[Linganth] Is "motherese" universal?

[Harriet J. Ottenheimer]

This is terrific information.  I had no idea and am glad to be brought
up to speed.  I'd learned to spin a few years ago and we were only
taught spindle and whorl techniques and then spinning wheels.  So it's
indeed possible that spinning of string could easily have existed before
spindle whorls; too bad the fibres themselves don't leave traces in the
archaeological record (or do they? perhaps as imprints in clay-ey
soils?).  --Harriet

Claire Bowern wrote:

> I'm delurking to make an aside on Harriet's comment on spinning
> technology. Spinning's possible without spindles or whorls. I've made
> string under tutelage from people in Arnhem Land (north Australia)
> from balgurr (a type of currajong I believe, with very fibrous bark
> that's split and rolled on the thigh). I've also seen it made from fig
> roots, and Bardi people (NW Australia) made fishing and harpoon lines
> from this. They also use gut or sinew. Carrying straps are also made
> from plaited hair. Woven pandanus only needs a hooked stick to get the
> centre fronds out. I think weaving technology like spindles, etc, is
> later than we're talking about, but it's not necessary.
> Claire
>
>
> Harriet J. Ottenheimer wrote:
>
>> David's arguments make sense.  My own (not-yet-ready-for-publication)
>> idea is that children actually might have had a fairly active role in
>> making the leap to duality of patterning.  I flesh it out a little
>> bit in the intro text I've just completed but it's just an intro text
>> so I don't go into great detail there.
>>
>> I've been thinking about the slings a lot. Gatherers would need to
>> have had some sort of slings anyway, as it is pretty inefficient to
>> have to carry each root or handful of berries/nuts back to camp
>> separately. A sling would make it possible to carry more than a
>> handful of stuff at a time. It would also be useful for
>> carrying/balancing a baby on one's hip or back. So what could such
>> slings have been made of? Netting or animal hide come to mind from
>> looking at contemporary gatherers. Now, as a sometime fiber artist it
>> it is clear to me that nets are made out of strings (via macrame or
>> crochet or fishnet technology or something like that) so the next
>> question has to be whether there could have been string-making
>> (spinning) technology as early as the period we are talking about. I
>> don't remember when the first spindle whorls are found but that would
>> be a good clue. So my guess is that if slings were being used that
>> early for gathering and child-carrying then they would most likely
>> have been made of animal hide.  I don't know why Falk imagines that
>> early hominins are gathering but does not allow them to have slings
>> to carry the fruits of their labor back to camp. It doesn't make
>> sense to me. Maybe I'm not being egocentric enough.
>>
>> Seriously, I do think that one of the major problems with this kind
>> of theorizing is the fact that individual scholars in the four
>> subfields of anthropology are no longer reading one anothers' work
>> much. I am not sure, and have no evidence to back it up, but it seems
>> to me that there are a great many anthros in the other three
>> subdisciplines who just do not read linguistic anthro (and may not
>> even ever have taken an intro course in the subdiscipline, or taken
>> one but thought it was too difficult to go any further, what with all
>> that stuff about phonetics and such). Depressing.  Perhaps we need an
>> Indiana Jones type of movie about a daring linguist anthropologist to
>> make the field seem more accessible!
>>
>> Cheers,
>>
>> Harriet
>
>
>
>
> --------------
> Dr Claire Bowern
> Department of Linguistics
> Rice University
> Houston TX
>
>