 'dog', but I have been corrected by more than one modern speaker when 
I tried to pronounce it that way.  When I was working with recordings in 
Audacity, I noticed that nasality in longish, stressed syllables at least 
was actually segmented toward the end, rather than being a part of the 
whole vowel.  So the first part of a "nasal" vowel is often actually oral, 
and followed by a generic nasal sound almost as a separate mora.  When I 
realized that, I happily accepted the orthographic raised n instead of 
using the underhook.  I think the reason we lose nasality so easily on 
those unstressed final vowels is that that last nasal segment is simply 
truncated.


One thing that makes me skeptical of the clarity-metaphor's necessity is 
that many languages, including Umo?ho? and Baxoje, have a word for "clear" 
that is not ska, but rather the other common Siouan word for white, s?? 
[s?] (U) / th?? [??] (B).


That's interesting.  Can you offer some examples?


In the dictionary Jimm gives Lak?ota bl?za "sane", Dakhota md?za "clear", 
Hoc?k p?res "clear, sane, intelligent" as cognates of br?dhe. I suspect a 
connection also with gr?dhe "many-coloured". Interestingly, r?dhe is 
"tongue". Umo?ho? gth?ze is "spotted/rippled", maybe they don't say bth?ze 
because they say wazh??ska instead, maybe one of the speakers has heard a 
word like bth?ze before?

Good idea!  I'm working with one this semester to brush up the 
Stabler-Swetland dictionary.  I'll try to remember to ask her.

Rory

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From rankin at ku.edu  Wed Feb 23 17:54:11 2011
From: rankin at ku.edu (Rankin, Robert L)
Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2011 17:54:11 +0000
Subject: cross-linguistic metaphors (fwd)
In-Reply-To: <AANLkTi=A+4MXbXKmajCE286LUfyPdGX_xP23GfWxUi98@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <WED.23.FEB.2011.175411.0000.>

What I find interesting is the fact that, after centuries of interactions with Germans and lots of bilingualism, this metaphor hasn't penetrated Czech.  I'd have expected it to be more or less pan-European.

Bob


________________________________
From: owner-siouan at lists.Colorado.EDU [owner-siouan at lists.Colorado.EDU] on behalf of Bryan James Gordon [linguista at gmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, February 23, 2011 12:34 AM
To: siouan at lists.Colorado.EDU
Subject: Re: cross-linguistic metaphors (fwd)

Wow this is an engaging thread! I miss when we had more of these.

Hi Jill, how are you? I think, unfortunately, a native speaker could only help us to reject, not to confirm, the hypothesis, because of course you're right, if she or he did confirm that it's the colour term ska being used, we would not be able to rule out English influence. Universal metaphors have attracted some research lately in cognitive science, where they go under names like spreading activation and stereotypic processing. For a while this very question of whiteness/clearness-as-good/skillful/safe, darkness-as-bad, was getting referenced in cog-sci colloquia every other week. Ugh. There are some metaphors that have indeed proved robust cross-culturally in labs (inasmuch as labs can be cross-cultural!) - things that are generic like horoscopes - things like high-pitch-as-piercing/whining/uppity. I'm guessing most universal metaphors are this trivial or more so. The only truly inescapable metaphor is the linguistic expression as a metaphor for its referent.

One thing that makes me skeptical of the clarity-metaphor's necessity is that many languages, including Umo?ho? and Baxoje, have a word for "clear" that is not ska, but rather the other common Siouan word for white, s?? [s?] (U) / th?? [??] (B).

But the arguments Bob, Rory and others have made in favour of the metaphor are also quite compelling.

It's hard to decide.

2011/2/22 Rory M Larson <rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu<mailto:rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu>>
I'm open to the possibility that some ska's might be a different word, perhaps related to shkoN.  To make that connection, we'd have to both lose the nasalization and do a Siouan sound-symbolic fricative ablaut shift.
How distinctive is nasality on unstressed final low vowels anyway? Think about gth?bo? "ten", which only a few people pronounce that way anymore: it has become gth?ba for many others. The sound-symbolic fricative ablaut is a nifty proposal. A connection to -shka would be interesting. I'd given it some thought, but nothing obvious really sticks out. Of course in Baxoje forms like shga~sga~thga~xga~hga often vary sociolinguistically or stylistically (i.e. some of them are "old" forms, others are "Jiwere" forms, etc.), so maybe this has something to do with how Baxoje uses non-cognates to express the same meaning.

In the dictionary Jimm gives Lak?ota bl?za "sane", Dakhota md?za "clear", Hoc?k p?res "clear, sane, intelligent" as cognates of br?dhe. I suspect a connection also with gr?dhe "many-coloured". Interestingly, r?dhe is "tongue". Umo?ho? gth?ze is "spotted/rippled", maybe they don't say bth?ze because they say wazh??ska instead, maybe one of the speakers has heard a word like bth?ze before?


From David.Rood at Colorado.EDU  Thu Feb 24 04:00:11 2011
From: David.Rood at Colorado.EDU (ROOD DAVID S)
Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2011 21:00:11 -0700
Subject: cross-linguistic metaphors (fwd)
In-Reply-To: <BAA8BAFBD1D945828CBE5D3D66257FD9@JGLaptop>
Message-ID: <WED.23.FEB.2011.210011.0700.>



Jimm, let's be very cautious about linguistic details here.  At least in 
Lakota, and I assume for the other languages as well, ska 'white' is a 
very different word from s^kaN.  The former is used in e.g. the name 
for the Rocky Mountains, literally 'white mountains'.  Jill's 
suggestion of 'reflective' might work here.

