#morphology of the new language. the words have thus been changed but as such are often still recognizable as words of foreign origin)

[tragedykery]

dutch linguist voice adapted loanwords? you mean bastard words? how scandalous that words are getting derived from another languages without getting married! linguistic processes these days >:/

[foggynightdonut]

Chomsky's single-step theory

According to Noam Chomsky's single-mutation theory, the emergence of language resembled the formation of a crystal; with digital infinity as the seed crystal in a super-saturated primate brain, on the verge of blossoming into the human mind, by physical law, once evolution added a single small but crucial keystone.[87][88] Thus, in this theory, language appeared rather suddenly within the history of human evolution. Chomsky, writing with computational linguist and computer scientist Robert C. Berwick, suggests that this scenario is completely compatible with modern biology. They note that "none of the recent accounts of human language evolution seem to have completely grasped the shift from conventional Darwinism to its fully stochastic modern version—specifically, that there are stochastic effects not only due to sampling like directionless drift, but also due to directed stochastic variation in fitness, migration, and heritability—indeed, all the "forces" that affect individual or gene frequencies ... All this can affect evolutionary outcomes—outcomes that as far as we can make out are not brought out in recent books on the evolution of language, yet would arise immediately in the case of any new genetic or individual innovation, precisely the kind of scenario likely to be in play when talking about language's emergence."

Citing evolutionary geneticist Svante Pääbo, they concur that a substantial difference must have occurred to differentiate Homo sapiens from Neanderthals to "prompt the relentless spread of our species, who had never crossed open water, up and out of Africa and then on across the entire planet in just a few tens of thousands of years. ... What we do not see is any kind of 'gradualism' in new tool technologies or innovations like fire, shelters, or figurative art." Berwick and Chomsky therefore suggest language emerged approximately between 200,000 years ago and 60,000 years ago (between the appearance of the first anatomically modern humans in southern Africa and the last exodus from Africa respectively). "That leaves us with about 130,000 years, or approximately 5,000–6,000 generations of time for evolutionary change. This is not 'overnight in one generation' as some have (incorrectly) inferred—but neither is it on the scale of geological eons. It's time enough—within the ballpark for what Nilsson and Pelger (1994) estimated as the time required for the full evolution of a vertebrate eye from a single cell, even without the invocation of any 'evo-devo' effects."[89]

The single-mutation theory of language evolution has been directly questioned on different grounds. A formal analysis of the probability of such a mutation taking place and going to fixation in the species has concluded that such a scenario is unlikely, with multiple mutations with more moderate fitness effects being more probable.[90] Another criticism has questioned the logic of the argument for single mutation and puts forward that from the formal simplicity of Merge, the capacity Berwick and Chomsky deem the core property of human language that emerged suddenly, one cannot derive the (number of) evolutionary steps that led to it.[91]

The Romulus and Remus hypothesis

See also: Recursion § In language, and Prefrontal synthesis

The Romulus and Remus hypothesis, proposed by neuroscientist Andrey Vyshedskiy, seeks to address the question as to why the modern speech apparatus originated over 500,000 years before the earliest signs of modern human imagination. This hypothesis proposes that there were two phases that led to modern recursive language. The phenomenon of recursion occurs across multiple linguistic domains, arguably most prominently in syntax and morphology. Thus, by nesting a structure such as a sentence or a word within themselves, it enables the generation of potentially (countably) infinite new variations of that structure. For example, the base sentence [Peter likes apples.] can be nested in irrealis clauses to produce [[Mary said [Peter likes apples.]], [Paul believed [Mary said [Peter likes apples.]]] and so forth.[92]

The first phase includes the slow development of non-recursive language with a large vocabulary along with the modern speech apparatus, which includes changes to the hyoid bone, increased voluntary control of the muscles of the diaphragm, the evolution of the FOXP2 gene, as well as other changes by 600,000 years ago.[93] Then, the second phase was a rapid Chomskian single step, consisting of three distinct events that happened in quick succession around 70,000 years ago and allowed the shift from non-recursive to recursive language in early hominins.

A genetic mutation that slowed down the prefrontal synthesis (PFS) critical period of at least two children that lived together.

This allowed these children to create recursive elements of language such as spatial prepositions.

Then this merged with their parents' non-recursive language to create recursive language.[94]

It is not enough for children to have a modern prefrontal cortex (PFC) to allow the development of PFS; the children must also be mentally stimulated and have recursive elements already in their language to acquire PFS. Since their parents would not have invented these elements yet, the children would have had to do it themselves, which is a common occurrence among young children that live together, in a process called cryptophasia.[95] This means that delayed PFC development would have allowed more time to acquire PFS and develop recursive elements.

Delayed PFC development also comes with negative consequences, such as a longer period of reliance on one's parents to survive and lower survival rates. For modern language to have occurred, PFC delay had to have an immense survival benefit in later life, such as PFS ability. This suggests that the mutation that caused PFC delay and the development of recursive language and PFS occurred simultaneously, which lines up with evidence of a genetic bottleneck around 70,000 years ago.[96] This could have been the result of a few individuals who developed PFS and recursive language which gave them significant competitive advantage over all other humans at the time.[94]

[architectuul]

Teatro del Mondo: An Odyssey

The Venice Biennale is an increasing magnet for professionals and laypersons alike, as evidenced by a stampede of hundreds of thousands of visitors quickly rolling over exhibitions in Giardini dell’Arsenale, and an exponentially growing number of various minor events during the Mostra.

Arnell, Peter and Scully, Vincent (1985): Aldo Rossi-Buildings and projects. Rizzoli International Publications, Inc. New York.

People from all over the world travel to Venice to visit the Biennale. But it happened just once that a pavilion intended for Biennale went in the opposite direction. The motives for this voyage were reported on the sidelines of an exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia 1979-1980: The Theater of the World Singular Building. Maurizio Scaparro curated the show that was held in Ca’ Giustinian in 2010.

Read also “In Vino Veritas Biennale Style!” and Is It Possible To Exhibit Architecture?

It is always difficult to judge a piece of great contemporary architecture: From the vantage point of present, we usually lack proper temporal distance. But 30 years after its implementation, Il Teatro del Mondo (The World Theater) - a floating building designed by Aldo Rossi for the architectural Biennale once anchored in front of Punta della Dogana and created in 1979 for the Venice and the Stage Space exhibition, grew to become an architectural icon.

Il Teatro del Mondo by Aldo Rossi | Photo via Focusdamnit

British theatre director Edward Gordon Craig once said: “There is something so human and so poignant to me in a great city at a time of the night when there are no people about and no sounds. It is dreadfully sad until you walk till six o’clock in the morning. Then it is very exciting.”[1] In his stage designs, Craig used architectural language to design and articulate the relationships in space between movement, sound, line, light, and color, enabling actors to assume positions and spatial relationships that they could use in ordinary urban life.

A parallel to Rossi's architectural project is unmistakable - was that a coincidence or intention?

Venice-Dubrovnik, a diary of the international theatre lab 1980 from “Giornale di Bordo”. | Photo © Daniela Sacco

In Dubrovnik | Photo © Piero Casadei

Its legendary trip to Dubrovnik, (the theater was ferried in the summer of 1980 to the local Theatre Festival) is exciting and feels like reading Homer’s Odyssey. In the best tradition of Venetian mobility, Rossi wrote: "Just the image of Venice, a synthesis of gothic and misty landscapes and oriental inserts or transpositions, fixes the capital of the city on the water. Therefore, of the possible passages, not only physical or topographical, between the two worlds. Even the Rialto bridge is a passage, a market, a theater. "[2]

Arnell, P. and Scully, V. (1985): Aldo Rossi-Buildings and projects. Rizzoli International Publications, New York. 

Today, when we think about Venice, we conjure up a small peninsula in the northern Adriatic. It is hard to imagine that Venetians were able to rule such a vast cultural space. The key was their legendary mobility. They were always on the move. The Republic built on the water developed its eclectic cultural influence through its enduring presence in the Adriatic and the Mediterranean. The city was the final destination for the most important cultural and caravan route between the Orient and the Occident. No wonder The World Theater united in itself several references: Renaissance and Elizabethan theaters, lighthouse architecture, Venetian floating architecture, and temporary structures built for the carnival. [3] As Nadine Labedade wrote "Thus, it is the typology of the city that creates the scenario. And this mobile theater-boat became a fragment of the urban history, a quasi-metaphysical image tasked with representing architecture.”

The revision of modernity - as an abstract, functionalist, and timeless architectural language - was a common denominator of the Tendenza, the group formed by Also Rossi together with Carlo Aymonino, Paolo Portoghesi and Franco Stella among others. Rossi was undoubtedly the most influential member through his book L’architettura della città (The Architecture of the City, 1966). Through descriptions of Italian cities, he described his concept of architecture. He saw his work as part of an urban structure in constant dialogue with the countless layers of history, a city in continuous change in analogy to its buildings, and adapting to new social, economic, and cultural conditions.[4] His design language is generally understandable, using simple geometries and academic elements borrowed from the past. His layouts reintroduced imagination and poetry into the presentation of architectural work: colorful collage, wooden models, the mixed scales of shapes that can be both design objects and real houses.

There were just a few performances in the floating Teatro del Mondo that Rossi built for the Venice Biennale in 1979. After the short display in the lagoon and the voyage across the Adriatic to the Croatian city of Dubrovnik, the temporary theatre was disassembled. Nevertheless, this scenography-like building shaped the Italian architecture of the second half of the 20th century like no other project. The relocation to Dubrovnik, the famous medieval Republic and archrival of Venice in the Adriatic, inspired discussion about eclectic cultural influence and the complex historical layers of Adriatic cities. Those years coincided with the beginning of the Postmodern movement in former Yugoslavia. It probably was not Rossi’s primary focus of attention, but this Trojan Horse disguised as a theater that was shipped to Dubrovnik, was the first step in a politically delicate debate and movement towards a revision of Modernism in Yugoslavia - no easy feat in the ideologically colored cultural character of a country unconditionally committed to Modernism. Theater as a revolutionary tool in urban planning?Notabene: in 1956 the city of Dubrovnik even hosted CIAM X, the congress. which saw the start of the Team 10.

Peter Brook, who directed Hamlet in Dubrovnik, said that "a theatre should be like a violin, its tone coming from its period and age".[5] His daughter Irina took her Midsummer Night's Dream to the Old City of Dubrovnik’s Marin Držić Theatre, one of the oldest institution of its kind in Croatia.

Arnell, P. and Scully, V. (1985): Aldo Rossi-Buildings and projects. Rizzoli International Publications, New York.

The Dubrovnik Shakespeare Festival was founded in 2009 by American-Croatian author Michael Lederer. Suddenly, Dubrovnik and its architecture are increasingly associated with the stage on which everyone plays a distinct role in his or her daily live. On an urban scale, the morphology of the Old Town itself reminds us of a stage, surrounded by the natural slopes of the adjacent hills, with the eternal blue of the Adriatic in the back. The topography places the architecture in the foreground and the architecture has taken over the nature so dramatically that the two have become indivisibly connected.

Finally, Rossi´s vision worked out: cultural and geographic lines connected the Adriatic cities together over the last decades. The voyage of the Teatro del Mondo can coincidentally be seen as a rediscovery of the medieval stage setting of Dubrovnik, which serves as shooting location for renowned TV-series and a dream destination for thousand of tourists. Rossi must have had the words of Japanese playwright Yukio Mishima in his mind when he said that life is nothing but a theater. [6]

***

VAB 02: Mladen Jadrić

Photo © Jakob Mayer

Mladen Jadrić is teaching and practicing architecture in Vienna, Austria as the principal of JADRIC ARCHITEKTUR. He has realized a wide range of projects of different scales: architectural and urban design projects, housing, residences, art installations and Museums in Austria, USA, Finland, China and South Korea. He is teaching at the TU Wien and has gained extensive experience as a visiting professor and guest lecturer in Europe, USA, Asia, South America and Australia. His work has been awarded the Outstanding Artist Award for experimental tendencies in architecture in Austria. He is also a member of the Künstlerhaus in Vienna, and deputy Section Chair of the Federal Chamber of Architects.

Notes: 1. E. G. Craig (1998): A Vision of Theatre, Christopher Innes, York university, Ontario, Canada. 2. 1998 OPA N.V. Published by license under the Hardwood Academic Publishers imprint, part of The Gordon and Breach Publishing Group 3. Observations on the Fantastic Nature in the Architecture of Aldo Rossi, Alessandro Dalla Caneva, Architectoni.ca 2018, Online 4  4. Rossi - Autobiografia scientifica, Milano, Nuova Pratiche Editrice, 1999 5. Eyre R. (2004): National Service: Diary of a Decade at the National Theatre 6. Mishima Y. (2018): Bekenntnisse einer Maske, Kein&Aber, Zürich 

[warriorsredux]

RiverClan Poetry

O thlain lun, li mir, Hiilua sona hsh, Lon et bair.

