There are 7 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1a. Jarda racial names
From: Herman Miller
1b. Re: Jarda racial names
From: George Corley
2.1. Re: What psychological effect does word order have in languages?
From: Roger Mills
3a. Re: "Language is related to financial saving patterns" (apparently)
From: Douglas Koller
3b. Re: "Language is related to financial saving patterns" (apparently)
From: George Corley
3c. Re: "Language is related to financial saving patterns" (apparently)
From: Douglas Koller
3d. Re: "Language is related to financial saving patterns" (apparently)
From: George Corley
Messages
________________________________________________________________________
1a. Jarda racial names
Posted by: "Herman Miller" [email protected]
Date: Sun Feb 24, 2013 6:17 pm ((PST))
I've been thinking about Sangari racial diversity and how to go about
naming the different groups in Jarda. I figure that the most apparent
differences would be in facial features and fur characteristics. There's
a group I've called "silverfurs" because of the pale color of their fur
(actually a bit more golden than silvery in appearance, but it's
considered a shade of non-ultraviolet-reflecting white, which I gloss as
"silvery"). The Mayushi (a group that lives on an island to the
southeast) belong to a related race with more of a yellowish golden
color to their fur.
So one obvious option is to name the groups by their distinctive
characteristics.
füljêzŏ shortfurs
łağjêzŏ silverfurs
tṛaljêzŏ yellowfurs (Mayushi)
diṛvazŏ littlenoses
ğirjazŏ longears
Other groups might be named according to geography.
nômbjanŏl westerners
panbjanŏl mountain-dwellers
bṛinbjanŏl island-dwellers
The obvious drawback is that not all "mountain-dwellers" (the race) live
in mountainous country, and not everyone living in the mountains is a
member of the "mountain-dweller" race. Of course, the same problem
exists with the physical descriptions (there are silver-furred
individuals of other races, "littlenoses" with average-sized noses, etc.)
Or maybe each group just has its own name (like Mayushi, Mizarga, and
Kavargi), and Jarda has adopted a historical version of those names.
Messages in this topic (2)
________________________________________________________________________
1b. Re: Jarda racial names
Posted by: "George Corley" [email protected]
Date: Sun Feb 24, 2013 6:35 pm ((PST))
On Sun, Feb 24, 2013 at 8:17 PM, Herman Miller <[email protected]> wrote:
> I've been thinking about Sangari racial diversity and how to go about
> naming the different groups in Jarda. I figure that the most apparent
> differences would be in facial features and fur characteristics. There's a
> group I've called "silverfurs" because of the pale color of their fur
> (actually a bit more golden than silvery in appearance, but it's considered
> a shade of non-ultraviolet-reflecting white, which I gloss as "silvery").
> The Mayushi (a group that lives on an island to the southeast) belong to a
> related race with more of a yellowish golden color to their fur.
>
> So one obvious option is to name the groups by their distinctive
> characteristics.
>
> füljêzŏ shortfurs
> łağjêzŏ silverfurs
> tṛaljêzŏ yellowfurs (Mayushi)
> diṛvazŏ littlenoses
> ğirjazŏ longears
>
Are any of these traits environmentally conditioned the way human skin
color is? That could certainly to a similar association with race.
> Other groups might be named according to geography.
>
> nômbjanŏl westerners
> panbjanŏl mountain-dwellers
> bṛinbjanŏl island-dwellers
>
> The obvious drawback is that not all "mountain-dwellers" (the race) live
> in mountainous country, and not everyone living in the mountains is a
> member of the "mountain-dweller" race. Of course, the same problem exists
> with the physical descriptions (there are silver-furred individuals of
> other races, "littlenoses" with average-sized noses, etc.)
>
This isn't a dealbreaker. It's not like the descriptive words that we use
for races are really iron-clad. "Black" people range from nearly black to
rather light browns, and many "yellow" Asians are actually quite
fair-skinned (while others are almost reddish). "White" people have a
similar range.
Heck, people who describe East and Southeast Asians as having "slanted
eyes" or "slitted eyes" or "squinty eyes" aren't really giving accurate
descriptions at all -- all those terms come from the sort of impression
epicanthic folds can occasionally give when people don't look at them
closely enough to see how they work.