The latter is used for a great many spiritual concepts.  It's usually 
glossed "moving", but it refers to the movement of spirits or mysterious 
beings, or the rustling of weeds and bushes in the wind (especially if 
it's dark), and is loaded with religious connotations.  It is not at all 
the same as 'white'.  S^kaN can have mundane uses, too.  A clock is 
"mazas^kaNs^kaN" 'moving metal', with reference to the pendulum of a 19th 
century clock.  Your glosses of 'diligent, active' etc. belong with this 
word, not the 'white' word.

David

David S. Rood
Dept. of Linguistics
Univ. of Colorado
295 UCB
Boulder, CO 80309-0295
USA
rood at colorado.edu

On Wed, 23 Feb 2011, Jimm G. GoodTracks wrote:

> It seems to me, that there are several tangents in motion here after the original question was prompted.  As to that original question, it seems to be one of a cultural context based on English (Anglo-American Language/ word use) and then trying to fit that onto other language and cultures.
>
> Meanwhile, it is good that the discussion was redirected to Siouan applications.  Both Jill and Bryon have clerified the direction and discussion.  Sometimes, we get our English mindset in motion to force or squeeze out applications of Siouan words/ terms that are applied in ways unfamiliar to the English speaker.  The IOM term  ??g??n is diferent than the term "thka ~ hga" (white color) and "thkan" (opaque, clear, transparent).   The ??g??n  of IOM refers to a particular energy that may be manifested physically or in non-material/ organic format.  Perhaps one could even say in a spiritual format.   In Lakota, I have seen a discussion at length of the term, but I am on the road and have to way to explore my resources nor check my new consortium Lakota Dictionary.  Someone else can do that, as well as get someone well versed in Lakota terms.
>
> For IOM, taken from my revised dictionary files, I have the following 
> concrete offering:
>
> ??g??n; sk??n n/v.i.  (to be) diligent, active.  [L/D.??gan].  **SEE: 
> active.  ??g??nwexa adj/v.i.  hard; diligent, diligently; active, 
> actively.  ??g??nw??xa wa^??n v.i.  work hard.  ??g??nw??xa ke, Uxr?? 
> wa^??n ru??d??n g??nana, He worked hard to get done early.  w??sgan n. 
> tradition; custom; habit; talent (FM).
>
>
>
> From: Bryan James Gordon
> Sent: Wednesday, February 23, 2011 12:34 AM
> To: siouan at lists.Colorado.EDU
> Subject: Re: cross-linguistic metaphors (fwd)
>
>
> Wow this is an engaging thread! I miss when we had more of these.
>
>
> Hi Jill, how are you? I think, unfortunately, a native speaker could only help us to reject, not to confirm, the hypothesis, because of course you're right, if she or he did confirm that it's the colour term ska being used, we would not be able to rule out English influence. Universal metaphors have attracted some research lately in cognitive science, where they go under names like spreading activation and stereotypic processing. For a while this very question of whiteness/clearness-as-good/skillful/safe, darkness-as-bad, was getting referenced in cog-sci colloquia every other week. Ugh. There are some metaphors that have indeed proved robust cross-culturally in labs (inasmuch as labs can be cross-cultural!) - things that are generic like horoscopes - things like high-pitch-as-piercing/whining/uppity. I'm guessing most universal metaphors are this trivial or more so. The only truly inescapable metaphor is the linguistic expression as a metaphor for its referent.
>
>
> One thing that makes me skeptical of the clarity-metaphor's necessity is that many languages, including Umo???ho??? and Baxoje, have a word for "clear" that is not ska, but rather the other common Siouan word for white, s????? [s??] (U) / th????? [????] (B).
>
>
> But the arguments Bob, Rory and others have made in favour of the metaphor are also quite compelling.
>
>
> It's hard to decide.
>
>
> 2011/2/22 Rory M Larson <rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu>
>
>  I'm open to the possibility that some ska's might be a different word, perhaps related to shkoN.  To make that connection, we'd have to both lose the nasalization and do a Siouan sound-symbolic fricative ablaut shift.
> How distinctive is nasality on unstressed final low vowels anyway? Think about gth??bo??? "ten", which only a few people pronounce that way anymore: it has become gth??ba for many others. The sound-symbolic fricative ablaut is a nifty proposal. A connection to -shka would be interesting. I'd given it some thought, but nothing obvious really sticks out. Of course in Baxoje forms like shga~sga~thga~xga~hga often vary sociolinguistically or stylistically (i.e. some of them are "old" forms, others are "Jiwere" forms, etc.), so maybe this has something to do with how Baxoje uses non-cognates to express the same meaning.
>
>
> In the dictionary Jimm gives Lak??ota bl??za "sane", Dakhota md??za "clear", Hoc??k p??res "clear, sane, intelligent" as cognates of br??dhe. I suspect a connection also with gr??dhe "many-coloured". Interestingly, r??dhe is "tongue". Umo???ho??? gth??ze is "spotted/rippled", maybe they don't say bth??ze because they say wazh?????ska instead, maybe one of the speakers has heard a word like bth??ze before?
>
>

From linguista at gmail.com  Thu Feb 24 04:08:55 2011
From: linguista at gmail.com (Bryan James Gordon)
Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2011 21:08:55 -0700
Subject: cross-linguistic metaphors (fwd)
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.4.64.1102231905410.5898@spot.colorado.edu>
Message-ID: <WED.23.FEB.2011.210855.0700.>

I believe Jimm meant to say the same thing as David - that IOM shga? is not
the same as hga/thga/shga "white". The confusion is probably my fault,
because one of the things I wondered about in writing was whether the -ska
"metaphors" in Umo?ho? might be a reduced form of shko? instead of actual
colour words. I think our consensus is still in favour of analysing it as a
colour word, not related to shko?. And even if it's not the same as the
colour word that still doesn't mean it's related to shko?. That is only a
very remote possibility in a very uncertain puzzle.