Lao thua hiil ish Lantel rii din Ailon astish.

Hraketeth onin. Prei shah huriin et aulmir. Aush lun fain et sonin.

IPA (Approximate)

oʊ θleɪn lun li mɪər hi.lu.ʌ soʊ.nʌ hɪʃ lən ɛt beɪ.jɪər

laʊ θu.ʌ hil ɪʃ lɒn.tɛl ri dɪn aɪlɒn ɑs.tɪʃ

hra.kɛ.tɛθ oʊ.nɪn preɪ ʃa hu.rin ɛt aʊl.mɪər aʊʃ lun feɪn ɛt soʊ.nɪn

Translation

O countless stars, long before my Clan, The sky was darkness, Empty and cold.

Unable to see the blue river Without the moon’s light Upon its water.

We remember those nights. Thus we watch the north and south. We rise and set with the stars.

I’ve been wanting to write a poem in Felidae for a while now, it’s just taken a while to try and reverse-engineer the grammar and try to sneak in new vocab but shhh. The IPA is my best guess after looking at the literalized pronunciations on the lexicon page. In order to make any new vocab feel natural, I looked at the canon words and created a plausible phonetic inventory, then analyzed the phonology to create a list of phonotactic constraints (what sounds are “illegal” within the context of the language).

Here’s the list of rules I adhered to while translating:

Definite/Indefinite articles and demonstratives, much like pronouns, are represented by the physical aspect of Felidae (hence why they’re not translated - they don’t have verbal counterparts).

Since Felidae doesn’t appear to have a case system, O is used as a vocative particle, same as English. (Helps to eliminate ambiguity when addressing someone.)

We haven’t seen any conjugations of verbs for tense, mood, or aspect, so we can infer that Felidae is an analytic language with either minimal or diminished inflection (plural suffixes, et cetera). Verbs aren’t marked for tense, so it can be assumed that Felidae indicates aspect through expressions of time much like Chinese. (Placing li “long ago/before” in front of/near sona changes it from present indicative “is” to past indicative “was.”)

Polarity (affirmation and negation) is assumed affirmative by default. To make something negative, Felidae relies on negatives particles and words. In this case, lao “not,” when placed before thua “to see,” creates a semantic change. Instead of being “not to see,” it becomes “[unable] to see.”

The possessive is achieved through body language and word order. In this case, rii, when placed in front, modifies din “light.” Ergo, “moon’s light.” Interestingly, if a cat were to say rii din, but omit the physical gesture, it becomes genitive (light of the moon) instead of possessive.

I wanted to have enough vocab to create rhyming stanzas. This left me with the choices of 1.) morphological derivation, 2.) determining roots, or 3.) throwing words at a wall to see what stuck. I went for 2 and 3.

ailon (eye-lon): Upon; above or on top of (figuratively). astish (ahs-tish): Water. I tried to keep it consistent with the other water-based vocab by preserving the voiceless post-alveolar fricative [ʃ], here written as ⟨sh⟩. aush (owsh): With. din (din): Light. fain (fayn): To rise; to get up. hraketeth (hrah-keh-teth): To remember; to recall. lantel (lahn-tel): Without. Lantel (without) is treated as a separate root from aush (with). lao (lao): Not; when paired with verbs and the appropriate physical gesture, can translate as “unable to [verb].” on (ohn): Night. Plural, onin (on + -in). prei (pray): Thus; and so. rii (ree): The moon; the Leopard’s Eye. Derived from riin (a moon cycle). shah (shah): To turn; to follow. Can also mean to regard or to watch. sonin (soh-nin): To set; to move in a downward motion.

I know that the traditional RiverClan poem likes to express love or devotion to the subject matter, which is why I thought this poem would be interesting if it deviated slightly. In this case, the speaker is professing gratitude for the presence of light (their ancestors, Suriin’s Eye), something which gives them the ability to experience the world through one of their five senses (sight). The speaker figuratively remembers a time when the Clans weren’t blessed with moon- and starlight, and they’re not hasty to take it for granted. There’s also a solemn note to the end of the poem; a promise or a vow to commemorate the holy light bestowed upon them by their ancestors and the gods, lest they return to the darkness from which they came. I like to think this poem is somewhat older (c.a. Second Age) due to its more spiritual subject matter, hence why it clashes a bit with modern poems. But that’s also why it’s managed to stick around for so long - the other Clans might not get RiverClan’s

obsession

devotion to art, water polo, and sushi, but everyone can relate to this poem on some level. Even ShadowClan likes this one because it has that ever-so-important religious devotion that they strive to embody. If any poem gets recited at a Gathering, chances are it’ll be this one. I hope it’s okay that I did this, since I know that my commentary on Felidae potentially goes against the lore you’ve established for the Redux. Hopefully you like it?

THIS IS FUCKING AWESOME HOLY SHIT THANK YOU

[juenger-juenger-blog]

Ernst Jünger : On Nationalism and the Jewish Question

If one considers the two movements of national aspirations in our time—on the one hand the traditionally tinged one, in which civic, legitimistic, reactionary, and economic tones merge or diverge in various ways—and on the other hand, the revolutionary one—one finds that anti-Semitism is the cornerstone of correlations. While its joy of war-ornamentation is in one case more or less dismissive, it is in the other case overt. This may be unpleasant for the Jew and also, potentially, dangerous for him. 

The anti-Semitism of forces tied by kinship is, in its essence, the late and weak offspring of the feudal world. In the same manner as one likes to maintain a façade in front of burnt buildings from which the creative elements have long ago vanished, one considers it to be a cosmetic error to see the Jew in representative positions. This, however, does not prevent making use of the Jew and finding him often in real working places. In the course of the 19th century, he occupies more and more many of these positions and quite early exerts his influence—for instance in the manner of Professor Stahl—on the constitutional foundation of the legitimate powers, or furthermore—this is not unimportant—on the mending maintenance of that foundation and on conservative thought. In the course of the Wilhelminian Empire, in which the official access to the hierarchy remains difficult or closed for him, when one scratches the surface one still encounters him everywhere in the highest and most important spheres. Almost nothing has changed, as everybody knows, after the coup d’état.

Wherever one explores today the active forces in terms of moderate and legitimate reaction or of wide national civic restoration, it will not be long until one runs into the unavoidable type of the Jewish advocate—the speaking, writing, consulting or bargaining attorney—who uses men and powers, regardless to which movement they belong, with an unbiased manner that is characteristic of his race. This is clearly the case today—in order to be able to take a stand in this sense against liberalism, namely, to combat it with its own means and with its own vocabulary—resentment is much more essential than it was hundred years ago. The keyboard that can produce all gamut of tricks, from the idealistic burst of indignation to the anxious yells of the threatened culture— that is to say, above all the reflective tones—needs performers with extensive training in resentment that has become a part of them. Hence, the expert will not be surprised by the odd blossom of the well-cultivated conservative prose that nowadays flows more frequently from the Jewish pens. One encounters sharp pleas of defence for culture, witty mocking of the civilization enterprise, aristocratic snobbism, the Catholic farce, pseudo-morphologic interest in historical processes, inconspicuously deliberated soundness; it would be altogether mischevious to mention names. For this is too nice to be angry at—is one not delighted by the beautiful advertisement for the reputable cigarette merchant Overstolz who keeps accounts at his little Biedermeier-comptoir with dignified strictness? Here, the merchandise reaches such a degree of an “as if attitude” that it is almost impolite to moreover notice it any longer. In any case the Jew, who really has talent, who really has the ability to scent, currently argues conservatively. There are hidden here positions and intricate possibilities for mental attitude which has already been fought over with great astuteness. The Jew cannot complain about the attention he receives from the forces that represent today’s conservative ideas, and the question is whether or not he benefits from the anti-Semitic shiny surface of those forces. For he needs a basic mood for his rhetoric, which always has ethical structure because it cannot have a heroic one, a basic mood which can be described as the opposite of the pathos of the distance. Hence, he relies on persecution, on anti-Semitism; as likewise, according to the right remark, the Ghetto is a Jewish invention. Muted conservative attitude, which is broken in its root, can, however, provide this scope most cheaply, most painlessly and most invisibly, in so far as it can melt him into a fine conservative line, which is, in addition, very flexible regarding “efficiency,” “spirit” and, of course, money. Hence, neither the British Empire nor the Habsburg monarchy had ever, in modern times, a shortage of Jewish paladins. 

Of course, today there exists in the political language, besides the word “conservative” only one other word which is just as frequent and just as little convincingly used, namely, the word “revolutionary.” Both our so-called conservatives and our so-called revolutionaries lack originality to the same extent. What marks the originality of the conservative is that it must be very old, and of the revolutionary, that it must be very young. The conservatives of today are, however, almost without exception a hundred years old, and the revolutionaries are even older. In other words, the influence of liberalism is wider than one generally believes, and almost every debate takes place within its vicinity. The vocabulary of our great-grandfathers has revived in a spooky way, and with a dull repertoire of political terms—which one does not attempt to rebaptize and at which the naïve joy of discovery delights among contemporaries—spread out from all the platforms of the public opinion.

Here lies the lack of consistency that is part and parcel of the anti-Semitic nature of national movements which define themselves as revolutionary. Even if one overlooks those sects which create their world-view out of negation, one will be amazed by the lack of confident instinct from which the blow against the Jew often comes, often with great effort; but it is always too flat to be effective. The reason for this is that one tries to determine and destroy the influence of the Jew on German life in accordance with the methods of real individualistic thinking. Favored are the images of traditional medicine in which a neutralization of a swarm of single-cell attacking bacteria plays an important role. Against this, demagogically seen, nothing could be done—and demagogy plays an important role among the arts, if one suspects that behind that lies a priesthood which is superior to its profane doctrine. Thus, the praise of honesty is the highest thing that the critique has to grant.

The Jew, however, is not the father, but rather, child of liberalism, as he can play no creative role, neither positively nor negatively, as far as German life is concerned. In order to be able to become dangerous, infectious, corrosive, it was necessary for him to first have a status that enabled him to be in his new figure, the figure of the civilized Jew. That status was created by liberalism, by the grand declaration of the independence of the spirit, and it likewise will be destroyed again by nothing but the complete bankruptcy of liberalism. Any attack on the civilization-Jew [Zivilisationsjude] launched from the liberal sphere has failed, for exactly there, where it could succeed, its effect would simply be equal to external disinfection. And the liberal sphere reaches, as we said, much further than one commonly believes. Hence, it is not a coincidence that Italian Fascism is on good terms with the civilization-Jew, for fascism is no doubt nothing but the latter phase of liberalism, a simplified and abridged procedure, as it were, a brutal shorthand of the liberalist constitution which has become too hypocritical, too empty, and above all, too verbose. But for Germany, neither fascism nor bolshevism is proper; they incite, but will not satisfy, and one can expect from that land that it be capable of a distinct and stricter solution.

What justifies German hope is the will to Gestalt, the beginnings—scattered and yet strong—of the morphological thinking which stands opposed to liberalism, as water is to fire. It is a new sight of the inner Gestalt, of the character of the things that, still hesitating, trains in observing, and strives to penetrate into the depth, not through abstraction, but rather through originality. Although this posture, this new German posture as such, does not have to occupy itself with the civilization-Jew; it will encounter him with certainty in each of its steps as an opponent who immediately feels endangered by it—for the end of this will is the Gestalt of the German Empire as a power which lies on its original roots. Wherein the German borders lie, what German literature, German history, German science, German psychology really are, what the war, work, dream, and art mean to us—that this and much more is seen and recognized and becomes effective—this is the only danger which threatens the civilization-Jew. For all this confirms the first German principle, which the Jew always strives to deny— namely, the principle that there is a fatherland which is called Germany. One of the obvious consequences stemming from that principle is that there are Jews. The finest and most skillful efficacy of the civilization-Jew is seen in the uninterrupted proving that there is no Jew; in any serious Jewish theory one can sense this statement. The recognition and realization of the distinct German Gestalt separates visibly and clearly the Jewish Gestalt like clear und motionless water renders the oil visible as a distinct layer. At the moment, however, in which the Jew gets unmistakably seen as a distinct force obeying its distinct rules, he ceases to be virulent and thus dangerous to the German people. The most effective weapon against him, the master of all the masks, is to notice him.

The civilization-Jew still sticks en masse to liberalism, to which he owes everything. Admittedly, his dialectic—that endless feuilleton prattle of civilization—has become so dilute that it starts to disgust even harmless minds. As one of the penultimate efforts to maintain the old position, one can, with certainty, foretell the participation of the Jew in the legitimist restoration. To the same extent, however, in which the German will acquires sharpness and Gestalt, also the faintest illusion of the Jew to be German in Germany will become unrealizable, and he will find himself standing before his last alternative which is, in Germany, either to be a Jew or not to be at all. 

