Ancient Language Computer Program Recreates Sound Of Dead Tongues, Scientists Say

A computer algorithm works almost as well as a trained linguist in reconstructing how dead "protolanguages" would have sounded, says a new study.

"Our [computer] system is doing a basic job right now," says Alex Bouchard-Côté, an assistant professor in the department of statistics at the University of British Columbia and lead author of the paper describing the algorithm. But the program does a good enough job that it may be able to give linguists a head start, the statistician added.

For centuries, scholars have reconstructed languages by hand: looking at the same word in two or more languages and making educated guesses about what that word's "ancestor" may have sounded like. For example, the Spanish word for man ("hombre") and the French word for man ("homme") descended from the Latin word "homo." The way linguists compare words from descendant languages to reconstruct the parent language is called, appropriately, the comparative method.

The early 19th-century linguist Franz Bopp was the first to compare Greek, Latin and Sanskrit using this method. Jacob Grimm, one of the Brothers Grimm of fairy tale fame, used the comparative method to show how Germanic languages developed from a common ancestor.

The difference between that and Bouchard-Côté's program, the statistician says, "is we do it on a larger scale."

As a proof of concept, Bouchard-Côté fed words from 637 Austronesian languages (spoken in Indonesia, Madagascar, the Philippines, Papua New Guinea, Malaysia and more) into the new algorithm, and the system came up with a list of what the ancestor words of all those languages would have sounded like. In more than 85 percent of cases, the automated reconstruction came within one character of the ancestor word commonly accepted as true by linguists.

The algorithm won't replace trained, human linguists, but could speed up language analysis.

Using a computer to do large-scale reconstruction offers another advantage, Bouchard-Côté says: with big data sets, "you can really start finding regularities … You might find that certain sounds are more likely to change than others."

So Bouchard-Côté's team tested the "functional load hypothesis," which says that sounds that are more important for distinguishing two words are less likely to change over time. A formal test of this hypothesis in 1967 looked at four languages; Bouchard-Côté's algorithm looked at 637.

"The revealed pattern would not be apparent had we not been able to reconstruct large numbers of protolanguages," Bouchard-Côté and his coauthors write in the new study.

In addition to simply helping linguists understand how people spoke in the past, studying ancient languages can perhaps answer historical questions.

For example, Bouchard-Côté says, "Say people are interested in finding out when Europe was settled. If you can figure out if the language of the settling population had a word for wheel, then you can get some idea of the order in which things occurred, because you would have some records that show you when the wheel was invented.”

Source: Huffington Post

Google Helps Preserve 3,000 Endangered Languages

Ever since I watched the documentary "The Linguists" featuring two linguistic anthropologists traveling the world in hopes of documenting dying languages, I've had an interest in the preservation of languages.

It seems that Google is jumping on board this initiative by teaming with preservation organisations to create the Endangered Languages Project, a website which aims to document the 3,000+ languages that are on the verge of extinction.



Around 30 organisations including the Indigenous Language Institute, the Museum of the Cherokee Indian, the Language Archive at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics and the Alaska Native Language Archive have joined forces to form the Alliance for Linguistic Diversity that will feed into the platform.

Read the entire story on Wired

The Anthropology of Hemispheric Localism Pertaining to Latina Gangs

The term “gang-talk is hemispheric localism” describes both Nortenos and Surenos who are territorialized based on their customs of race, language, class, and national identity.

The gang members’ concepts of the mission and purpose of the gang as a social union respond to broader contextual pressures that include a members’ familiarity of Latin migration dynamics and their own gangs’ internationalization, as well as their understandings of worldwide political relations.

Therefore, hemispheric localism refers to, in this particular situation, the “North” and “South” and their “webs of signification”.

Read Gang Talk is Hemispheric Localism @ Factoidz By the Ancient Digger

The Kallawaya Language of Bolivia

The latest of my anthropological endeavors includes a documentary entitled The Linguists.

Directed by Seth Kramer, Daniel A. Miller and Jeremy Newberger, The Linguists chronicles the global adventures of Harrison and Greg Anderson, the Harvard and University of Chicago-educated co-founder (with Harrison) of the nonprofit Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages, as they race to document vanishing languages from the Andes and Siberia to India and Arizona (Thill 2009).