2011/2/23 ROOD DAVID S <David.Rood at colorado.edu>

>
>
> Jimm, let's be very cautious about linguistic details here.  At least in
> Lakota, and I assume for the other languages as well, ska 'white' is a very
> different word from s^kaN.  The former is used in e.g. the name for the
> Rocky Mountains, literally 'white mountains'.  Jill's suggestion of
> 'reflective' might work here.
>
> The latter is used for a great many spiritual concepts.  It's usually
> glossed "moving", but it refers to the movement of spirits or mysterious
> beings, or the rustling of weeds and bushes in the wind (especially if it's
> dark), and is loaded with religious connotations.  It is not at all the same
> as 'white'.  S^kaN can have mundane uses, too.  A clock is "mazas^kaNs^kaN"
> 'moving metal', with reference to the pendulum of a 19th century clock.
>  Your glosses of 'diligent, active' etc. belong with this word, not the
> 'white' word.
>
>
> David
>
> David S. Rood
> Dept. of Linguistics
> Univ. of Colorado
> 295 UCB
> Boulder, CO 80309-0295
> USA
> rood at colorado.edu
>
> On Wed, 23 Feb 2011, Jimm G. GoodTracks wrote:
>
>  It seems to me, that there are several tangents in motion here after the
>> original question was prompted.  As to that original question, it seems to
>> be one of a cultural context based on English (Anglo-American Language/ word
>> use) and then trying to fit that onto other language and cultures.
>>
>> Meanwhile, it is good that the discussion was redirected to Siouan
>> applications.  Both Jill and Bryon have clerified the direction and
>> discussion.  Sometimes, we get our English mindset in motion to force or
>> squeeze out applications of Siouan words/ terms that are applied in ways
>> unfamiliar to the English speaker.  The IOM term  ?g?n is diferent than the
>> term "thka ~ hga" (white color) and "thkan" (opaque, clear, transparent).
>> The ?g?n  of IOM refers to a particular energy that may be manifested
>> physically or in non-material/ organic format.  Perhaps one could even say
>> in a spiritual format.   In Lakota, I have seen a discussion at length of
>> the term, but I am on the road and have to way to explore my resources nor
>> check my new consortium Lakota Dictionary.  Someone else can do that, as
>> well as get someone well versed in Lakota terms.
>>
>> For IOM, taken from my revised dictionary files, I have the following
>> concrete offering:
>>
>> ?g?n; sk?n n/v.i.  (to be) diligent, active.  [L/D.?gan].  **SEE: active.
>>  ?g?nwexa adj/v.i.  hard; diligent, diligently; active, actively.  ?g?nw?xa
>> wa^?n v.i.  work hard.  ?g?nw?xa ke, Uxr? wa^?n ru?d?n g?nana, He worked
>> hard to get done early.  w?sgan n. tradition; custom; habit; talent (FM).
>>
>>
>>
>> From: Bryan James Gordon
>> Sent: Wednesday, February 23, 2011 12:34 AM
>> To: siouan at lists.Colorado.EDU
>> Subject: Re: cross-linguistic metaphors (fwd)
>>
>>
>> Wow this is an engaging thread! I miss when we had more of these.
>>
>>
>> Hi Jill, how are you? I think, unfortunately, a native speaker could only
>> help us to reject, not to confirm, the hypothesis, because of course you're
>> right, if she or he did confirm that it's the colour term ska being used, we
>> would not be able to rule out English influence. Universal metaphors have
>> attracted some research lately in cognitive science, where they go under
>> names like spreading activation and stereotypic processing. For a while this
>> very question of whiteness/clearness-as-good/skillful/safe, darkness-as-bad,
>> was getting referenced in cog-sci colloquia every other week. Ugh. There are
>> some metaphors that have indeed proved robust cross-culturally in labs
>> (inasmuch as labs can be cross-cultural!) - things that are generic like
>> horoscopes - things like high-pitch-as-piercing/whining/uppity. I'm guessing
>> most universal metaphors are this trivial or more so. The only truly
>> inescapable metaphor is the linguistic expression as a metaphor for its
>> referent.
>>
>>
>> One thing that makes me skeptical of the clarity-metaphor's necessity is
>> that many languages, including Umo?ho? and Baxoje, have a word for "clear"
>> that is not ska, but rather the other common Siouan word for white, s?? [s?]
>> (U) / th?? [??] (B).
>>
>>
>> But the arguments Bob, Rory and others have made in favour of the metaphor
>> are also quite compelling.
>>
>>
>> It's hard to decide.
>>
>>
>> 2011/2/22 Rory M Larson <rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu>
>>
>>  I'm open to the possibility that some ska's might be a different word,
>> perhaps related to shkoN.  To make that connection, we'd have to both lose
>> the nasalization and do a Siouan sound-symbolic fricative ablaut shift.
>> How distinctive is nasality on unstressed final low vowels anyway? Think
>> about gth?bo? "ten", which only a few people pronounce that way anymore: it
>> has become gth?ba for many others. The sound-symbolic fricative ablaut is a
>> nifty proposal. A connection to -shka would be interesting. I'd given it
>> some thought, but nothing obvious really sticks out. Of course in Baxoje
>> forms like shga~sga~thga~xga~hga often vary sociolinguistically or
>> stylistically (i.e. some of them are "old" forms, others are "Jiwere" forms,
>> etc.), so maybe this has something to do with how Baxoje uses non-cognates
>> to express the same meaning.
>>
>>
>> In the dictionary Jimm gives Lak?ota bl?za "sane", Dakhota md?za "clear",
>> Hoc?k p?res "clear, sane, intelligent" as cognates of br?dhe. I suspect a
>> connection also with gr?dhe "many-coloured". Interestingly, r?dhe is
>> "tongue". Umo?ho? gth?ze is "spotted/rippled", maybe they don't say bth?ze
>> because they say wazh??ska instead, maybe one of the speakers has heard a
>> word like bth?ze before?
>>
>>