[published in “Die Kommenden”, 9 September 1930]

[ankulometes]

A Guide to Albion Pt. 1: Words and Numbers

This guide is written for a reader from our universe. Yet it describes a reality that exists parallel to it that possesses numerous fundamental differences. Of foremost importance amongst these are language, numbers, and systems of quantification. This necessarily raises questions concerning how one talks about this other place, how it sounds, and how it looks written down.

Broadly speaking, there are two approaches: translate everything and translate nothing. They represent two ends of a sliding scale. Translating everything into words and concepts from our world with which you, the reader, are familiar comes at the cost of distortion and dissemblance. It obscures what is different. Conversely, translating everything is an exercise in academic obscurantism that renders little in a manner that can be comprehended. Furthermore, it would be disingenuous not to acknowledge the fictional character of The Chiasmic universe and, thus, the creative licence that exists.

Despite appearances to the contrary, I have little interest as an author in devising a completely new language from beginning to end and absolutely none in writing a story which, in the manner of Tolkien or Star Trek, excessively indulges such flights of fancy. To do so in any comprehensive and coherent fashion necessitates inventing not only one language but additionally reconceiving its entire historical influence on others. But, on the other hand, people there definitely don’t speak like us. Their history has so many differences, it would be impossible to see how they could.

We might call the lingua franca of contemporary Albion “Brytanic”. In terms of global prevalence and status, we might think of it as being the parallel to English. It derives predominantly from a predecessor known as Ancient Alban that was spoken in the Brytanic Isles in this reality since before the dawn of civilization. However, I imagine that it has incorporated a wide range of influences from across their globe over the years.

The earliest form of this language is a hypothetical linguistic construct known as Proto-Alban. It represents a theoretical late-Neolithic form that has been extrapolated by modern scholars in their world from what is known of the genealogy and morphological development of Ancient Alban more generally. A great deal is known because their ancient predecessors left their own “Rosetta Stone” in the form of an artefact known as the Cynmaen: a huge, intricately inscribed slate menhir some 20 metrs high and 10 metrs wide that is understood as a record of political leadership and constitution spanning more than 1,500 years of history. It is also the single most important source for students of Ancient Alban and its development over the course of their Bronze Age and early Iron Age.

The Cynmaen documents a form of the language known in the modern day as “Old Ancient Alban”. It is believed to have been spoken in the Brytanic Isles between around 1500 AM and 2800 AM. At this time, the inhabitants of the archipelago possessed a form of ideographic rune script known to archaeologists in their present day as “Runic A”. However, the precise nature of the relationship between the spoken and the written form is unknown to them, if one ever existed. Consequently, reconstruction of Old Ancient Alban is predominantly based upon references to former modes of speech in later works.

“High Ancient Alban” is considered to be the classical form of the language that took hold during their late Iron Age from ~2800 AM onwards. It is marked by the emergence of a phonetic script known as Runic B which is widely thought to have formed the basis of most modern Western alphabetic and numeral systems. The appearance of Runic B is thought to have been the result of disruptions to social, economic, and cultural practices around this time combined with the establishment of relations with Phoenician traders from the Mediterranean and Near East. It is documented through the various surviving works of history, philosophy, literature, and poetry in addition to records of it made by other cultures, notably the Illenes, with whom the Albans had contact.

“Late Ancient Alban” was a Latin-influenced form of the language that developed from the late 33th cantury following the establishment of the Roman Alliance. It was predominantly spoken throughout the southern regions of the Brytanic Isles that came to be known as Brytan. Speech and writing in the northern and far western regions generally remained closer to High Ancient Alban and this is reflected in contemporary Gaelic, Cymranic, and Cernic dialects. However, in their world, Latin itself was not unrelated to Old Ancient Alban, so the differences were not all that great.

The symbiotic decline and fall of both the Western Roman Empire and ancient Alban civilization occurred in concert with the advent of a complex and little understood historical period during which there were extensive migrations of peoples throughout Europe. Albion and its language came to be influenced by a number of cultural influxes, of which the most significant were the Saesan and, later, the Olydynan who invaded and subsequently migrated in large numbers from the coastal regions of northern Europe and Sgandinafia around the countries now known as Danmarc and Olwe.

Although many who identify as Saesan (or “Anglan”, as they call themselves) still speak their own obscure language amongst themselves, both they and the Olydynan adopted the Late Ancient Alban language and culture of the regions in which they settled, mainly Brytan.

Much as had been the case with the Romans before them, this intermingling introduced a host of new vocabulary, led to a simplification of some grammatical structures, and increased complexity in other areas.

Once again, as with Latin, the languages they brought with them were not unrelated to much earlier forms of those spoken in their newly adopted homeland. Modern Brytanic and its associated Gaelic and Cymranic dialects emerged over the course of the ensuing canturies as a result of this feedback loop. Over much the same period, it has absorbed a wealth of additional influences from across the globe, including such diverse sources as Dynolan Frantsaic, Illenic, Twrcic, Arabic, Inwic, Hindi, Gudgurati, and Urdw.

While I endeavour to remain consistent in my approach to the use of this imagined language, aesthetic considerations are typically paramount. Any “Brytanic” that is used should not be considered to constitute an accurate rendering of an alternate language. It’s a form of transliteration intended to provide an impression of difference. Generally speaking, supposedly Brytanic words are used for proper nouns, for untranslatable or problematic words and concepts (e.g. numbers, dates etc), or to draw attention to distinctions between their world and ours.

For example, it would be both facile and clumsy to talk of Clwb Troedbel Enadig o Mancar when Mancar United FC delineates more clearly the fact that one is referring to a football club located in a particular named place and suggests that the sport is basically the same thing in their world as in yours. Elsewhere, talking of Sant Cara, rather than Saint Cara, feels sufficiently close to English as to be understandable while adopting a stylistic tweak that suggests a difference in their religious inheritance that is important. By contrast, changing Mancar to “Manchester” just because it is a city that happens to occupy more or less equivalent geographical coordinates would elide an etymology that sits behind toponyms while creating the misleading impression that it is exactly the same place.

This impressionistic approach is most evident in the use of a number of English pseudo-Brytanicisms such as “cantury”, “sinade”, and “Brytanic” itself. To say “century” and “decade” would be misleading. But, in the same breath, you could use any words you want for these concepts of 144 years and 12 years that feel right to you if you so desire. Likewise, to say “Britain” (and, by extension, “British”) does not allow for the sheer extent of the difference between it and Brytan, including the simple matter of how I imagine it to be pronounced and the fact that it is a country of Albion rather than a somewhat nebulous geopolitical concept.

I would argue that, amongst other abstract properties, it is important that their numbering system is base-12, that they possess a perennial calendar and a common system of weights and measures, that their language has a syncretic quality, and that their script evolved from an ideographic system. I have represented all of that through an unholy mash-up of Celtic, Germanic, and Latin languages because I think that works aesthetically. But there is nothing necessary about it. Since this world projects a past in which this supposed Alban cultural root occupied northwestern Europe and collided with an Indo-European root, none of those languages I’ve used as a source would be the same in their world (even if they existed) as those I have mashed together. You may as well imagine that they speak Martian: it’s the same thing. That being said, I should probably explain how I imagine it being spoken in my own mind.

You can speak these words however you like. Personally, I like to imagine posh people in their world talking in a manner that melds Richard Burton, Anthony Hopkins, and Sean Connery with a little rhotic brogue thrown in for good measure. And everyone trills their r’s in an aspirated manner which makes it sounds as if they are auditioning for the part of Gimli in Lord of the Rings.

An “s” at the beginning of a word is almost always intended as be voiced as an “sh” (in the Gaelic manner) but more typically as an “s” sound when it appears in the middle or at the end of a word (unless it appears there as a result of a syncretic operation, such as in the names of larger numbers). By contrast, “sc” at the start of a word is a hard “sk” sound but a soft “sh” when in the middle or at the end.

The letter “i” is always long (as in “queen”). They use the letter “e” for the short “e” sound (as in “bet”) but “y” for the slightly elongated equivalent (as in “air”), much as Italian distinguishes between “é” and “e”. “A”, “o” and “u” are always short, as in “bat”, “got”, and “but”. They use the letter “w” for the “oo” sound which, if you listen carefully, almost always has a little “w” sound before or after it in English (and vice-versa when we say “w”). The exceptions are the digraphs “ae” (pronounced “a” as in “hay”), “ei” (“i” as in “eye”), “oa” (“o” as in “hoax”), and “ou” (“ow” as in “rowdy” but leaning more toward “oh-uh” than “oh-woo”).

They do have the letters “j”, “q”, “k”, “x”, and “z” but they are very rare and exotic imports, usage of which is considered to be somewhat pretentious. It is more common to use the digraph “dg” in place of “j” as in “judge” and “ia/io” etc for “ya/yo” and so on. A soft “j”, as in the French “je”, typically becomes an “s” that is pronounced “sh”.

When it appears on its own, “g” is always hard but pronounced “ñ” as in “new” when combined as “gn” and as a soft Greek-style gamma in the “gw” and “gh” digraphs. Likewise, “c” is always hard unless it appears as “ch”, in which case it is pronounced as in the Scottish “loch”. Imported words, often Frantsaic, that use a soft “ch” tend to be rendered in Brytanic as an “s” and pronounced “sh”. The hard “ch”, as in “chuff”, also typically imported, is usually rendered and pronounced as “ts”.

The “q” sound in “queen” is written “cw”. However, somewhat confusingly, that particular digraph can also be pronounced “coow”, as in cwrmi, which is their word for beer. It’s one of those things where you just have to know which is used for any particular word. Either way, the sounds are not that far apart if you listen to them carefully.

Foreign words that use “x” or “z” are generally rendered in Brytanic with “ch” and “s” (although some regional accents, especially in the southwest, consistently pronounce “s” as “z”).

A “th” is usually meant to be hard, as in “think”. The “dd” digraph is often used to indicate a soft “th”, as in “then”. However, the latter has become archaic in recent times. The “dd” digraph is an ancient practice that has all but died out in their modern era.

Since their equivalent of our medieval period, the Brytanic language has gone through a period of considerable transition. Many words that were previously separate lexemes (such as “o” for “of”) have merged into their neighbours over time in common use cases as a result of lenition. Extensive immigration and mixing of populations has changed or softened some of the more distinctive phonemes. For example, the “ll” voiceless alveolar lateral fricative has transformed in many cases into just an “l” sound (rather than “ch-l”). Where it remains in use, it has often come to be spelled “chl”.

Similarly, historical distinctions between dialects in the use of “ff”, “f”, and “v” in writing means that rendering these in text is wildly inconsistent. Where the “Brytanic” are thought to have traditionally voiced “s” and “f”, their near continental neighbours have “z” and “v”. However, this is very much a matter of accent and dialect. Even where they might all still speak the same way, a “Latin tendency” sometimes prevails amongst certain sections of the educated classes leading to an increased use of “v” and “z”. At the same time, others keen to follow a putative “nativist precedent” promoted “s”, “f”, and “ff” for the same reasons. Ultimately, I imagine that they’ve become largely interchangeable, although it is a confusing matter of pronunciation for people in their world. Regardless, the “Latin tendency” is more “modern” and I reflect that in my transliterations by occasionally using different spellings depending on the historical context in which a word is being used.

No such confusion exists around the pronunciation of the “bh” digraph though. It is definitively a Gaelic-style “v” sound. This is partly because it has always belonged to dialects of the north and west that have not been historically subject to such extensive continental influence.

In addition to pronunciation and spelling, a fair degree of confusion also persists into their present day around grammar. Ancient Alban was a right-branching language with a verb-subject-object word order. So, for example, one says “read I the book” rather than “I read the book”. Modern Brytanic, by contrast, I imagine to be more left-branching. However, any “official” or “correct” approach in this regard is not universally adhered to in regional dialects and quotidian speech. And that is before we even address the matter of registers.

Like any language, Brytanic possesses a number of registers that are considered to be appropriate for use in particular contexts. The two main ones that remain notably distinct are an increasingly archaic literary-poetic register and the “standard” modern quotidian register. Just so you can get a taste of how I imagine the difference, below are pseudo-translations of the opening passage from “A Tale of Two Cities” (they have this book, too!) in both registers.

First, in the literary register:

Arda yr ansar manwe, arad yr ansar manwe, oedothi yr paellath manwe, oedothi yr foledath manwe, epocothi yr credath manwe, epocothi yr ancredath manwe, olud yr odymor manwe, tywyl yr odymor manwe, oba yr ogwanwyn manwe, anoba yr ogaean manwe, ollath widor galwnwe, nath widor galwnwe, nef gan oll sythol fyndwnwevy, oll cyfeirnir sythol fyndwnwevy.

And, by comparison, in the modern quotidian register (that Siarl Dicyns most certainly did not use himself when writing):

Manwe yr ansar arda, manwe yr ansar arad, manwe yr oed o paellath, manwe yr oed o foledath, manwe yr epoc o credath, manwe yr epoc o ancredath, manwe yr dymor o’lud, manwe yr dymor o tywyl, manwe yr gwanwyn o’ba, manwe yr gaean o anoba, galwnwe ollath dor wi, galwnwe nath dor wi, fyndwnwevy oll sythol gan nef, fyndwnwevy oll sythol nir cyfeir.