A lot of this has to do with the fact that humans don't actually have
physical races, of course, and the traits we're using to categorize people
are usually polygenetic traits that exist on a continuum, rather than
simple binary traits. The genetics of your conspecies might be somewhat
different.
> Or maybe each group just has its own name (like Mayushi, Mizarga, and
> Kavargi), and Jarda has adopted a historical version of those names.
>
Why not do both. One name might be pejorative, and another more formal or
proper. In fact, there are all kinds of interesting social tricks you can
do when you give an ethnic or racial group multiple names. Plus, calling
back to what I said before, if your species is like humans in terms of
genetic diversity, then different cultures may well divide up the "races"
in different ways.
Messages in this topic (2)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
2.1. Re: What psychological effect does word order have in languages?
Posted by: "Roger Mills" [email protected]
Date: Sun Feb 24, 2013 7:59 pm ((PST))
--- On Sun, 2/24/13, Jeffrey Daniel Rollin-Jones <[email protected]> wrote:
On 21 Feb 2013, at 15:28, Roger Mills <[email protected]> wrote:
> --- On Wed, 2/20/13, Matthew Boutilier <[email protected]> wrote:
> But *"Once dreary a midnight upon" would have been an impossible choice for
> Poe (unless he were writing in Turkish, incidentally).
>
> Where do you draw the line between poetically grammatical and totally
> ungrammatical?
> ============================================
> When you break up constituents (as your example breaks up a prep.phrase.)
Sorry, but that's neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition,
RM it is in English. I'd imagine Turkish and Australian languages have their
own rules to determine ungrammaticality.
even of it were true. In Turkish, the said word order would be acceptable (a)
because Turkish uses prepositions and (b) the numeral "bir" means "one" if it
is placed before any adjectives, but "a(n)" if it is the last constituent
before the noun. Furthermore, many Australian languages are
non-configurational, (meaning that the elements of a constituent need not be
contiguous), and Latin and Ancient Greek approach non-configurationality in
poetry.
Jeff
Messages in this topic (29)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
3a. Re: "Language is related to financial saving patterns" (apparently)
Posted by: "Douglas Koller" [email protected]
Date: Sun Feb 24, 2013 8:07 pm ((PST))
> Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2013 13:48:19 +0000
> From: [email protected]
> Subject: "Language is related to financial saving patterns" (apparently)
> To: [email protected]
> This might be old news:
> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-21518574
> As you might have guessed from my header, I'm not convinced.
I suppose having [x] in your L1 predisposes you to invade Poland.
I understand that this sort of thing makes for great copy in pop science mags
and "and on the lighter side of the news..." segments, but really. If Prof Chen
receives federal monies to navel-gaze on this sort of piffle, I will just be
too annoyed. :)
Kou
Messages in this topic (8)
________________________________________________________________________
3b. Re: "Language is related to financial saving patterns" (apparently)
Posted by: "George Corley" [email protected]
Date: Sun Feb 24, 2013 8:51 pm ((PST))
On Sun, Feb 24, 2013 at 10:07 PM, Douglas Koller
<[email protected]>wrote:
> > Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2013 13:48:19 +0000
> > From: [email protected]
> > Subject: "Language is related to financial saving patterns" (apparently)
> > To: [email protected]
>
> > This might be old news:
> > http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-21518574
>
> > As you might have guessed from my header, I'm not convinced.
>
> I suppose having [x] in your L1 predisposes you to invade Poland.
>
> I understand that this sort of thing makes for great copy in pop science
> mags and "and on the lighter side of the news..." segments, but really. If
> Prof Chen receives federal monies to navel-gaze on this sort of piffle, I
> will just be too annoyed. :)
>
Do you think asking any question about whether language affects behavior is
silly and shouldn't result in funded research, or is it just the questions
you consider silly? I don't think there's anything wrong with asking these
questions. I'm skeptical of the result, but as I said, I haven't yet taken
the time to track down the actual paper. Whether it's right or wrong, I
think it can still advance the science, if only a tiny bit.