-- 
***********************************************************
Bryan James Gordon, MA
Joint PhD Program in Linguistics and Anthropology
University of Arizona
***********************************************************
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From rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu  Thu Feb 24 05:05:40 2011
From: rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu (Rory M Larson)
Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2011 23:05:40 -0600
Subject: cross-linguistic metaphors (fwd)
In-Reply-To: <5E87B4AFA471B543884CD3128A7C8CC6019288@EXCH10-MBX-05.home.ku.edu>
Message-ID: <WED.23.FEB.2011.230540.0600.>

Bob wrote:
> What I find interesting is the fact that, after centuries
> of interactions with Germans and lots of bilingualism,
> this metaphor hasn't penetrated Czech.  I'd have expected
> it to be more or less pan-European.

Does this metaphor exist even in German?  I'm looking in an unabridged 
Collins dictionary, and I see almost nothing in there to support what 
we're looking for.  An idea can be glaenzend, which means 'shiny' or 
'lustrous', as can a success or one's prospects.  But a person is 
intelligent, klug, schlau, aufgeweckt ("woken-up"), gewitzt or gescheit. 
As far as I know, none of these indicates luminousity.  'Stupid', 
'fool(ish)' or 'dimwit' gets dumm, bloed, Narr, Tor, Schwachkopf 
("weak-head") and daemlich.  Daemlich looks like it might possibly be 
related to a set of "daemmer" words that float around the meaning of 
'dusk' or 'twilight'.  If so, it's the only German usage I see that really 
works for this metaphor.

In a (much smaller) French dictionary, I find even less support for it. 
'Intelligent', 'smart' and 'clever' get intelligent, vif ("lively"), 
eveille ("wide-awake"), habile ("able") and adroit ("right-handed"?). 
'Stupid', 'dumb' and 'fool(ish)' get stupide, sot, imbecile, fou, bouffon 
and bete ("beast").  'Dim' merely gets us sombre, indistinct and terne, 
which seem to have no reference to intelligence.  Both dictionaries 
recognize the metaphorical English use of "bright" and offer "intelligent" 
as a translation, but no native luminousity metaphor for the same idea.

I took a quick look at some Oxford English Dictionary entries for 
"bright", "brilliant", "dim" and "dim-wit".  It looks to me like the 
metaphor developed in two stages in English.  In the early 18th century, 
philosophers were using such luminousity terms as metaphors for 
"enlightenment" and understanding.  "Dim" as a metaphor for poor vision 
goes back to the 16th century and probably played a supporting role in the 
inability-to-see/understand metaphor.  "Bright" and "dim" as terms for 
native intelligence seem to have developed in the 19th century as a 
humorous colloquialization of the enlightenment metaphor.  The term 
"dim-wit" seems to have appeared first in the 1920s.  Prior to the 18th 
century, "bright" was used metaphorically on people to say that they were 
beautiful, fair and comely; "brilliant" meant that they were 
distinguished, elegant and high-class.

Equation of intelligence to luminousity does not seem to be a universal 
metaphor at all, or even pan-European.  As far as I can tell, it is a 
peculiar development in English that took place in the last three hundred 
years.

Rory
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From rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu  Thu Feb 24 05:49:29 2011
From: rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu (Rory M Larson)
Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2011 23:49:29 -0600
Subject: cross-linguistic metaphors (fwd)
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.4.64.1102231905410.5898@spot.colorado.edu>
Message-ID: <WED.23.FEB.2011.234929.0600.>

David wrote:
> Jimm, let's be very cautious about linguistic details here.  At least in 

> Lakota, and I assume for the other languages as well, ska 'white' is a 
> very different word from s^kaN.  ...

As Bryan indicated, he and I are responsible for the confusion here, and 
Jimm was cautioning us in the same vein as David.  I think we are all 
agreed that ska 'white' and s^kaN 'movement' are very different words. 
Bryan and I were discussing the question of whether what seems to be -ska 
in some less well-understood compounds could in fact be a misunderstanding 
of some other morpheme, possibly related to s^kaN.

Part of the confusion may be due to our lazy habit of including the entire 
preceding conversation in our replies.  In this thread, I've seen a 
paragraph I wrote commented on by Bryan, whose message was then replied to 
by another poster whose system removed Bryan's formatting and made my 
paragraph that he was replying to appear to be a part of his message, 
which then agglutinated with many more.  When John Koontz was active, he 
used to scold us frequently for this practice.  It uses up server space 
unnecessarily, and it puts the same text into the Siouan Archives again 
and again and again for word searches to pull up equally many times.  In 
posting, we should all try to pull out only the quotes we are actually 
replying to, and remove the rest.  (I sometimes forget to do this too.)