As might be observed, the difference between the registers is quite marked and represents a shift in the language over the last few hundred years from being predominantly right-branching to predominantly left-branching. Literary language writes “dark and cold the night was” whereas modern quotidian speech prefers “it was a cold, dark night”.

Literary-poetic registers also make far more extensive use of the syncretic capacity of Brytanic syntax to create neologisms through the use of prefixes and suffixes. In addition to enriching meaning through inventive use, this can help smooth out awkward conjunctions and syllables and enhance the rhythmic flow and scansion. In the hands of a skillful writer or orator, it can be powerfully evocative. However, it is easy to do it badly and come across as a pretentious windbag. But many still revere it as the language of Sigsber and the Beibl.

Where everyday speech encounters awkward conjunctions, such as “o” before a word starting with the letter O, the poetic register simply ellides the two using an apostrophe. Over time, such contractions have a tendency to become normative, with the word adopting a permanently contracted state that then becomes acceptable for use within the quotidian register. Although the translation of words from one register to another goes both ways in practice.

While it may not come adorned with poetic enhancement in everyday speech, right-branching syntax remains very common in a number of regional dialects, notably those of Belerion, Cymran, and Gaelic-speaking regions.

The only other register that has remained in widespread usage is a formal register that one uses mainly when writing official correspondence or when doing things like establishing business with new clients and suchlike. Its grammar combines the right-branching structure of the literary register with the individuated lexemes of the quotidian register. Additionally, unlike English but like other European languages in your world and theirs, it involves the use of particular pronouns and verb forms. It is polite, precise, and pedantic.

Despite all of the above minutiae, there are reams of historical and developmental aspects of the language and culture of this supposed world that I quite deliberately conceive myself to be glossing over. At the risk of becoming repetitive, that is because I want it to remain impressionistic, rather than being taken too literally. However, by their nature, numbers leave little room for such an ambiguous approach.

In the universe of Albion in their modern era, almost every nation on earth utilises the base-12 numbering system that was a distinctive feature of the culture of the Brytanic Isles in ancient times. Please be aware that all numbers referred to throughout this guide are base 12 values unless explicitly mentioned otherwise.

In other words, wherever you see the number “10” it actually refers to the numeric value you think of as “12”. This extends all the way up and down the positive and negative integer scale. Thus the number “100” actually means a base 10 value of 144, “1000” a value of 1728, and so on. Moreover, in the chiasmic universe of Albion, there is no abuse of billions and suchlike. They have long billions and long trillions. The equivalent to one billion in their universe is a million million, not a thousand million. By extension, a trillion is a billion billion. Even when they talk about money. There are no US dollar billionaires. Yet.

Obviously, this also means that fractional quantities and proportional values have a different meaning. In base-12, a base-10 fractional value of “one quarter” is expressed as 0.3 and “one third” is 0.4. One of the advantages of their system is that common operations involving divisions of thirds and quarters are somewhat easier to reason about arithmetically as they don’t involve irrational numbers. As a concession to clarity, when talking of base-12 “percantages”, I use the mathematical “proportional to” symbol “∝” rather than “%”.

Given this radical difference, it is necessary at the very least to address the question of how the additional numerals are spoken, either in Brytanic or English, and how the additional two numerals are written. Since we’re dealing with numbers, the easiest way to do this is with a simple table:

Numeral (base-12) Equivalent (base-10) Brytanic Name Brytanic Ordinal English Translation 0.1 / ⅒ 0.8333.. Sinar A tenth 0.2 / ⅙ 0.1666.. Swar A sixth 0.3 / ¼ 0.25 Triar A quarter 0.4 / ⅓ 0.3333.. Petar A third 0.6 / ½ 0.5 Hanar A half 0 0 Nil, Sero Nath / 0th Zero/Nil/Nought 1 1 Ena Enath / 1th One 2 2 Do Doth / 2th Two 3 3 Tri Trith / 3th Three 4 4 Peta Petath / 4th Four 5 5 Pema Pemath / 5th Five 6 6 Swa Swath / 6th Six 7 7 Seta Setath / 7th Seven 8 8 Owt Owtath / 8th Eight 9 9 Nin Ninth / 9th Nine Ʌ 10 Dec Decath / Ʌth Dec Ɛ 11 El Elth / Ɛth El 10 12 Sin Sinth / 10th Ten 11 13 Enolasin Eleven 12 14 Dalasin Twelve 13 15 Trilasin Thirseen 14 16 Petalasin Fourseen 15 17 Pemalasin Fifseen 16 18 Swalasin Sixseen 17 19 Setalasin Sevenseen 18 20 Owtolasin Eighseen 19 21 Ninolasin Nineseen 1Ʌ 22 Decolasin Decseen 1Ɛ 23 Elvolasin Elseen 20 24 Dasin Twendy 30 36 Trisin Thirdy 40 48 Petasin Fourdy 50 60 Pemasin Fifdy 60 72 Sawsin Sixdy 70 84 Setasin Sevendy 80 96 Owtsin Eightdy 90 108 Ninsin Ninedy Ʌ0 120 Decsin Decdy Ɛ0 132 Elvsin Eldy 100 144 Can (ena can) Hundred 1,000 1,728 Mil (ena mil) Thousand 1,000,000 2,985,984 Miliwn (ena miliwn) Million 1,000,000,000,000 8,916,100,448,256 Daliwn (ena daliwn) Trillion

As you will observe, I choose to just call numbers by English names except for the two additional numerals, for which I use the Brytanic words “el” and “dec”. And I also tend to use Brytanic ordinals such as “1th” instead of “1st”. Usually, I just write the numerals, rather than spell the words, so such matters are entirely up to you. But, when I say them in my head, I like to distinguish base-10 “teens” and “tys” from dozenal base-12 “seens” and “dys”. Other than that, everything is calculable.

An astute reader may have observed the Brytanic novelty of having an ordinal for the 0th position — an interesting philosophical concept, if ever there was one, and something that is indicative of their slightly different relationship to numbers. Historically, zero was a very important concept in Albion for what we might think of as “religious” reasons. Also, circles.

There are a number of other idiosyncratic aspects of their language which it is helpful to understand if one wishes to gain a view on how it highlights areas in which their thinking and attitudes are different from our own.

Brytanic is a comparatively easy language to learn. Despite countless years of historical development and diverse cultural influence, its syntax, spelling, and pronunciation remain pretty consistent. It has none of the silent letters and few of the alternate pronunciations of the same phonemes that pervade English. Yet there is a gulf between its basic and advanced use. I imagine that speaking or writing Brytanic is a bit like playing the piano. Anyone can bash out a few notes that are more or less harmonious but playing a symphony requires a great deal of skill.

Understanding the subtext present in the use of formal, literary, or quotidian forms (or their mixing and matching), the distinctness or merging of lexemes and their position relative to an operative term, a play that is being made between two words amongst a vast accretion of vocabulary. These are sophisticated skills that set apart the native speaker from the foreigner, the educated from the uneducated, the rich from the poor. They distinguish the witty from the obnoxious and the insightful from the facile and obtuse.

To many amongst the inhabitants of Albion, their language — whichever dialect they speak — is a source of pride and a badge of identity. This much is implied in its name in their language: Brytarath. The “-ar” suffix is an active verb ending equivalent to “-er” in English (which is alternate spelling for them). It suggests that one is actively being or becoming Brytanic through the act of speaking or writing in it. Furthermore, the “-ath” suffix (or “-iath” and the etymologically related “-ad” and “-iad” endings) denote that, over and above merely pertaining to something Brytanic (for which they use the “-ic” ending much as we do), it is definitive of it. Thus, Brytarath is (in a grammatical sense, at least) the definitive performance of being Brytanic. It is hierarchically positioned in a conscious manner above dialects of Brytanic and other languages that merely pertain to a particular place, such as Gaelic, Cernic, Cymric, Anglanic — or even Frantsaic (French, the official language of Gawl) and Illenic (Greek) — by means of this suffix. Clearly, such constructs have both a political and a historical dimension. For example, in their present day, there is a “woke” tendency to call the language Albanarath or Albanic.

Then there are other subtleties that are generally less offensive, politically and philosophically. Brytanic is possessed of an equal facility with scientific precision and poetic ambiguity. I have already touched on the zero ordinal. It is also possible, for example, to negate almost any concept through the use of the an- prefix. This gives rise to the fantastically idiosyncratic word anni, which means “not no”. This is a deliberately ambiguous reply that conventionally suggests “yes” while leaving room for plausible deniability.

In a similar vein, you can add fal to something, usually a verb, to indicate that it “may be or do”; yr trahen esdyth redanifal. “The train may run today”. Or maybe it won’t.

Similes (and clichés) can easily be created through the application of fel, which is very much like the Italian word “cosi” in your world and means “like so”, “in this way”, or “how” (when not a question). He redanivy trahenfel. “He is [in the process of] running like a train”.

Then there is hirath, a regular winner in their world of “favourite Brytanic word” polls of spurious legitimacy. It refers to a form of longing nostalgia or yearning for possibility. It is similar to the Almaenan concept of sehnsucht. However, it is closer to a sense of excitement for what might have been or what might be, rather than mourning. They also have oedath, which refers to the definitive character of an age or epoch, much as “zeitgeist” does.

The words for house or home (ty), household or family (tydan), and land, country or nation (tyr) are all etymologically related and homophonous. However, there are notably no “tyrs” within Albion. Brytan, Cymran, Godan, and Eirean construct their names using the -an/-dan suffix. This is a little bit like the English “-dom” but actually derives in Brytanic from ban in Ancient Alban which also gave rise to their words ben and pen (which basically mean “chief” or “head”). Historically, the -an/-dan suffix denotes the jurisdiction of ben/pen, specifically a kind of ur-chieftain that existed within the ancient constitution.

Albion itself is clearly neither a tyr nor a dan. The -ion suffix denotes a place within which something or someone resides or an activity occurs. For example, the modern day siars of Cantion and Trivantion are the vestiges of the ancient tribal territories of the Cantiacis and Trinovantis. Albion on the other hand is the place where Alba, a kind of earth god/giant was believed to actually exist. In other words, he was the foundation of the land on which the Brytanic Isles literally sat. Yet, at the same time, Alban was the first ban jurisdiction.

One could go on and on in this vein for there are inevitably countless subtleties to one of the world’s few extant languages that, along with the likes of Illenic, can legitimately claim a direct continuity with some of the earliest known forms of human speech and writing. My aim is not to document a fictional invention but to sprinkle it judiciously in order to convey the fabric of a world of which it is an integral and formative part.

It is a milieu that is pervaded by a sense of timelessness that comes from the perduring presence of an explicitly ancient lineage, such as one experiences in places like China and Greece in your world. A world in which seemingly everything is simultaneously and eternally ancient and modern at the same time in every instant.

They are people who have a speech that may be clipped and articulated or smooth and lilting depending on accent but which is always rhythmic and sonorous, as though it were in 9/8 or 12/8 time. They speak words with breath through the mouth from the stomach, and never with a nasal whine, in a manner that impacts their physiognomy, mentality, and bearing as well as their sound.

They live in a society that possesses a linguistic framework for communication in a variety of pre-established modes, even if many do not understand how to use them and even fewer how to do so well. This provides both a licence and expectation for expression that is formal or informal or lyric or poetic or precise.

Much like English, their vocabulary is multilayered with more than one word of varying origin for the same thing. Furthermore, a bit like German or Japanese in your world, it has a host of terms for subtle distinctions and ineffable concepts that have developed over aeons of conversation and literature. And their “native” words are knowingly formed from lexemes such that combinations enter into or fall out of use at a remarkable pace.

With any luck, these qualities and others will be abundantly clear through the way in which I tackle the topic of Albion and the universe of The Chiasm more generally and this entire introduction will have been unnecessary. Ideally, no use of language will be jarring — whether it is an English translation or an actual or pseudo Brytanic word — and will only serve to weave the desired background fabric. That has to be a measure of success for the description of any alternate world.