I almost couldn't get past the fact that David Harrison spoke over 25 languages and was able to assume a more culturally and uncluttered view of individuals questioned.

There were dozens of languages mentioned, however there was one on Bolivia that fascinated me.

Anthropology:  Kallawaya Language

The main language focus in Bolivia was Kallawaya. Kallawaya people are known for their medicinal practices, using their extensive knowledge of the more than 10,000 plants in Bolivia to create remedies. The filmmakers learned there were less than 100 native Kallawaya speakers left in Bolivia. In a country where the Spanish language was gaining ground, the Kallawaya language was still around, and the filmmakers investigated the internal factors allowing this to happen.

The Kallawaya were extremely segregated as the filmmakers quickly learned on their ride though the mountain pass, over the rocky terrain filled with lamas, looking down a steep ravine. Interestingly enough, their first encounter with a Kallawaya speaker, a healer, occurred when their tire went flat.

Kallawaya healers were difficult to track down. However, the healer that was found did not actually understand the form of structure of language they believed he could speak.

Consequently, the team moved forward and was able to meet with a Kallawaya healer, after waiting three hours, to speak about the language. The healer, Max, performed a ritual for the filmmakers prior to engaging in conversation, with coca leaves. Coca leaves are cast and used to read the patterns. Max Churra was able to simply pinpoint exactly what the filmmakers were feeling and he was quite accurate.

When sharing their findings with the Bolivian Cultural Board, they were able to convince those present that Kallawaya is still alive, yet under threat.

Kallawaya language is impossible to transmit by memorization as it’s audibly incomprehensible. Kallawaya is not learned at birth, but rather transmitted from adult males to teenage males, in order to avail themselves of the medicinal knowledge. Language is the Kallawaya’s livelihood.

Unfortunately, small languages are being abandoned in the effort to procure better economical standards. Consequently, globalization and colonialism has left, and is presently still making, a deep incision on the cultural languages.

The filmmakers explained that children didn’t have to give up a language to speak another, as children were really the ones that could preserve their native speak.

Linguistic Study: Speakers of Vietnamese and An Age Referent's Obligation

Another semester is upon me as I tackle new anthropology classes and gain greater insights into the field. In my Language and Culture class, we've been debating several issues including the hegemony of English as a global language, nonverbal cues used by past and present politicians, and understanding Shakespeare in the African Bush (I know you've heard of that study).

I intend to share with you my experiences in this challenging and fascinating class. To begin, I wanted to discuss the Vietnamese language.

Part of acquiring Vietnamese language and understanding their culture is by making a distinction between the father's side of the family and the mother's. A distinction constantly reinforced by the terms that must be used when referring to these people. There are also differing expectations of these people as a result of the way Vietnamese reckon kinship and descent.

What is the world do you mean? Simply, there's a way in which to approach or speak to someone, as this works about the same way in American culture.

In Vietnamese society, the predominant sentiment in the relation between members of a social group is respect.

Speakers of Vietnamese must choose the appropriate word depending upon relative age, social status, gender, degree of acquaintance, respect, and affection between speakers and hearers who are not related to each other by blood or marriage.

This form of respect, so to speak, has its roots in the teachings of Confucianism, whereby the Vietnamese describe a position of a person in society. Their behavior towards age and seniority is an obligation or form of respect they must pay to one another, based upon their relationship. Not showing this respect for elders or persons of higher position shows an insolent attitude.

Example and Possible Consequences:

Americans, when writing letters to individuals they don’t know, will address the person as “Dear NAME”.  Vietnamese people, by contrast, use only terms expressing respect such as “kính”, “kính thưa” and never address the person by name, for this would convey a disrespectful attitude.

A parallel can be seen with the use of family names. A father’s name is typically used in Vietnamese and American households.

As a show of respect, Vietnamese use their father’s name first, not last like Americans. Family name always comes first in Vietnamese and the individual name second, followed by the middle name, if one exists
Do you share this similar distinction in your own household? Please share with the readers.

Picture © marleen1951