Cheers,
Rory
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From wipamankere at hotmail.com  Thu Feb 24 08:51:55 2011
From: wipamankere at hotmail.com (Iren Hartmann)
Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2011 02:51:55 -0600
Subject: cross-linguistic metaphors (fwd)
In-Reply-To: <OFD769EA5D.300BC58B-ON86257841.0009F19D-86257841.001BFC08@unl.edu>
Message-ID: <THU.24.FEB.2011.025155.0600.>


Hi Rory,

just a very quick answer to your questions bout German:

Does this metaphor exist even in German?  I'm
looking in an unabridged Collins dictionary, and I see almost nothing in
there to support what we're looking for.  An idea can be glaenzend,
which means 'shiny' or 'lustrous', as can a success or one's prospects.
 But a person is intelligent, klug, schlau, aufgeweckt ("woken-up"),
gewitzt or gescheit.  As far as I know, none of these indicates luminousity. 


This is true, but there is a (maybe nowadays somewhat more old-fashioned(?)) use of hell(e) 'bright' in the sense of smart/intelligent/clever. You can call someone "ein helles Koepfchen" (lit. a bright head) meaning that person is smart, or you can say Der ist nicht so ganz helle ('He isn't quite so smart'), I guess it gets mostly used in negated sentences, though I've heard people say thigs like Der ist ziemlich helle ('He's quite smart'). I cannot, however, think of any metaphoric use of a word meaning 'dim/dark' and also something like dim-witted.

All the best,
Iren


 		 	   		  
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From rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu  Thu Feb 24 15:22:20 2011
From: rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu (Rory M Larson)
Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2011 09:22:20 -0600
Subject: cross-linguistic metaphors (fwd)
In-Reply-To: <BAY132-W6AB838391CD17734257CFBBDA0@phx.gbl>
Message-ID: <THU.24.FEB.2011.092220.0600.>

Hi Iren,

> This is true, but there is a (maybe nowadays somewhat more 
old-fashioned(?)) use of hell(e) 'bright' in the sense of 
smart/intelligent/clever. You can call someone "ein helles Koepfchen" 
(lit. a bright head) meaning that person is smart, or you can say Der ist 
nicht so ganz helle ('He isn't quite so smart'), I guess it gets mostly 
used in negated sentences, though I've heard people say thigs like Der ist 
ziemlich helle ('He's quite smart'). I cannot, however, think of any 
metaphoric use of a word meaning 'dim/dark' and also something like 
dim-witted.

I think that one (hell) fully qualifies.  It's definitely a word meaning 
'bright' or 'luminous', and metaphorically 'intelligent'.

I wonder what its history is.  You describe its metaphorical use as 
possibly old-fashioned.  Would it be used that way prior to about the 18th 
or 19th century?

I'd also like to mention another German word that was shared with me 
privately by Dr. Marlene Hilzensauer.  "Unterbelichtet", literally 
"under-lighted", has the primary photographic meaning of 'underexposed', 
but is used metaphorically and humorously on a person to mean that they 
are a bit dim.

Best,
Rory
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From rankin at ku.edu  Thu Feb 24 16:53:23 2011
From: rankin at ku.edu (rankin at ku.edu)
Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2011 16:53:23 +0000
Subject: cross-linguistic metaphors (fwd)
In-Reply-To: <AANLkTimaa+n6f5hSx2tLe3Pjmuua0c+QDTd64xQ+8ssa@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <THU.24.FEB.2011.165323.0000.>

In Kaw when aN denasalizes it becomes o rather than a.

Bob
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

-----Original Message-----
From: Bryan James Gordon <linguista at gmail.com>
Sender: <owner-siouan at lists.Colorado.EDU>
Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2011 21:08:55 
To: <siouan at lists.Colorado.EDU>
Reply-To: <siouan at lists.Colorado.EDU>
Subject: Re: cross-linguistic metaphors (fwd)

I believe Jimm meant to say the same thing as David - that IOM shga? is not
the same as hga/thga/shga "white". The confusion is probably my fault,
because one of the things I wondered about in writing was whether the -ska
"metaphors" in Umo?ho? might be a reduced form of shko? instead of actual
colour words. I think our consensus is still in favour of analysing it as a
colour word, not related to shko?. And even if it's not the same as the
colour word that still doesn't mean it's related to shko?. That is only a
very remote possibility in a very uncertain puzzle.