[delshlangcnsl]

Language of Iceland

Icelandic is the de facto national language of Iceland, spoken by 319,000 Icelandic citizens. Icelandic is considered to be an Indo-European language, which is part of a subgroup of North Germanic languages. The group once numbered five languages, including Norwegian, Faroese (the native language of the Faroe Islands, which is also spoken in parts of Denmark), and Norn (formerly spoken in the northern islands of Orkney and Shetland, in the north of Scotland) and Greenlandic Norse. It is most closely related to Norwegian and Faroese, in particular the latter, the written version of which closely resembles Icelandic. Icelandic is not only the national identity of Icelandic citizens; it is also the official language of the country as adopted, but also its constitution in 2011. Iceland, as a country, is disconnected and exhibits linguistic homogeneity. It never had several languages. Gaelic was the native language of the early Icelanders in the past. Besides, Icelandic sign language is the official minority language as of 2011

Icelandic is a medium for education, although some learning does take place in other languages. It's the language of government, commercial enterprise, and the mainstream press. In addition to several TV channels, there are several Icelandic newspapers, magazines, and radio stations. There are also speakers from Icelandic in the United States, Canada, and Denmark. On the other hand, immigrants bring with them their languages. Thus, 2.72% of the population speaks Polish, 0.44% speaks Lithuanian, and 0.33% of the population speaks English approximately. Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, French, and Spanish are also very small percentages of the population present as mother tongues.

If you're looking for Icelandic Translation Services, you can reach out to us at Delsh Business Consultancy to take full advantage of your abundant business opportunities. Delsh Business Consultancy (DBC) is providing English to Icelandic and Icelandic to English translation services worldwide. At Delsh Business Consultancy, we help our clients globally with high-quality Icelandic language Translation services.

Norwegian was similar to Icelandic, but since the 14th century, it was increasingly influenced by neighbouring languages such as Swedish and Danish. Language resistance to change is so exclusive that today's speakers can understand texts and scripts such as Sagas from the 12th century. Even when Scandinavian languages were losing their inflection across Europe, Icelandic maintained an almost authentic form of old Scandinavian grammar. The native bible has further developed Icelandic. However, the language was limited until the 19th century when Iceland came together like a nation, and the Scandinavian scholars rekindled it. Stringent orthography along etymological lines has been established, and Icelandic today is very different from other Scandinavian languages.

Modern Day Icelandic Language

As far as grammar, vocabulary, and orthography are concerned, modern Icelandic has preserved the Scandinavian language in the best possible way. The language has maintained its three genders: masculine, feminine, and neuter. There are still four cases for nouns; Accusative, dative, nominative, and genitive. Although the language adopted certain terms from Celtic, Latin, Danish, and Roma, the purism of the 19th century replaced foreign words with Icelandic forms. Icelanders choose to make a new word rather than borrow it from outsiders. Icelandic has remained unchanged for many centuries, despite the adoption of certain features of the Gaelic language. The country maintained linguistic homogeneity for a long time, but with the advent of northern trade routes, the language environment changed. Traders and clergymen have introduced the English, German, French, Dutch and Basque languages to Iceland.

Icelandic is a very irregular language, with a noun morphology system that could be very unpredictable for a language learner. Verbs, on the other hand, can be modified for tense, mood, number, and person, just as they would be in most Indo-European languages. While there are four cases, most verb declinations need to be memorized. Adjectives, on the other hand, can be rejected in up to 130 different ways. But, despite how daunting Icelandic might seem, according to the Icelandic Ministry of Education, more than 200 thousand people from all over the world have accepted it, learning it, and are in awe of its rich history.

[thatleomartinez-blog]

Hunting Coyotes at Night Tips

INTRODUCTION

The coyote, whose name comes from the Nahuatl (Aztec language) word coyote, belongs to the family of canines, including dogs, wolves, jackals, foxes, wild dogs.

Canids are believed to be native to North America's great plains where, 40 to 50 million years ago, in the Eocene, their common ancestor lived. Very quickly, the fox branch, Vulpes, broke away from this common trunk. A little later, in the Pliocene, the other components of canines are differentiated, notably wolves and coyotes, which, despite their close kinship, evolve separately. At the end of this period, about 2.5 million years ago, Canis esophagus appears, the ancestor of the coyotes, which must have been a little larger than the present species' animals. According to more recent Pleistocene fossils found in the United States in Maryland and the Cita Cañon in Texas, his descendants closely resemble him. They then rub shoulders with the saber-toothed tiger on the American continent, which still roams the plains.

Since this distant time, coyotes have changed little in their morphology and have slightly differentiated from their ancestors. However, the comparative study of the skulls shows that their cranium has developed, but that the frontal bone is narrower in modern animals than it was in their ancestors. Their non-specialization over the ages has allowed coyotes to colonize new spaces and to adapt to all kinds of habitats and new situations. Thus, they are hunters, but they can survive by feeding on carrion, insects, or fruit. By ridding wild herds of weaker animals and eliminating already doomed individuals, they play their part in the natural balance.

Originally probably inhabiting the Great Plains, the southwestern United States, and Mexico, coyotes have greatly expanded their habitat, which, although uniquely American, also includes deserts, mountains, and forests. And the outskirts of large cities. Thanks to man, who changed the environment and hunted wolves until their almost total extinction, their current territory is immense because they have taken over the vast areas formerly occupied.

THE LIFE OF THE COYOTE A SILENT AND INTELLIGENT HUNT The coyote is a solitary hunter that feeds on anything it can catch. In the central plains, where the climatic conditions are relatively stable, it has the same essential diet all year round, made up for more than 75% of hares. Rabbits, mice, pheasants are also among his favorite prey. Occasionally it does not disdain muskrats, raccoons, polecats, opossums, and beavers, as well as snakes and large insects.

In late summer and fall, the coyote will eat fruit that has fallen to the ground. Blackberries, blueberries, pears, apples, peanuts then represent 50% of his diet. He knows how to choose a fully ripe watermelon and cut it in half to taste its juicy pulp. Neither does he disdain the soybean meal or cottonseed meal distributed to cattle.

In more arid environments, such as Mexico, the coyote mainly hunts small rodents. It also attacks marmots and ground squirrels in Canada, ground squirrels that look like large guinea pigs. But these two species hibernate, and in winter, in these northern regions, it is forced, to survive, to become a scavenger.

In suburban or urban areas, the coyote feeds on human waste, products manufactured by him, such as dog food, or even his pets.

ALONE OR IN COOPERATION When it hears prey or spots it from afar thanks to its keen eyesight, the coyote approaches it silently, facing the wind, tail low, with slow steps interspersed with pauses. Arrived at 2 meters from his victim, he leaps on her and bites her neck. To finish her off, he keeps her in his mouth and shakes her violently. Death is quick. It usually devours the animal on the spot, even eating the bones of small prey.

When coyotes live together, they choose larger prey such as deer, elk, and other ungulates. They run around the herd. In a panic, an individual is isolated, then surrounded and attacked.

When the coyotes hunt in pairs, they force the isolated to run in a circle, taking turns to tire them out. This technique is used with caribou. The killed prey is disemboweled with claws and teeth and divided.

TWILIGHT AND MORNING HUNTERS

Twilight and morning hunters

Essentially nocturnal, the adults move around a lot, hunting more readily at dawn or dusk. On the other hand, young people between 4 months and a year old move more during the day and less at night. Their often unsuccessful hunting attempts force them to devote a lot of time to it, but they still have no territory or offspring to watch over.

SCAVENGER TO SURVIVE IN WINTER In Alaska and in several Canadian provinces, where they arrived following the gold miners in the mid-nineteenth th century, coyotes have learned to face the bitter cold of winter. In these regions, animals must live and feed when the temperature is -10 ° C. The thick fur of the Far North's coyotes covers their whole body and has the same insulating power as that of the gray wolf. The guard hairs reach 11 cm long compared to 5 cm in animals living in a warmer climate. Thick and tight, the undercoat can measure 5 cm in thickness.

But the coyote does not run well in thick snow. However, hares and rabbits do not come out of their burrows when the outside temperature is too low, and groundhogs hibernate. The coyote would not survive the winter if it did not fall back on dead animals. Feeding on all the carrion he finds, he shares them with his fellows.

However, if the wolves arrive, he must give way. He sometimes buries or hides to return to them later. Its best ally is the cold, which finishes off sick or weakened animals, often at the tail of herds of large herbivores. Thus, in winter, it therefore, moves after the latter, devouring dead ungulates. Watching for the slightest failure, he does not hesitate to give the "coup de grace" to elk or caribou, exhausted and unable to defend themselves. If the snow is not too thick and the carrion is insufficient, the coyotes will join forces to attack.

OFTEN SOLITARY, THE COYOTE PREFERS TO LIVE AS A COUPLE Halfway between the fox, solitary, and the wolf, which lives in organized packs, the coyote is a relatively pleasant animal. The male-female pair is the basic unit of this society, where one also meets many solitary animals and herds.

The couple is formed in the middle of winter, at the beginning of the mating season, and sometimes remain united for several years, sharing den and territory.

HIERARCHICAL FAMILY GROUPS In areas where the density of coyotes is relatively low, some animals live solitary. Usually, they are the ones who howl at nightfall from the top of the steep rocks.

In regions where coyotes are numerous and food abundant, small groups are formed, comprising 5 or 6 individuals, that is to say, the parents accompanied by the young of the previous year. These family groups are hierarchical, with the oldest animals dominating and leading the rest of the herd. This type of association also appears when small rodents become scarce. Only substantial cooperation then allows the coyotes to catch animals the size of an elk or a caribou, often faster than them.

Real clashes between coyotes are rare. Grunts and stern expressions are often enough for animals to give up the fight and submit. He must then leave the winner's territory or abandon him the carcass on which he is feasting.

Gambling is frequent. Fake fights, chases, and nibbling are expected in a family. This is part of the education of young people: parents teach them to communicate and to hunt.

THE CRY OF THE COYOTE The repertoire of coyotes is immense: barks like a dog, howl like a wolf, barks like a small puppy, growls ... They use combinations of all these sounds to call the members of their group signal their presence or immediate danger. They also seem to enjoy listening to each other bark or howl in the dark. This is how the solitary animals gathering for a hunting party at nightfall bring about a discordant concert famous throughout the American West and audible for miles around.

A VARIABLE AREA Each coyote, each couple or family group has its territory, centered on the lodge or den. The limits of this territory are marked by all the occupants, who mark it out very regularly by urinating. But few coyotes fight to deny the entry of their domain to a congener. The dominated animal is content to move away to seek asylum elsewhere. However, it seems that groups defend their territory more actively than pairs or solitary animals. Loud crashes, but not very violent, sometimes take place at the borders. The coyotes seem to recognize each other from a distance, up to 200 m. When two individuals meet, if they already know each other, they go their way.

The territory (from a few kilometers to over 50 km) depends on coyotes' density in the region, the season, and the abundance of prey. A study conducted in the Yukon Territory, in northwestern Canada, showed that the thickness of coyotes varies from 1 to 9 individuals per 100 km 2 in winter to 2.3 individuals per km 2 in summer. Instead of traveling at night - on average, a coyote crosses, during a night's hunt, 4 km - coyotes can make long journeys to find territory or for food.

BODY LANGUAGE

The whole body of the coyote is used to make itself understood. Rolling up the lips, lowering or raising the tail, flattening or raising the ears, making the hair stand up are all signals. The coat's black patches further reinforce the facial expressions: lips edged with white hairs around the ears' eyes and lips. A dominant coyote opens its eyes wide. An angry coyote flattens its ears. Aggression is indicated by the erect ears, the raised shoulders, the hair on the back bristling, the lips rolled up, the tail slightly raised. A submissive male shows his genitals to the opponent.

AT NINE MONTHS, THE YOUNG ARE ADULTS The mating season lasts from January to March but begins earlier in the North than in the South. More than 90% of females at least 20 months old go into heat. About 60% of 10-month-old females wait until the end of February if weather conditions are favorable. If the winter is too harsh, they will wait another year to mate.

Males are attracted early on by the smell of hormones in the urine of females in heat. Their courtship is assiduous for several weeks because before fertilization (pre-estrus) lasts from 2 to 3 months. Often, several males are interested in the same female and follow her without a fight. At the time of estrus, which lasts ten days, the female chooses her future partner and comes to give him a few blows of the muzzle. Like other canids, coyotes can stay mated for more than 25 minutes. The other males present do not try to intervene and leave to try their luck with a still available female.

A DEVOTED FATHER The couple demarcates a new territory, choose and clean an old badger, marmot, or fox burrow, or decide to dig a new den. During gestation, which lasts about two months (on average 63 days), both mates hunt together and sleep side by side. When the birth approaches, the male manages alone to ensure the daily pittance, and he brings food to his companion. This one arranges the burrow by depositing there leaves, grasses, or hairs torn from its belly. Some females give birth to their young on the bare ground.

A litter includes between 2 and 12 young (on average, 4). Both parents take care of them. Thus, the father helps with the toilet and feeding of the young after they have been weaned. He guards the entrance to the burrow. In case of danger, he transports the young people, one by one, to a safe refuge, sometimes several kilometers away.

For the first ten days, the little ones suck about every 2 hours. Their eyes open around the tenth day. The first teeth appear around the twelfth day. They walk around three weeks and then begin to come out of the den, watched by the parents, to explore their environment. They run before they are six weeks old. They are generally weaned at the age of 1 month but receive in relay regurgitated meat by both parents. They begin to prey on dead prey, mice, then rabbits.

Generally, young males emancipate themselves and leave their family group between 6 and 9 months. Young females tend to stay with their parents.

