Names

[Mia Kalish]

You know, Andre, I really hate to do this. I know how important William
Bright is to the documentation of Northwest languages, but I think that this
is an incorrect interpretation of the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis. What Bright is
saying is very similar to the idea popular in the 1970s that cognitive
conceptualizations in the brain resembled the objects themselves. This still
shows up in philosophy and psychology of consciousness. However, the idea
has been debunked. Walter J. Freeman demonstrated that when creatures create
meaning, the conceptual meaning structures are unique to the individual, not
to the stimulus.  

Thus, while language and culture are closely linked, intertwined for all
time, how they EXPRESS is a function of the relationship, not of the
linguistic forms. What Whorf was saying parallels the theories that Lakoff
began to develop relating to cultural metaphors. Thirty or forty years
later, Fauconnier and Turner, and Nuñez and Lakoff have developed structures
that show these relational structures. Whorf was saying that semantic
objects are not going to spring up like mushrooms after a rain if there is
no need for them in the culture. He was also saying that language will have
references for all the things, physical and conceptual, that are needed in
the culture. Hence the discussion of snow and sweet potatoes. 

There was a lot of misunderstanding because of the Hopi-Time fiasco. Hopi
has words for Time. So does Diné Bizaad. They just show up in ways very
different from how they show up (express) in English, and so English
speakers who have no idea of the differences in internal structure miss
them. Margaret Mead said something very similar to this, except she was
talking about humor. 

Looking at anthropological aspects is a bit tawdry these days, in poor
taste, rather. How about the register of boat construction? House
construction? Tool making? Navigation? 

I am reading the hardest book I ever read. It's edited by Marijo Moore and
its called Genocide of the Mind. The hardest, hardest chapter so far is by
Dave Stephenson. He's Tlingit. He writes, "These are our memories, and we
struggle to retain them against a ferocious undertow of cruelty and
mass-marketed sophistry. Material pursuits and solitary avarice are
methodologically engendering a great forgetting. We are slowly losing our
memories and sections of our souls" (p. 96). His chapter is called,
America's Urban Youth and the Importance of Remembering. 

So I have to say, this isn't right, describing languages as being composed
of some "unanalyzable morphemes", some descriptive combinations in warning
quotes, and some other combination of both of these <presumably undesirable>
characteristics. Further, there is the really questionable premise of
"status" being constructed of "areas". Math --> social psychology. (Not).
And what does that mean, anyway, "status of native northwestern California
not as a linguistic area in a strict sense, but as an ethnolinguistic area".

Maybe we could retitle the abstract, Karuk Resonances And Pre-modernity. 

Mia


-----Original Message-----
From: Indigenous Languages and Technology [mailto:ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU]
On Behalf Of Andre Cramblit
Sent: Sunday, April 23, 2006 3:16 PM
To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU
Subject: [ILAT] Names

“ANALYZABILITY” OF NOUNS IN NORTHWESTERN CALIFORNIA
William Bright
University of Colorado
www.ncidc.org/bright/

Abstract

Three American Indian tribes of northwestern California — Yurok,  
Hupa, and Karuk — share a nearly uniform culture, but they speak  
entirely distinct and unrelated languages. This is problematic for  
the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, which sees language and culture as  
closely linked. In an earlier paper, the matter was considered in the  
light of names for animals in the three languages. It was found that  
the majority of such names in Yurok consist of unanalyzable single  
morphemes, while the majority in Hupa are “descriptive” combinations  
of several morphemes; the Karuk language lies between the two others.  
A possible explanation was proposed in the historical operation of  
verbal taboo in the usage of hunters and on the names of the  
deceased. In the present paper, the analysis is extended to plant  
terms and to “basic vocabulary”,  but problems are noted in the  
latter concept. It is suggested that the patterns presented here form  
part of the status of native northwestern California not as a  
linguistic area in a strict sense, but as an ethnolinguistic area.