2011/2/23 ROOD DAVID S <David.Rood at colorado.edu>

>
>
> Jimm, let's be very cautious about linguistic details here.  At least in
> Lakota, and I assume for the other languages as well, ska 'white' is a very
> different word from s^kaN.  The former is used in e.g. the name for the
> Rocky Mountains, literally 'white mountains'.  Jill's suggestion of
> 'reflective' might work here.
>
> The latter is used for a great many spiritual concepts.  It's usually
> glossed "moving", but it refers to the movement of spirits or mysterious
> beings, or the rustling of weeds and bushes in the wind (especially if it's
> dark), and is loaded with religious connotations.  It is not at all the same
> as 'white'.  S^kaN can have mundane uses, too.  A clock is "mazas^kaNs^kaN"
> 'moving metal', with reference to the pendulum of a 19th century clock.
>  Your glosses of 'diligent, active' etc. belong with this word, not the
> 'white' word.
>
>
> David
>
> David S. Rood
> Dept. of Linguistics
> Univ. of Colorado
> 295 UCB
> Boulder, CO 80309-0295
> USA
> rood at colorado.edu
>
> On Wed, 23 Feb 2011, Jimm G. GoodTracks wrote:
>
>  It seems to me, that there are several tangents in motion here after the
>> original question was prompted.  As to that original question, it seems to
>> be one of a cultural context based on English (Anglo-American Language/ word
>> use) and then trying to fit that onto other language and cultures.
>>
>> Meanwhile, it is good that the discussion was redirected to Siouan
>> applications.  Both Jill and Bryon have clerified the direction and
>> discussion.  Sometimes, we get our English mindset in motion to force or
>> squeeze out applications of Siouan words/ terms that are applied in ways
>> unfamiliar to the English speaker.  The IOM term  ?g?n is diferent than the
>> term "thka ~ hga" (white color) and "thkan" (opaque, clear, transparent).
>> The ?g?n  of IOM refers to a particular energy that may be manifested
>> physically or in non-material/ organic format.  Perhaps one could even say
>> in a spiritual format.   In Lakota, I have seen a discussion at length of
>> the term, but I am on the road and have to way to explore my resources nor
>> check my new consortium Lakota Dictionary.  Someone else can do that, as
>> well as get someone well versed in Lakota terms.
>>
>> For IOM, taken from my revised dictionary files, I have the following
>> concrete offering:
>>
>> ?g?n; sk?n n/v.i.  (to be) diligent, active.  [L/D.?gan].  **SEE: active.
>>  ?g?nwexa adj/v.i.  hard; diligent, diligently; active, actively.  ?g?nw?xa
>> wa^?n v.i.  work hard.  ?g?nw?xa ke, Uxr? wa^?n ru?d?n g?nana, He worked
>> hard to get done early.  w?sgan n. tradition; custom; habit; talent (FM).
>>
>>
>>
>> From: Bryan James Gordon
>> Sent: Wednesday, February 23, 2011 12:34 AM
>> To: siouan at lists.Colorado.EDU
>> Subject: Re: cross-linguistic metaphors (fwd)
>>
>>
>> Wow this is an engaging thread! I miss when we had more of these.
>>
>>
>> Hi Jill, how are you? I think, unfortunately, a native speaker could only
>> help us to reject, not to confirm, the hypothesis, because of course you're
>> right, if she or he did confirm that it's the colour term ska being used, we
>> would not be able to rule out English influence. Universal metaphors have
>> attracted some research lately in cognitive science, where they go under
>> names like spreading activation and stereotypic processing. For a while this
>> very question of whiteness/clearness-as-good/skillful/safe, darkness-as-bad,
>> was getting referenced in cog-sci colloquia every other week. Ugh. There are
>> some metaphors that have indeed proved robust cross-culturally in labs
>> (inasmuch as labs can be cross-cultural!) - things that are generic like
>> horoscopes - things like high-pitch-as-piercing/whining/uppity. I'm guessing
>> most universal metaphors are this trivial or more so. The only truly
>> inescapable metaphor is the linguistic expression as a metaphor for its
>> referent.
>>
>>
>> One thing that makes me skeptical of the clarity-metaphor's necessity is
>> that many languages, including Umo?ho? and Baxoje, have a word for "clear"
>> that is not ska, but rather the other common Siouan word for white, s?? [s?]
>> (U) / th?? [??] (B).
>>
>>
>> But the arguments Bob, Rory and others have made in favour of the metaphor
>> are also quite compelling.
>>
>>
>> It's hard to decide.
>>
>>
>> 2011/2/22 Rory M Larson <rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu>
>>
>>  I'm open to the possibility that some ska's might be a different word,
>> perhaps related to shkoN.  To make that connection, we'd have to both lose
>> the nasalization and do a Siouan sound-symbolic fricative ablaut shift.
>> How distinctive is nasality on unstressed final low vowels anyway? Think
>> about gth?bo? "ten", which only a few people pronounce that way anymore: it
>> has become gth?ba for many others. The sound-symbolic fricative ablaut is a
>> nifty proposal. A connection to -shka would be interesting. I'd given it
>> some thought, but nothing obvious really sticks out. Of course in Baxoje
>> forms like shga~sga~thga~xga~hga often vary sociolinguistically or
>> stylistically (i.e. some of them are "old" forms, others are "Jiwere" forms,
>> etc.), so maybe this has something to do with how Baxoje uses non-cognates
>> to express the same meaning.
>>
>>
>> In the dictionary Jimm gives Lak?ota bl?za "sane", Dakhota md?za "clear",
>> Hoc?k p?res "clear, sane, intelligent" as cognates of br?dhe. I suspect a
>> connection also with gr?dhe "many-coloured". Interestingly, r?dhe is
>> "tongue". Umo?ho? gth?ze is "spotted/rippled", maybe they don't say bth?ze
>> because they say wazh??ska instead, maybe one of the speakers has heard a
>> word like bth?ze before?
>>
>>


-- 
***********************************************************
Bryan James Gordon, MA
Joint PhD Program in Linguistics and Anthropology
University of Arizona
***********************************************************

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From David.Rood at Colorado.EDU  Thu Feb 24 17:24:26 2011
From: David.Rood at Colorado.EDU (ROOD DAVID S)
Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2011 10:24:26 -0700
Subject: cross-linguistic metaphors (fwd)
In-Reply-To: <OFDA2499E1.410A3661-ON86257841.001C9977-86257841.001FFF1E@unl.edu>
Message-ID: <THU.24.FEB.2011.102426.0700.>

Jimm, Rory, Bryan --
 	My apologies for reading Jimm's comments too quickly and 
carelessly -- and thanks to Rory and Bryan for stepping in to correct 
that.  I have a very quick knee-jerk reaction to people who try to equate 
the wrong things in linguistics, based on many years of experience.  That 
was clearly not the appropriate reaction this time.