Messages in this topic (8)
________________________________________________________________________
3c. Re: "Language is related to financial saving patterns" (apparently)
Posted by: "Douglas Koller" [email protected]
Date: Mon Feb 25, 2013 12:02 am ((PST))
> Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2013 22:51:47 -0600
> From: [email protected]
> Subject: Re: "Language is related to financial saving patterns" (apparently)
> To: [email protected]
> On Sun, Feb 24, 2013 at 10:07 PM, Douglas Koller
> <[email protected]>wrote:
> > Prof Chen receives federal monies to navel-gaze on this sort of piffle, I
> > will just be too annoyed. :)
> Do you think asking any question about whether language affects behavior is
> silly and shouldn't result in funded research, or is it just the questions
> you consider silly?
Man, a smiley just doesn't get the mileage it used to. No, of course not.
> I don't think there's anything wrong with asking these
> questions. I'm skeptical of the result, but as I said, I haven't yet taken
> the time to track down the actual paper.
It's a PDF, apparently, which means that Douglas won't be reading it any time
soon while he's on the mainland. So we're both tilting at windmills a bit, I
suppose. Perhaps the paper is more rigorous in its application of the
scientific method than what we're getting in the few articles I read here, but
I have my doubts.
> Whether it's right or wrong, I
> think it can still advance the science, if only a tiny bit.
Whither the science? What, exactly, qualifies as "strong FTR" vs. "weak FTR"?
French and Flemish are significantly (statistically or otherwise) different on
this scale, however I might construe it? Really? How so? What dialect of
English does Prof. Chen speak that *obliges* him not to say, "I'm having/eating
dinner with my uncle." in the *present* tense about an event which may happen
next week (sure, it's progressive, but is the fact that simple present is used
for habituals in English making the "earthy" Chinese "I eat dinner with uncle."
(exotic East syndrome?) unavailable in this context merely an inconvenience to
the research Chen chooses to gloss over?). The four-minute interview is riddled
with "broad(ly speaking)'s", "it seems's", and "effectively's". And I do not
consider a nine-country study representative enough to make statements like
"around the world" (more than once). This stuff *seems* to be at the level of
anecdotal to the point of near meaninglessness (*my* neighbor has a rococo
couch, so what?). Weak FTRers are 24% less likely to smoke? Has he *been* to
China?! "When you factor out all the other considerations (and his list hardly
seems exhaustive), what else could it be?" Well, almost anything.
So it's the methodology, as presented, and conclusions drawn therefrom that I
find silly. I apologize in advance if I misparaphrase/misrepresent you (please
to correct), but I believe I heard you say in a podcast something to the effect
of, until brain-scanning gets to a point where we can pinpoint what synapses
light up, pop, and twirl when we say "I will eat" and "I'm eating" (and we're
not there yet (I'm guessing, but even if we are, what would/could/should we
infer about how that informs Weltanschauung?)), this is rank speculation. Even
if the data holds up to the scutiny of far better scientific minds than mine,
how do you get from there to profound abstract musings on how people perceive
and correlate their present and future selves, and even if *that* somehow
proves to be true, how do you then leap to saving behaviour (which may be
indicative of *Chen's* Weltanschauung, if anything)? This is errant flailing at
Sapir-Whorf that we've seen before and will undoubtedly see again (OMG, I used
the future). Interesting questions, *certainly* worth asking and exploring, but
this feels more fuelled by "publish or perish" and "buzz" than moving the ball
forward.
Meanwhile, I hear that eating twelve pounds of tofu a day *may* improve
potency, so I'm firing up the wok tonight (oh wait, in English I'm *obliged* to
say, "I *will* be firing up the wok tonight.") :D
Kou
Messages in this topic (8)
________________________________________________________________________
3d. Re: "Language is related to financial saving patterns" (apparently)
Posted by: "George Corley" [email protected]
Date: Mon Feb 25, 2013 6:18 am ((PST))
On Mon, Feb 25, 2013 at 2:02 AM, Douglas Koller
<[email protected]>wrote:
> > Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2013 22:51:47 -0600
> > From: [email protected]
> > Subject: Re: "Language is related to financial saving patterns"
> (apparently)
> > To: [email protected]
>
> > On Sun, Feb 24, 2013 at 10:07 PM, Douglas Koller
> > <[email protected]>wrote:
>
> > > Prof Chen receives federal monies to navel-gaze on this sort of
> piffle, I
> > > will just be too annoyed. :)
>
> > Do you think asking any question about whether language affects behavior
> is
> > silly and shouldn't result in funded research, or is it just the
> questions
> > you consider silly?