THE COYOTE'S DEN

When the coyote does not build an ancient badger or fox den to give birth to its litter, it digs one, very characteristic. The entrance, unique, 30 to 60 cm in diameter, is often hidden by bushes. About 3 m long and 40 to 50 cm wide, a tunnel connects it to a central room, or nursery, where the little ones will be installed. About 1.50 m in diameter, it is well ventilated, as the air enters it through a ventilation chim

TO KNOW EVERYTHING ABOUT THE COYOTE

LAROUSSE Search the encyclopedia ...  Home > encyclopedia [wild-life] > coyote coyote Coyote Coyote Coyote CoyoteCoyoteCoyote cry Unlike the wolf, the North American coyote's numbers and its range are expanding, although they are trapped and poisoned by humans. It is one of the few wild animal species capable of surviving in urbanized regions. Its extraordinary ecological plasticity has enabled it to conquer two-thirds of the American continent.

INTRODUCTION The coyote, whose name comes from the Nahuatl (Aztec language) word coyote, belongs to the family of canines, including dogs, wolves, jackals, foxes, wild dogs.

Canids are believed to be native to North America's great plains where, 40 to 50 million years ago, in the Eocene, their common ancestor lived. Very quickly, the fox branch, Vulpes, broke away from this common trunk. A little later, in the Pliocene, the other components of canines are differentiated, notably, wolves and coyotes, which evolve separately despite their close kinship. At the end of this period, about 2.5 million years ago, Canis esophagus appears, the ancestor of the coyotes, which must have been a little larger than the present species' animals. According to more recent Pleistocene fossils found in the United States in Maryland and the Cita Cañon in Texas, his descendants closely resemble him. They then rub shoulders with the saber-toothed tiger on the American continent, which still roams the plains.

Since this distant time, coyotes have changed little in their morphology and have slightly differentiated from their ancestors. However, the comparative study of the skulls shows that their cranium has developed, but that the frontal bone is narrower in modern animals than it was in their ancestors. Their non-specialization over the ages has allowed coyotes to colonize new spaces and to adapt to all kinds of habitats and new situations. Thus, they are hunters, but they can survive by feeding on carrion, insects, or fruit. By ridding wild herds of weaker animals and eliminating already doomed individuals, they play their part in the natural balance.

Originally probably inhabiting the Great Plains, the southwestern United States, and Mexico, coyotes have greatly expanded their habitat, although uniquely American, today also includes deserts, mountains, and forests. And the outskirts of large cities. Thanks to man, who changed the environment and hunted wolves until their almost total extinction, their current territory is immense because they have taken over the vast areas formerly occupied.

THE LIFE OF THE COYOTE A SILENT AND INTELLIGENT HUNT The coyote is a solitary hunter that feeds on anything it can catch. In the central plains, where the climatic conditions are relatively stable, it has the same essential diet all year round, made up for more than 75% of hares. Rabbits, mice, pheasants are also among his favorite prey. Occasionally it does not disdain muskrats, raccoons, polecats, opossums, and beavers, as well as snakes and large insects.

In late summer and fall, the coyote will eat fruit that has fallen to the ground. Blackberries, blueberries, pears, apples, peanuts then represent 50% of his diet. He knows how to choose a fully ripe watermelon and cut it in half to taste its juicy pulp. Neither does he disdain the soybean meal or cottonseed meal distributed to cattle.

In more arid environments, such as Mexico, the coyote mainly hunts small rodents. It also attacks marmots and ground squirrels in Canada, ground squirrels that look like large guinea pigs. But these two species hibernate, and in winter, in these northern regions, it is forced, to survive, to become a scavenger.

In suburban or urban areas, the coyote feeds on human waste, products manufactured by him, such as dog food, or even his pets.

ALONE OR IN COOPERATION When it hears prey or spots it from afar thanks to its keen eyesight, the coyote approaches it silently, facing the wind, tail low, with slow steps interspersed with pauses. Arrived at 2 meters from his victim, he leaps on her and bites her neck. To finish her off, he keeps her in his mouth and shakes her violently. Death is quick. It usually devours the animal on the spot, even eating the bones of small prey.

When coyotes live together, they choose larger prey such as deer, elk, and other ungulates. They run around the herd. In a panic, an individual is isolated, then surrounded and attacked.

When the coyotes hunt in pairs, they force the isolated to run in a circle, taking turns to tire them out. This technique is used with caribou. The killed prey is disemboweled with claws and teeth and divided.

TWILIGHT AND MORNING HUNTERS

Twilight and morning hunters

Essentially nocturnal, the adults move around a lot, hunting more readily at dawn or dusk. On the other hand, young people between 4 months and a year old move more during the day and less at night. Their often unsuccessful hunting attempts force them to devote a lot of time to it, but they still have no territory or offspring to watch over.

SCAVENGER TO SURVIVE IN WINTER In Alaska and in several Canadian provinces, where they arrived following the gold miners in the mid-nineteenth th century, coyotes have learned to face the bitter cold of winter. In these regions, animals must live and feed when the temperature is -10 ° C. The thick fur of the Far North's coyotes covers their whole body and has the same insulating power as that of the gray wolf. The guard hairs reach 11 cm long compared to 5 cm in animals living in a warmer climate. Thick and tight, the undercoat can measure 5 cm in thickness.

But the coyote does not run well in thick snow. However, hares and rabbits do not come out of their burrows when the outside temperature is too low, and groundhogs hibernate. The coyote would not survive the winter if it did not fall back on dead animals. Feeding on all the carrion he finds, he shares them with his fellows.

However, if the wolves arrive, he must give way. He sometimes buries or hides to return to them later. Its best ally is the cold, which finishes off sick or weakened animals, often at the tail of herds of large herbivores. Thus, in winter, it therefore, moves after the latter, devouring dead ungulates. Watching for the slightest failure, he does not hesitate to give the "coup de grace" to elk or caribou, exhausted and unable to defend themselves. If the snow is not too thick and the carrion is insufficient, the coyotes will join forces to attack.

OFTEN SOLITARY, THE COYOTE PREFERS TO LIVE AS A COUPLE Halfway between the fox, solitary, and the wolf, which lives in organized packs, the coyote is a relatively pleasant animal. The male-female pair is the basic unit of this society, where one also meets many solitary animals and herds.

The couple is formed in the middle of winter, at the beginning of the mating season, and sometimes remain united for several years, sharing den and territory.

HIERARCHICAL FAMILY GROUPS In areas where the density of coyotes is relatively low, some animals live solitary. Usually, they are the ones who howl at nightfall from the top of the steep rocks.

In regions where coyotes are numerous and food abundant, small groups are formed, comprising 5 or 6 individuals, that is to say, the parents accompanied by the young of the previous year. These family groups are hierarchical, with the oldest animals dominating and leading the rest of the herd. This type of association also appears when small rodents become scarce. Only substantial cooperation then allows the coyotes to catch animals the size of an elk or a caribou, often faster than them.

Real clashes between coyotes are rare. Grunts and stern expressions are often enough for animals to give up the fight and submit. He must then leave the winner's territory or abandon him the carcass on which he is feasting.

Gambling is frequent. Fake fights, chases, and nibbling are expected in a family. This is part of the education of young people: parents teach them to communicate and to hunt.

THE CRY OF THE COYOTE The repertoire of coyotes is immense: barks like a dog, howl like a wolf, barks like a small puppy, growls ... They use combinations of all these sounds to call the members of their group signal their presence or immediate danger. They also seem to enjoy listening to each other bark or howl in the dark. This is how the solitary animals gathering for a hunting party at nightfall bring about a discordant concert famous throughout the American West and audible for miles around.

A VARIABLE AREA Each coyote, each couple or family group has its territory, centered on the lodge or den. The limits of this territory are marked by all the occupants, who mark it out very regularly by urinating. But few coyotes fight to deny the entry of their domain to a congener. The dominated animal is content to move away to seek asylum elsewhere. However, it seems that groups defend their territory more actively than pairs or solitary animals. Loud crashes, but not very violent, sometimes take place at the borders. The coyotes seem to recognize each other from a distance, up to 200 m. When two individuals meet, if they already know each other, they go their way.

The territory (from a few kilometers to over 50 km) depends on coyotes' density in the region, the season, and the abundance of prey. A study conducted in the Yukon Territory, in northwestern Canada, showed that the thickness of coyotes varies from 1 to 9 individuals per 100 km 2 in winter to 2.3 individuals per km 2 in summer. Instead of traveling at night - on average, a coyote crosses, during a night's hunt, 4 km - coyotes can make long journeys to find territory or for food.

BODY LANGUAGE

Body language

The whole body of the coyote is used to make itself understood. Rolling up the lips, lowering or raising the tail, flattening or raising the ears, making the hair stand up are all signals. The coat's black patches further reinforce the facial expressions: lips edged with white hairs around the ears' eyes and lips. A dominant coyote opens its eyes wide. An angry coyote flattens its ears. Aggression is indicated by the erect ears, the raised shoulders, the hair on the back bristling, the lips rolled up, the tail slightly raised. A submissive male shows his genitals to the opponent.

AT NINE MONTHS, THE YOUNG ARE ADULTS The mating season lasts from January to March but begins earlier in the North than in the South. More than 90% of females at least 20 months old go into heat. About 60% of 10-month-old females wait until the end of February if weather conditions are favorable. If the winter is too harsh, they will wait another year to mate.

Males are attracted early on by the smell of hormones in the urine of females in heat. Their courtship is assiduous for several weeks because before fertilization (pre-estrus) lasts from 2 to 3 months. Often, several males are interested in the same female and follow her without a fight. At the time of estrus, which lasts ten days, the female chooses her future partner and comes to give him a few blows of the muzzle. Like other canids, coyotes can stay mated for more than 25 minutes. The other males present do not try to intervene and leave to try their luck with a still available female.

A DEVOTED FATHER The couple demarcates a new territory, choose and clean an old badger, marmot, or fox burrow, or decide to dig a new den. During gestation, which lasts about two months (on average 63 days), both mates hunt together and sleep side by side. When the birth approaches, the male manages alone to ensure the daily pittance, and he brings food to his companion. This one arranges the burrow by depositing there leaves, grasses, or hairs torn from its belly. Some females give birth to their young on the bare ground.

A litter includes between 2 and 12 young (on average, 4). Both parents take care of them. Thus, the father helps with the toilet and feeding of the young after they have been weaned. He guards the entrance to the burrow. In case of danger, he transports the young people, one by one, to a safe refuge, sometimes several kilometers away.

For the first ten days, the little ones suck about every 2 hours. Their eyes open around the tenth day. The first teeth appear around the twelfth day. They walk around three weeks and then begin to come out of the den, watched by the parents, to explore their environment. They run before they are six weeks old. They are generally weaned at the age of 1 month but receive in relay regurgitated meat by both parents. They begin to prey on dead prey, mice, then rabbits.

Generally, young males emancipate themselves and leave their family group between 6 and 9 months. Young females tend to stay with their parents.

THE COYOTE'S DEN

The coyote's den

When the coyote does not build an ancient badger or fox den to give birth to its litter, it digs one, very characteristic. The entrance, unique, 30 to 60 cm in diameter, is often hidden by bushes. About 3 m long and 40 to 50 cm wide, a tunnel connects it to a central room, or nursery, where the little ones will be installed. About 1.50 m in diameter, it is well ventilated, as the air enters it through a ventilation chimney.

TO KNOW EVERYTHING ABOUT THE COYOTE COYOTE (CANIS LATRANS) The coyote is much smaller than the wolf. However, its size varies depending on the region, between 75 cm and 1 m (tail included), as well as its weight, between 7 and 21 kg. The female is always smaller than the male.

  The coat is shorter in Mexican coyotes than in the Great Plains and the Far North prairies. It consists of a down (5 cm maximum) and guard hairs (11 cm top). The molt takes place once a year, in summer in the North, the new shorter hair gradually replacing the old one. The color of the back and sides ranges from gray to dull yellow. The back coat and tail hairs are fringed with black. The throat is white, while the chest and belly are instead a pale gray. The back of the ears are reddish, and the muzzle greyish. The coloring varies, with southern animals often being lighter in color than northern ones, sometimes almost entirely black.

The coyote's nose is smaller than that of the wolf, its skull is more massive, its footpads narrower, and its ears longer.

The coyote can leap 2 m and maintain a cruising speed of 40 to 50 km / h; on short trips, its peaks can reach 65 km / h. Coyotes can travel great distances. Some animals, equipped with a radio collar, were followed for more than 650 km.

An excellent swimmer, the coyote in pursuit of prey, does not hesitate to jump into the water. In addition to its usual game, mustelids, frogs, newts, snakes, fish, crayfish can appear on its menu. It is also one of the few predators to attack the beaver.

He is undoubtedly the canine with the most developed senses. Able to see 200 m in open terrain, it can see both day and night.