 	Best,
 	David


David S. Rood
Dept. of Linguistics
Univ. of Colorado
295 UCB
Boulder, CO 80309-0295
USA
rood at colorado.edu

On Wed, 23 Feb 2011, Rory M Larson wrote:

> David wrote:

>> Jimm, let's be very cautious about linguistic details here.  At least in
>
>
> As Bryan indicated, he and I are responsible for the confusion here, and
> Jimm was cautioning us in the same vein as David.  I think we are all
> agreed that ska 'white' and s^kaN 'movement' are very different words.
> Bryan and I were discussing the question of whether what seems to be -ska
> in some less well-understood compounds could in fact be a misunderstanding
> of some other morpheme, possibly related to s^kaN.


From ti at fa-kuan.muc.de  Thu Feb 24 17:35:26 2011
From: ti at fa-kuan.muc.de (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?=22Alfred_W._T=FCting=22?=)
Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2011 18:35:26 +0100
Subject: cross-linguistic metaphors (fwd)
In-Reply-To: <OFD769EA5D.300BC58B-ON86257841.0009F19D-86257841.001BFC08@unl.edu>
Message-ID: <THU.24.FEB.2011.183526.0100.>

In principle I share Rory's view.

As for the German language, I only come up with expressions like "er  
ist ein heller Kopf/helles K?pfchen", about: he's a light (i.e.  
bright) head/little head = canny) or still more coll. "er ist hell auf  
der Platte" (panel/plate etc. maybe also ref. to head). Whereas re.  
"dim-witted" there seems to be just the negation of it: "er ist kein  
gro?es (Kirchen-)Licht" (not a big church-light).

Alfred


Am 24.02.2011 um 06:05 schrieb Rory M Larson:

> Bob wrote:
> > What I find interesting is the fact that, after centuries
> > of interactions with Germans and lots of bilingualism,
> > this metaphor hasn't penetrated Czech.  I'd have expected
> > it to be more or less pan-European.
>
> Does this metaphor exist even in German?  I'm looking in an  
> unabridged Collins dictionary, and I see almost nothing in there to  
> support what we're looking for.  An idea can be glaenzend, which  
> means 'shiny' or 'lustrous', as can a success or one's prospects.   
> But a person is intelligent, klug, schlau, aufgeweckt ("woken-up"),  
> gewitzt or gescheit.  As far as I know, none of these indicates  
> luminousity.  'Stupid', 'fool(ish)' or 'dimwit' gets dumm, bloed,  
> Narr, Tor, Schwachkopf ("weak-head") and daemlich.  Daemlich looks  
> like it might possibly be related to a set of "daemmer" words that  
> float around the meaning of 'dusk' or 'twilight'.  If so, it's the  
> only German usage I see that really works for this metaphor.
>
> In a (much smaller) French dictionary, I find even less support for  
> it.  'Intelligent', 'smart' and 'clever' get intelligent, vif  
> ("lively"), eveille ("wide-awake"), habile ("able") and adroit  
> ("right-handed"?).  'Stupid', 'dumb' and 'fool(ish)' get stupide,  
> sot, imbecile, fou, bouffon and bete ("beast").  'Dim' merely gets  
> us sombre, indistinct and terne, which seem to have no reference to  
> intelligence.  Both dictionaries recognize the metaphorical English  
> use of "bright" and offer "intelligent" as a translation, but no  
> native luminousity metaphor for the same idea.
>
> I took a quick look at some Oxford English Dictionary entries for  
> "bright", "brilliant", "dim" and "dim-wit".  It looks to me like the  
> metaphor developed in two stages in English.  In the early 18th  
> century, philosophers were using such luminousity terms as metaphors  
> for "enlightenment" and understanding.  "Dim" as a metaphor for poor  
> vision goes back to the 16th century and probably played a  
> supporting role in the inability-to-see/understand metaphor.   
> "Bright" and "dim" as terms for native intelligence seem to have  
> developed in the 19th century as a humorous colloquialization of the  
> enlightenment metaphor.  The term "dim-wit" seems to have appeared  
> first in the 1920s.  Prior to the 18th century, "bright" was used  
> metaphorically on people to say that they were beautiful, fair and  
> comely; "brilliant" meant that they were distinguished, elegant and  
> high-class.
>
> Equation of intelligence to luminousity does not seem to be a  
> universal metaphor at all, or even pan-European.  As far as I can  
> tell, it is a peculiar development in English that took place in the  
> last three hundred years.
>
> Rory

_______________

Alfred W. T?ting
ti at fa-kuan.muc.de



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From rankin at ku.edu  Thu Feb 24 19:24:15 2011
From: rankin at ku.edu (Rankin, Robert L)
Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2011 19:24:15 +0000
Subject: cross-linguistic metaphors (fwd)
In-Reply-To: <AABFD603-20D2-4493-BF03-4C8BA23B53B5@fa-kuan.muc.de>
Message-ID: <THU.24.FEB.2011.192415.0000.>

My grandmother-in-law used "dunkel" for 'dimwitted', but this may have been Milwaukee German.

Bob

________________________________
From: owner-siouan at lists.Colorado.EDU [owner-siouan at lists.Colorado.EDU] on behalf of "Alfred W. T?ting" [ti at fa-kuan.muc.de]
Sent: Thursday, February 24, 2011 11:35 AM
To: siouan at lists.Colorado.EDU
Subject: Re: cross-linguistic metaphors (fwd)

In principle I share Rory's view.