>
> Man, a smiley just doesn't get the mileage it used to. No, of course not.
>
> > I don't think there's anything wrong with asking these
> > questions. I'm skeptical of the result, but as I said, I haven't yet
> taken
> > the time to track down the actual paper.
>
> It's a PDF, apparently, which means that Douglas won't be reading it any
> time soon while he's on the mainland. So we're both tilting at windmills a
> bit, I suppose. Perhaps the paper is more rigorous in its application of
> the scientific method than what we're getting in the few articles I read
> here, but I have my doubts.
That's weird. Is his computer there 15 years old or something?
> > Whether it's right or wrong, I
> > think it can still advance the science, if only a tiny bit.
>
> Whither the science? What, exactly, qualifies as "strong FTR" vs. "weak
> FTR"? French and Flemish are significantly (statistically or otherwise)
> different on this scale, however I might construe it? Really? How so? What
> dialect of English does Prof. Chen speak that *obliges* him not to say,
> "I'm having/eating dinner with my uncle." in the *present* tense about an
> event which may happen next week (sure, it's progressive, but is the fact
> that simple present is used for habituals in English making the "earthy"
> Chinese "I eat dinner with uncle." (exotic East syndrome?) unavailable in
> this context merely an inconvenience to the research Chen chooses to gloss
> over?). The four-minute interview is riddled with "broad(ly speaking)'s",
> "it seems's", and "effectively's". And I do not consider a nine-country
> study representative enough to make statements like "around the world"
> (more than once). This stuff *seems* to be at the level of anecdotal to the
> point of near meaninglessness (*my* neighbor has a rococo couch, so what?).
> Weak FTRers are 24% less likely to smoke? Has he *been* to China?! "When
> you factor out all the other considerations (and his list hardly seems
> exhaustive), what else could it be?" Well, almost anything.
>
This is a big reason why I want to see the paper. I really should just go
ahead and read it. I recall hearing that he used some typology database
for his weak/strong FTR values, which might be better, but there's always
complications.
> So it's the methodology, as presented, and conclusions drawn therefrom
> that I find silly. I apologize in advance if I misparaphrase/misrepresent
> you (please to correct), but I believe I heard you say in a podcast
> something to the effect of, until brain-scanning gets to a point where we
> can pinpoint what synapses light up, pop, and twirl when we say "I will
> eat" and "I'm eating" (and we're not there yet (I'm guessing, but even if
> we are, what would/could/should we infer about how that informs
> Weltanschauung?)), this is rank speculation. Even if the data holds up to
> the scutiny of far better scientific minds than mine, how do you get from
> there to profound abstract musings on how people perceive and correlate
> their present and future selves, and even if *that* somehow proves to be
> true, how do you then leap to saving behaviour (which may be indicative of
> *Chen's* Weltanschauung, if anything)? This is errant flailing at
> Sapir-Whorf that we've seen before and will undoubtedly see again (OMG, I
> used the future). Interesting questions, *certainly* worth asking and
> exploring, but this feels more fuelled by "publish or perish" and "buzz"
> than moving the ball forward.
>
As far as "leap to saving behaviour" -- data first, theory later. IF he
has proved that future marking affects saving behavior (which I'm not
certain he has), or that there's some correlation at least, THEN you should
see if the hypothesis explains it. After all, it's not evidence unless it
actually exists. I think I have said that we won't be able to tell
everything about how language influences thought without much more accurate
brain scans (indeed, I think I was referring more to how language works in
general) -- and even then, it will take time and effort to analyze the
data. But that doesn't and shouldn't stop people from inferring things
from more indirect evidence. One of the keys to science is that you could
be proven wrong at any instant, after all.
Messages in this topic (8)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/conlang/
<*> Your email settings:
Digest Email | Traditional
<*> To change settings online go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/conlang/join
(Yahoo! ID required)
<*> To change settings via email:
[email protected]
[email protected]
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
[email protected]
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
------------------------------------------------------------------------