His vocal repertoire is varied, but his most characteristic calls are heard at nightfall, daybreak, or during the night. They consist of a series of yapping followed by a long howl.

Also Read: https://outsideneed.com/hunting-coyotes-at-night-tips/

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A Concept Paper on Nature of Language

This write-up aims to initially define language by offering definitions and sayings of different linguists and experts in neurolinguistics. Next, it compiles researches about the nature of language gathered from different published articles online and electronic books. Then, another research synthesis is presented about the language and the brain including the concepts of the language center of the brain as well as lateralization and contralateralization concepts. The purpose of this concept paper is to explain huge concepts and examples that define the said topics and to synthesize various theories from linguistics to correlate linked ideas.

Defining Language

           According to Professor Naeem (2010) of Neoenglish, language is a very complex human phenomenon; all attempts to define it have proved inadequate. In a nut-shell, language is an ‘organised noise’ used in actual social situations. That is why it has also been defined as ‘contextualised systematic sound‘.

In order to understand a term like life, one has to talk of the properties or characteristics of living beings (e.g. motion, reproduction, respiration, growth, power of self-healing, excretion, nutrition, mortality, etc. etc.). Similarly, the term language can be understood better in terms of its properties or characteristics. 

Similarly, Merriam- Webster dictionary defined language as audible, articulate, meaningful sound as produced by the action of the vocal organs. They initially refer language to sounds.

Robins (1985) said that “Language is a symbol system based on pure or arbitrary conventions… infinitely extendable and modifiable according to the changing needs and conditions of the speakers.” Therefore, language is a symbol system and every language selects some symbols for its selected sounds. 

 Another definition, according to Sapir (1921) explains that “Language is a purely human and non-instinctive method of communicating ideas, emotions and desires by means of a system of voluntarily produced symbols.” Therefore, only humans possess language and all normal humans uniformly possess it. 

Wardhaugh (1986) as well as Bloch and Trager (1942) explained that language is a system of arbitrary vocal symbols by means of communication.

 With the use of the definitions given, Prof. Neem (2010) of Neoenglish synthesized concepts about the nature of language.  The following characteristics are below:

Language is a Means of Communication

Language is a very important means of communication between humans. A can communicate his or her ideas, emotions, beliefs or feelings to B as they share a common code that makes up the language. Language is so important a form of communication between humans that it is difficult to think of a society without language. It gives shape to people’s thoughts and guides and controls their entire activity. It is a carrier of civilization and culture as human thoughts and philosophy are conveyed from one generation to the other through the medium of language. Language is ubiquitous in the sense that it is present everywhere in all activities.

Language is Arbitrary

Language is arbitrary in the sense that there is no inherent relation between the words of a language and their meanings or the ideas conveyed by them (except in the case of hieroglyphics where a picture of an object may represent the object). Selection of these words in the languages mentioned here is purely arbitrary, an accident of history. The choice of a word selected to mean a particular thing or idea is purely arbitrary but once a word is selected for a particular referent, it comes to stay as such. It may be noted that had language not been arbitrary, there would have been only one language in the world.

Language is Primarily Vocal

Language is primarily made up of vocal sounds only produced by a physiological articulatory mechanism in the human body. In the beginning, it must have appeared as vocal sounds only. Writing must have come much later, as an intelligent attempt to represent vocal sounds. Writing is only the graphic representation of the sounds of the language. There are a number of languages which continue to exist, even today, in the spoken form only. They do not have a written form. A child learns to speak first; writing comes much later. Also, during his life time, a man speaks much more than he writes. The total quantum of speech is much larger than the total quantum of written materials.

It is because of these reasons that some linguists say that speech is primary, writing is secondary. Writing did have one advantage over speech—it could be preserved in books or records. But, with the invention of magnetic tapes or audio-cassettes, it has lost that advantage too.

Language is a Social Phenomenon

Language is a set of conventional communicative signals used by humans for communication in a community. Language in this sense is a possession of a social group, comprising an indispensable set of rules which permits its members to relate to each other, to interact with each other, to co-operate with each other; it is a social institution. Language exists in society; it is a means of nourishing and developing culture and establishing human relations. It is as a member of society that a human being acquires a language. We are not born with an instinct to learn a particular language––English, Russian, Chinese or French. We learn a language as member of the society using that language, or because we want to understand that society, or to be understood by that speech-community. If a language is not used in any society, it dies out.

Language is thus a social event. It can fully be described only if we know all about the people who are involved in it, their personalities, their beliefs, attitudes, knowledge of the world, relationship to each other, their social status, what activity they are engaged in, what they are talking about, what has gone before linguistically and non-linguistically, what happens after, what they are and a host of other facts about them and the situation they are placed in.

Language is non-instinctive, conventional

No language was created in a day out of a mutually agreed upon formula by a group of humans. Language is the outcome of evolution and convention. Each generation transmits this convention on to the next. Like all human institutions languages also change and die, grow and expand. Every language then is a convention in a community. It is non-instinctive because it is acquired by human beings. Nobody gets a language in heritage; he acquires it, and everybody has been provided with an innate ability to acquire language. Animals inherit their system of communication by heredity, humans do not.

Language is systematic

Although language is symbolic, yet its symbols are arranged in a particular system. All languages have their system of arrangements. Though symbols in each human language are finite, they can be arranged infinitely; that is to say, we can produce an infinite set of sentence by a finite set of symbols.

Every language is a system of systems. All languages have phonological and grammatical systems, and within a system there are several sub-systems. For example, within the grammatical system we have morphological and syntactic systems, and within these two sub-systems we have several other systems such as those of plural, of mood, of aspect, of tense, etc.

Language is unique, creative, complex and modifiable

Language is a unique phenomenon of the earth. Other planets do not seem to have any language, although this fact may be invalidated if we happen to discover a talking generation on any other planet. But so far there is no evidence of the presence of language on the moon. Each language is unique in its own sense. By this we do not mean that lan­guages do not have any similarities or universals. Despite their common features and language, universals, each language has its peculiarities and distinct features.

Language has creativity and productivity. The structural elements of human language can be combined to produce new utterances, which neither the speaker nor his hearers may ever have made or heard before any, listener, yet which both sides understand without difficulty. Language changes according to the needs of society. Old English is different from modern English; so is old Urdu different form modern Urdu.

Duality

           The language that human beings use consists of two sub-systems – sound and meaning. A finite set of sound units can be grouped and re-gourd into units of meaning. These can be grouped and re-grouped to generate further functional constituents of the higher hierarchical order. We can produce sentences through this process of combining units of a different order. Animal calls do not show such duality, they are unitary.

An addendum of the concept of duality is from Yule (2005) that explains, human language is organized at two levels or layers simultaneously. This property is called duality (or “double articulation”). In speech production, we have a physical level at which we can produce individual sounds, like n, b and i. As individual sounds, none of these discrete forms has any intrinsic meaning. In a particular combination such as bin, we have another level producing a meaning that is different from the meaning of the combination in nib. So, at one level, we have distinct sounds, and, at another level, we have distinct meanings. This duality of levels is, in fact, one of the most economical features of human language because, with a limited set of discrete sounds, we are capable of producing a very large number of sound combinations (e.g. words) which are distinct in meaning.

Productivity

A speaker may say something that he has never said before and be understood without difficulty. Man uses the limited linguistic, resources in order to produce completely novel ideas and utterances. Fairy tales, animal fables, narratives about alien unheard of happenings in distant galaxies or nonexistent worlds are perfectly understood by the listeners.

 Displacement

One can talk about situations, places and objects far removed from one’s present surroundings and time. We often talk about events that happened long time ago and at a distant place; bombing incident in Ireland’s Londonderry twelve years’ back, for instance; or the sinking of the Spanish Armada in the sixteenth century. Bees, of course, perform dances about the source of nectar that is also removed from the place of dance (beehive). But they cannot convey what happened in the previous season through their dance features. Human beings, however, can narrate events in which they were not involved.

Yule (2005) explained, when your dog says GRRR, it means GRRR, right now, because dogs don’t seem to be capable of communicating GRRR, last night, over in the park. In contrast, human language users are normally capable of producing messages equivalent to GRRR, last night, over in the park, and then going on to say In fact, I’ll be going back tomorrow for some more. Humans can refer to past and future time. This property of human language is called displacement. It allows language users to talk about things and events not present in the immediate environment. Indeed, displacement allows us to talk about things and places (e.g. angels, fairies, Santa Claus, Superman, heaven, hell) whose existence we cannot even be sure of. Animal communication is generally considered to lack this property.

 Language is both linguistic and communicative competence

A language is an abstract set of psychological principles and sociological consideration that constitute a person’s competence as a speaker in a given situation. “These psychological principles make available to him an unlimited number of sentences he can draw upon in concrete; situations and provide him with the ability to understand and create entirely new sentences. Hence, language is not just a verbal behavior; it is a system of rules establishing correlations between meanings and sound sequences. It is a set of principles that a speaker masters; it is not anything that he does. In brief, a language is a code which is different from the act of encoding; it is a speaker’s linguistic competence rather than his linguistic performance.

Language is human and structurally complex

Human language is open-ended, extendable and modifiable whereas the animal language is not.

Ambedkar (2015) have made a few concepts of the nature of language. The following are:

 Living Language

A language undergoes a continuous and unnoticed change for its refinement and depth. It responds to the demands and requirements of the group that it represents. As the human utterances became complex and varied, a language to be living must move with the group, must grow with the group, should be alive to their needs and aspirations. In this process of change and growth, language acquires new shape, new approach, new significance and new application.

 Sounds and Signals

Sounds produced by human beings differ from the 'signal-like' sounds and actions of the animals. A lot of research is going on to establish if the animals also have similar conventionalised arrangement in their expression. According to Bloomfield, "In human speech, different sounds have different meanings. To study this coordination of certain sounds with certain meanings is to study language". In other words, a study of a language consists in giving meaning to a meaning. The meaning already exists, we have to give it a meaning to be intelligible to us as a language.

Yule (2005) had pointed out another two nature of language. This is reflexivity. The property of reflexivity (or “reflexiveness”) accounts for the fact that we can use language to think and talk about language itself, making it one of the distinguishing features of human language. Indeed, without this general ability, we wouldn’t be able to reflect on or identify any of the other distinct properties of human language. We’ll look in detail at another five of them: displacement, arbitrariness, productivity, cultural transmission and duality.

The other one is cultural transmission. While we may inherit physical features such as brown eyes and dark hair from our parents, we do not inherit their language. We acquire a language in a culture with other speakers and not from parental genes. An infant born to Korean parents in Korea, but adopted and brought up from birth by English speakers in the United States, will have physical characteristics inherited from his or her natural parents, but will inevitably speak English.

A kitten, given comparable early experiences, will produce meow regardless. This process whereby a language is passed on from one generation to the next is described as cultural transmission. It is clear that humans are born with some kind of predisposition to acquire language in a general sense. However, we are not born with the ability to produce utterances in a specific language such as English. We acquire our first language as children in a culture. The general pattern in animal communication is that creatures are born with a set of specific signals that are produced instinctively. There is some evidence from studies of birds as they develop their songs that instinct has to combine with learning (or exposure) in order for the right song to be produced. If those birds spend their first seven weeks without hearing other birds, they will instinctively produce songs or calls, but those songs will be abnormal in some way. Human infants, growing up in isolation, produce no “instinctive” language. Cultural transmission of a specific language is crucial in the human acquisition process.

Language and the Brain      

Language is both a science and an art. The human’s biological body have certain parts of which is the responsible for the language as well as information processing, sounds and communication.

The study of the relationship between language and the brain is called neurolinguistics.

Language Center of the Brain

In a paragraph of the chapter, Language and the brain in the book of Yule (2005) he stated that if we disregard a certain amount of other material, we will basically be left with two parts, the left hemisphere and the right hemisphere. If we put the right hemisphere aside for now, and place the left hemisphere down so that we have a side view, we’ll be looking at something close to the accompanying illustration (adapted from Geschwind, 1991). The shaded areas in this illustration indicate the general locations of those language functions involved in speaking and listening. We have come to know that these areas exist largely through the examination, in autopsies, of the brains of people who, in life, were known to have specific language disabilities. That is, we have tried to determine where language abilities for normal users must be by finding areas with specific damage in the brains of people who had identifiable language disabilities.

Broca’s area

The part shown as (1) in the illustration is technically described as the “anterior speech cortex” or, more usually, as Broca’s area. Paul Broca, a French surgeon, reported in the 1860s that damage to this specific part of the brain was related to extreme difficulty in producing speech. It was noted that damage to the corresponding area on the right hemisphere had no such effect. This finding was first used to argue that language ability must be located in the left hemisphere and since then has been treated as an indication that Broca’s area is crucially involved in the production of speech.