As for the German language, I only come up with expressions like "er ist ein heller Kopf/helles K?pfchen", about: he's a light (i.e. bright) head/little head = canny) or still more coll. "er ist hell auf der Platte" (panel/plate etc. maybe also ref. to head). Whereas re. "dim-witted" there seems to be just the negation of it: "er ist kein gro?es (Kirchen-)Licht" (not a big church-light).

Alfred


Am 24.02.2011 um 06:05 schrieb Rory M Larson:

Bob wrote:
> What I find interesting is the fact that, after centuries
> of interactions with Germans and lots of bilingualism,
> this metaphor hasn't penetrated Czech.  I'd have expected
> it to be more or less pan-European.

Does this metaphor exist even in German?  I'm looking in an unabridged Collins dictionary, and I see almost nothing in there to support what we're looking for.  An idea can be glaenzend, which means 'shiny' or 'lustrous', as can a success or one's prospects.  But a person is intelligent, klug, schlau, aufgeweckt ("woken-up"), gewitzt or gescheit.  As far as I know, none of these indicates luminousity.  'Stupid', 'fool(ish)' or 'dimwit' gets dumm, bloed, Narr, Tor, Schwachkopf ("weak-head") and daemlich.  Daemlich looks like it might possibly be related to a set of "daemmer" words that float around the meaning of 'dusk' or 'twilight'.  If so, it's the only German usage I see that really works for this metaphor.

In a (much smaller) French dictionary, I find even less support for it.  'Intelligent', 'smart' and 'clever' get intelligent, vif ("lively"), eveille ("wide-awake"), habile ("able") and adroit ("right-handed"?).  'Stupid', 'dumb' and 'fool(ish)' get stupide, sot, imbecile, fou, bouffon and bete ("beast").  'Dim' merely gets us sombre, indistinct and terne, which seem to have no reference to intelligence.  Both dictionaries recognize the metaphorical English use of "bright" and offer "intelligent" as a translation, but no native luminousity metaphor for the same idea.

I took a quick look at some Oxford English Dictionary entries for "bright", "brilliant", "dim" and "dim-wit".  It looks to me like the metaphor developed in two stages in English.  In the early 18th century, philosophers were using such luminousity terms as metaphors for "enlightenment" and understanding.  "Dim" as a metaphor for poor vision goes back to the 16th century and probably played a supporting role in the inability-to-see/understand metaphor.  "Bright" and "dim" as terms for native intelligence seem to have developed in the 19th century as a humorous colloquialization of the enlightenment metaphor.  The term "dim-wit" seems to have appeared first in the 1920s.  Prior to the 18th century, "bright" was used metaphorically on people to say that they were beautiful, fair and comely; "brilliant" meant that they were distinguished, elegant and high-class.

Equation of intelligence to luminousity does not seem to be a universal metaphor at all, or even pan-European.  As far as I can tell, it is a peculiar development in English that took place in the last three hundred years.

Rory

_______________

Alfred W. T?ting
ti at fa-kuan.muc.de<mailto:ti at fa-kuan.muc.de>


From dan.folkus at gmail.com  Fri Feb 25 03:14:11 2011
From: dan.folkus at gmail.com (Dan Folkus)
Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2011 22:14:11 -0500
Subject: cross-linguistic metaphors (fwd)
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.4.64.1102200811060.18490@spot.colorado.edu>
Message-ID: <THU.24.FEB.2011.221411.0500.>

My speculation is that your question may almost be answerable in
English, David. I'm wondering if the (archaic) English word for dusk,
"gloam" (twilight) http://www.myfavoriteword.com/2008/01/01/gloam/
might have a philological relationship to the word "glum?" Which is
the opposite of bright in the sense of daylight. But I'm not sure if
it also might mean the opposite of bright in the sense you mean (as in
'she said brightly,' for example, instead of 'she said glumly'). Glum
people are somewhat dull, right? So does gloam and glum come out of
the same origin? This blog at least speculates on the
word...http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2885/, saying it refers
to "persons: Sullen, frowning; having an air of dejection or
displeasure", or "Of things: Gloomy, dark; dismal". So I'm saying at
least there are these two senses of gloam, which MAY apply to your
question.

On 2/20/11, ROOD DAVID S <David.Rood at colorado.edu> wrote:
>
>
> David S. Rood
> Dept. of Linguistics
> Univ. of Colorado
> 295 UCB
> Boulder, CO 80309-0295
> USA
> rood at colorado.edu
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> Date: Sat, 19 Feb 2011 16:02:32 -0700 (MST)
> From: ROOD DAVID S <David.Rood at colorado.edu>
> To: linguistics faculty <ling-fac at lists.Colorado.EDU>
> Cc: linguistics grads <ling-grads at lists.Colorado.EDU>,
>      siounists at spot.colorado.edu
> Subject: cross-linguistic metaphors
>
>
> Dear Colleagues:
>
>  	I'm trying to tap into the biggest database I know of for knowledge of
> languages, namely all of you.  I have a query from someone who wants to know
> whether a language exists that does not equate "bright" and "dim" in the
> sense
> of light and shadow/dark with the same words used to describe intellectual
> acuity or lack thereof.  In English we can call people "bright" and
> "dim(witted)" to mean 'smart' and 'not so smart'.
>
>   Do you know of a language that lacks that equation?
>
>  	Thanks for your help.
>
> Best,
>  	David
>
>
> David S. Rood
> Dept. of Linguistics
> Univ. of Colorado
> 295 UCB
> Boulder, CO 80309-0295
> USA
> rood at colorado.edu
>