[Lingtyp] Lingtyp Digest, Vol 123, Issue 20

Sat Dec 28 19:53:08 UTC 2024

 Bernat,
I work on Khatso, a Tibeto-Burman language spoke in a single villagein Yunnan, China. I find that speakers have very limited insight into languagestructure. The only times I have seen any spontaneous descriptions of languageuse are these:
-- All Khatso speakers also speak the local Mandarin dialect.When speaking to outsiders about what Khatso is like, they invariably go to thebasic word order difference, since Khatso is SOV and Mandarin SVO. This seemsto be a canned response, likely because the difference is very basic andnoticeable and it’s something that everyone can understand on both sides.
-- Even in the village of 5600 people, there are two dialects.The minority dialect mainly differs in some vowel use. Everyone in the villageis familiar with the difference, and each can imitate the variety that is nottheir own. (Everyone is very good-natured about it; there is no standard.)
However, speakers have no introspective ideas about Khatso morphosyntax. For example, the language has multiple multifunctionalparticles, but speakers are always surprised when I point out that particle Xis used in both construction A and construction B, even though both arefrequent expressions used daily. Another example: the language does not have a superlativeconstruction, just a cleft construction that connotes superlativity in certaincontexts. Speakers are surprised by this too, and, often try to hunt for an element that can be directly translated into the Mandarin superlative particle before they concede no such element exists. 

I think the key factor here is that Khatso has no writingsystem and is not taught in school. Therefore, speakers are not familiar withthe concept of analyzing it as a thing in the world separate from its daily use.This is not a natural act (except for us linguists). I find the same kind of thing whenI ask my native-English speaking students to describe the difference between ‘a’and ‘the’; they are always stumped, while their 2L classmates can easily do so.It seems to me that language structure only becomes apparent organically whenit is compared to another system, like another dialect or language, and even this is only done at a superficial level.

I’ll be interested to hear what other responses you get toyour query.
Cheers,
Chris Donlay

    On Saturday, December 28, 2024 at 04:00:12 AM PST, lingtyp-request at listserv.linguistlist.org <lingtyp-request at listserv.linguistlist.org> wrote:  

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Today's Topics:

  1. Traditional view of language and grammar in indigenous
      societies (Bernat Bardagil Mas)
  2. Re: Traditional view of language and grammar in indigenous
      societies (Egor Kashkin)

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Message: 1
Date: Fri, 27 Dec 2024 15:09:18 +0000
From: Bernat Bardagil Mas <bernat.bardagil at ugent.be>
To: "lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org"
    <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
Subject: [Lingtyp] Traditional view of language and grammar in
    indigenous societies
Message-ID:
    <VI1PR09MB27506785B57B26CE09327748880E2 at VI1PR09MB2750.eurprd09.prod.outlook.com>

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Dear all,

As anyone working closely with indigenous languages and cultures of the Americas, we have seen multiple instances of the awareness that indigenous peoples have of everything that surrounds them, with detailed accounts and explanations ranging from social aspects to natural or supernatural phenomena.

We have come to wonder whether, and how frequently, this type of reflection is attested also for language ? not so much the origin of language, but its structure and nature. Have any of you encountered anything similar to this notion among indigenous communities, regarding the structure of their own language? Or, are you aware of any mentions of something that could correspond to traces of this type of indigenous linguistic or grammatical knowledge?

Thank you,

Bernat Bardagil i Mas & Sara Larios i Ongay

- -
Bernat Bardagil
Postdoctoral researcher
Department of Linguistics, Ghent University
research.flw.ugent.be/en/bernat.bardagil<https://research.flw.ugent.be/en/bernat.bardagil>

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Message: 2
Date: Sat, 28 Dec 2024 12:04:32 +0300
From: Egor Kashkin <egorka1988 at gmail.com>
To: Bernat Bardagil Mas <bernat.bardagil at ugent.be>
Cc: "lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org"
    <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
Subject: Re: [Lingtyp] Traditional view of language and grammar in
    indigenous societies
Message-ID:
    <CALKwh=hzauKHwgT+bgYt5-+XvH6ZgmYOMBHyQyfPJRdsAnqooA at mail.gmail.com>
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Dear Bernat,

I have fieldwork experience with the dialects of some Uralic languages
in Russia. Maybe the following observations are of interest for you:

-- My consultants usually have some knowledge of the standard language
(e.g. they learnt it at school, follow the mass media etc.), and there
may be stereotypes about some structural patterns, e.g. basic word
order. Or as one of my Hill Mari consultants (a school teacher) told
me: "Whatever stands in Russian sits in Hill Mari". She meant that in
Russian the verb 'stand' has a wide range of uses in the posture
domain, whereas in Hill Mari the posture predicate with the widest use
is 'sit'. They are often translational equivalents to each other, but
in fact not in 100% of cases.

-- Of course, consultants often hypothesize about  the difference
between quasi-synonymous forms or structures. Sometimes this gives a
researcher some hints, sometimes not (e.g. stereotypical terms such as
"present tense" or "past tense" can be used as a memory from school,
but this may contradict both the data and the linguistically correct
use of such terms).

-- They often notice some differences between their dialect and the
standard language, or between different dialects, mainly in phonetics
or in the lexicon ("when we pronounce ?, in the standard language
there is i?"). Probably this can mark whether a speaker is "ours" or
"not ours". At the same time one should be careful with such
statements, as they can be made in order to find a reasonable (albeit
false) explanation for ungrammatical stimuli during elicitation. For
example, speakers of Izhma Komi sometimes comment on ungrammatical
sentences by saying that "it is possible in Standard Komi" (or, as
they say, "??? ? ???? ???? ???????" -- "People can say so in the Komi
Soviet Republic"), but in fact it is not.

-- Some consultants have judgements about the contact-induced nature
of some linguistic phenomena. For example, in Udmurt there are complex
predicates which probably replicate a Turkic pattern. One of my
consultants (who works as a dentist) told me that such constructions
copy Tatar structures and gave some parallel examples from Tatar (many
Udmurt speakers in this area speak or at least understand Tatar).

Best,
Egor Kashkin

??, 27 ???. 2024??. ? 18:09, Bernat Bardagil Mas via Lingtyp
<lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>:
>
> Dear all,
>
> As anyone working closely with indigenous languages and cultures of the Americas, we have seen multiple instances of the awareness that indigenous peoples have of everything that surrounds them, with detailed accounts and explanations ranging from social aspects to natural or supernatural phenomena.
>
> We have come to wonder whether, and how frequently, this type of reflection is attested also for language ? not so much the origin of language, but its structure and nature. Have any of you encountered anything similar to this notion among indigenous communities, regarding the structure of their own language? Or, are you aware of any mentions of something that could correspond to traces of this type of indigenous linguistic or grammatical knowledge?
>
> Thank you,
>
> Bernat Bardagil i Mas & Sara Larios i Ongay
>
>
> - -
> Bernat Bardagil
> Postdoctoral researcher
> Department of Linguistics, Ghent University
> research.flw.ugent.be/en/bernat.bardagil
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Lingtyp mailing list
> Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
> https://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp

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