Wernicke’s area

The part shown as (2) in the illustration is the “posterior speech cortex,” or Wernicke’s area. Carl Wernicke was a German doctor who, in the 1870s, reported that damage to this part of the brain was found among patients who had speech comprehension difficulties. This finding confirmed the left hemisphere location of language ability and led to the view that Wernicke’s area is part of the brain crucially involved in the understanding of speech.

 The motor cortex and the Arcuate Fasciculus

The part shown as (3) in the illustration is the motor cortex, an area that generally controls movement of the muscles (for moving hands, feet, arms, etc.). Close to Broca’s area is the part of the motor cortex that controls the articulatory muscles of the face, jaw, tongue and larynx. Evidence that this area is involved in the physical articulation of speech comes from work reported in the 1950s by two neurosurgeons, Penfield and Roberts (1959). These researchers found that, by applying small amounts of electrical current to specific areas of the brain, they could identify those areas where the electrical stimulation would interfere with normal speech production. The part shown as (4) in the illustration is a bundle of nerve fibers called the arcuate fasciculus. This was also one of Wernicke’s discoveries and is now known to form a crucial connection between Wernicke’s and Broca’s areas.

The localization view

Having identified these four components, it is tempting to conclude that specific aspects of language ability can be accorded specific locations in the brain. This is called the localization view and it has been used to suggest that the brain activity involved in hearing a word, understanding it, then saying it, would follow a definite pattern. The word is heard and comprehended via Wernicke’s area. This signal is then transferred via the arcuate fasciculus to Broca’s area where preparations are made to produce it. A signal is then sent to part of the motor cortex to physically articulate the word.

 Another detailed concept of the language and the brain is being explained by authors, Springer et al (1981) and Bayles (1981) in a separate study. Below was expounded.

Physical Features of the Brain

The brain is divided into two nearly symmetrical halves, the right and left hemispheres, each of which is responsible for processing certain kinds of information concerning the world around us. These hemi- spheres are connected by a bundle of nerve fibers called the corpus callosum. These nerve fibers make it possible for the two hemispheres to communicate with each other and build a single, coherent picture of our environment from the many different kinds of stimuli-visual, tactile, oral, auditory, and olfactory that we receive.

The brain is covered by a one-quarter-inch thick membrane called the cortex. It has been suggested that it is this membrane that makes human beings capable of higher cognitive functions, such as the ability to do math or use language, and that its development was one of the primary evolutionary changes that separated us from other animals. In fact, most of the language centers of the brain that we will be discussing later in this chapter are contained in the cortex. This is why even minor damage to the surface of the brain, e.g, that caused by a strong blow to the head, can result in language impairment.

The cortex is not flat but covered with bumps and indentations. The bumps on the surface of the brain are called gyri (sg. gyrus) and the de- pressions are called fissures. Scientists use certain fissures to demarcate particular areas of the brain. One of the most prominent of these is the Sylvian Fissure, the large horizontal fold located in the middle of each hemisphere separating the temporal lobe from the frontal lobe of the brain. Several portions of the cortex are specialized to perform particular functions that play a role in language use. The first that we will introduce is the auditory cortex (in the figure referred to as "Primary Auditory Area"), located next to the Sylvian Fissure. The auditory cortex is responsible for receiving and identifying auditory signals and convérting them into a form that can be interpreted by other areas of the brain. A second special area is the visual cortex (in the figure referred to as "Primary Visual Area"), located in the lower back of each hemisphere. This area receives and interprets visual stimuli and is thought to be the storage site for pictoral images. A third is the motor cortex, which is found in the upper middle of each hemisphere, perpendicular to the Sylviah Fissure. The fissure between the motor cortex and the somatic sensory cortex also separates the frontal lobe from the parietal lobe. This part of the brain is responsible for sending signals to your muscles, including those of your face, jaw, and tongue, to make them move.

(The left hemisphere of the human brain. "Map of the Human Cortex," figure by Carol Donner from "Specializations of the Human Brain," by Norman Geschwind.)

Then there are the language centers of the brain-parts of the cortex that, as far as we know, are used only for the production and comprehension of language. In contrast to the other areas we have introduced here, these centers are found only in the hemisphere that is specialized for language: for approximately 90 percent of the right-handed people and 90 percent of the left-handed people, this is the left hemisphere. The opposing hemisphere does not have these language centers. The first of these language centers that we will introduce is Broca's area. Located at the base of the motor cortex, this language center appears to be responsible for organizing the articulatory patterns of language and directing the motor cortex when we want to talk. (This involves the face, jaw, and tongue in the case of spoken language, and the hands, arms, and body in the case of signed language.)

Broca's area also seems to control the use of inflectional morphemes, like the plural and past tense markers, as well as function morphemes, like determiners and prepositions; this is a very important function with respect to the formation of words and sentences. Next, there is Wemicke's area. Located near the back section of the auditory cortex, this section of the brain is involved in the comprehension of words and the selection of words when producing sentences. Wernicke's area and Broca's area are connected by a bundle of nerve fibers called the arcuate fasciculus. Like the corpus callosum, these nerve fibers allow the two areas of the brain that they connect to share information; without them, we would not be able to look up words in our "mental lexdcon" (via Werricke's area) and then say them (via Broca's area). (Think of the mental lexicon as a dictionary, located in the brain, containing all the words aun individual knows, including what each word means and how to pronounce it. Recognize, however, that this dictionary is not tangible but rather some abstract network of information scattered throughout the brain. We cannot point to it, but we have strong reasons to believe that it exists.) The final Language center we will introduce is the angular gyrus. This area, located between Wernicke's area and the visual cortex, converts visual stimuli into auditory stimuli (and vice versa), allowing us to match the spoken form of a word with the object it describes; this ability is crucial to the human capacity to read and write.

The Flow of Linguistic Information

Now, how do all these areas of the brain work together to process language? As far as we know, that depends on what type of stimulus (auditory, visual, etc.) is involved and what type of linguistic result (speaking, reading, understanding, etc.) is desired. To produce a spoken word, for example, a person first chooses a word from the mental dictionary. This process activates Wlernicke's area, which then interprets the dictionary entry, identifying the meaning of the word, how to pronounce it, and so on. The phonetic information for the entry is sent via the arcuate fasciculus to Broca's area. Then Broca's area determines what combination of the various articulators is necessary to produce each sound in the word and instructs the motor cortex which muscles to move. To read a word, one first takes the stimulus into the visual cortex via the eyes. The angular gyrus then associates the written form of the word with an entry in the mental dictionary, which releases information about the word into Wernicke's area. Wernicke's area then interprets the entry and gives one the meaning of the word.

Can you figure out how you understand and repeat a word just said to you?

First, the stimulus is brought into the auditory cortex through the ears. That auditory stimulus is matched to a word in your mental dictionary. If you have an image or weitten form associated with the word, the angular gyrus will activate the visual cortex and you will have a picture of the item and its spelling available to you. In the meanwhile, Wemicke's area is activated, interprets the entry from the dictionary, and sends the phonetic information about the word to Broca's area, which coordinates the necessary articulatory commands and gives them to the motor cortex.

Lateralization and Contralateralization

According to Springer et. al. (1989) that each of the brain's hemispheres is responsible for different cognitive functions. This specialization is referred to as lateralization. For most individuals, the left hemisphere is dominant in the areas of analytic reasoning, temporal ordering, arithmetic, and language processing. The right hemisphere is in charge of processing music, perceiving nonlinguistic sounds, and performing tasks that require visual and spatial skills or pattern recognition.

Lateralization happens in early childhood and can be reversed in its initial stages if there is damage to a part of the brain that is crucially involved in an important function. For example, if a very young child whose brain was originally lateralized so that language functions were in the left hemisphere receives severe damage to the language centers, the right hemisphere can develop language centers to compensate for the loss. After a certain period, however, lateralization is permanent and cannot be reversed, no matter how severely the brain is damaged.

The connections between the brain and the body are almost completely contralateral. This means that the right side of the body is controlled by the left hemisphere, while the left side of the body is controlled by the right hemisphere. It is also important to realize that this contralateral connection means that sensory information from the right side of the body is received by the left hemisphere, while sensory information from the left side of the body is received by the right hemisphere. Sensory information can be any data one gathers through hearing, seeing, touching, tasting, or smelling.

This indicates that the left side of the brain is used to process language in most people, while the right side has much less to do with language processing.

Conclusion

               Language has indeed a very important role in the life of a human being. It is the gate way of expression thoughts through communication. The explained several nature of language signifies that each language is gift from God− it is unique, useful, creative and a systematic system. With the fact that studying language not just focuses on it being an art, it has to deal with science also with regards to the process of information in the brain through the language centers. It has been identified that the center for language in the human brain is the left hemisphere with three main division which are responsible for the linguistic flow. Lateralization and contralatilarization occurs in cases of the brain being damaged and the shift of a language center to another hemisphere of the brain.

References

Naeem, P. (2011). The nature of language and linguistics. https://neoenglish.wordpress.com/2010/12/26/the-nature-of-language-and-linguistics/

 Ambedkar, V. (2015). Language across the curriculum. [e-book version] Retrieved from http://www.bhojvirtualuniversity.com/slm/B.Ed_SLM/bedteb1u1.pdf

 Yule, G. (2005). Chapter 2. The study of language.4th ed. [E-book version] (pp. 31-35) Retrieved from https://fac.ksu.edu.sa/sites/default/files/cambridge.the_.study_.of_.language.4th.edition.apr_.2010.ebook-elohim.pdf

 Yule, G. (2005). Chapter 12. The study of language.4th ed. [E-book version] (pp. 176-179) Retrieved from https://fac.ksu.edu.sa/sites/default/files/cambridge.the_.study_.of_.language.4th.edition.apr_.2010.ebook-elohim.pdf

 Friederici D. (2011) The brain basis of language processing: from structure to function. Physiol Rev 91: 1357–1392. California: Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University

 Bayles, K. (1981) Linguistics: at introduction to language and communication. Edited by Adrian Akmajian, Richard A. Demers, and Robert M. Harnish. Cambridge: MIT Press

 Springer, Sally, and George Deutsch. (1981) Left Brain, Right Brain. San Francisco: W. H. Freeman

[bluewatsons]

Falk Huettig et al., The culturally co-opted brain: how literacy affects the human mind, 33 Lang Cog Neurosci 275 (2018)

Reading and writing are activities that most people are engaged in every single day of their lives. Typically, people are not aware of what an amazing feat and extraordinary achievement this is. Reading and writing are astonishingly complex skills. It is for this reason that it takes years to acquire them. Reading and writing are multifaceted overlearned behaviours that require the fine-tuning of many perceptual and cognitive functions, including basic visual skills, phonological processes, oculomotor control, attentional mechanisms, executive control, long-term memory, working memory, etc. None of these functions however are specific to literacy, making effortless reading and writing an even more amazing accomplishment.

The mind has not evolved for this activity; reading and writing are human cultural inventions. The first writing systems are less than 6000 years old. This is just a tiny fraction of human existence on an evolutionary scale. In order to read therefore our brains have to make use of abilities that have evolved for different purposes. Pre-existing perceptual and cognitive skills must be recruited, modified and coordinated for the acquisition of the evolutionarily new cultural activity. Complex perceptual and cognitive procedures are overlearned and become automatised with extensive practice over years. This automatisation comes along with structural and functional changes in the brain: a “reading network” becomes functionally specialised. What are the consequences of this process for the human mind? How is information processing altered by learning to read and write? This special issue attempts to reflect on these questions by looking at normal and impaired literacy acquisition.

Learning to read requires that basic visual processes are adapted. Readers of the Latin alphabet, for instance, have to suppress or inhibit orientation invariance. In order to test the idea that literacy boosts mirror image discrimination, Fernandes, Coelho, Lima, and Castro (2018Fernandes, T., Coelho, B., Lima, F., & Castro, S. L. (2018). The handle of literacy: Evidence from preliterate children and illiterate adults on orientation discrimination of graspable and non-graspable objects. Language, Cognition and Neuroscience, 33(3), 278–292.[Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) conducted two experiments, contrasting on the one hand, preliterate children to age-matched beginning readers, and, on the other hand, three adult groups: illiterate participants, ex-illiterates (who have learned to read at adult age, without having attended school in childhood), and schooled literates. Their study demonstrates that an increase in mirror-image discrimination is not a function of general development but is primarily a specific effect of literacy acquisition. Furthermore, Fernandes et al. show that literacy acquisition specifically enhances the discrimination of reflections across the external vertical axis, whereas it does not affect the discrimination of reflections across the object principal axis. Finally, their study illustrates that mirror-image discrimination is easier when an object signals the use of one particular hand to grasp it. Thus, the ability to discriminate reflections across the external vertical axis is not driven by maturation or general cognitive development; the main underlying mechanism is literacy acquisition with a smaller but significant contribution of dorsal stream processes.

Malik-Moraleda, Orihuela, Carreiras, and Duñabeita (2018Malik-Moraleda, S., Orihuela, K., Carreiras, M., & Duñabeita, J. A. (2018). The consequences of literacy and schooling for parsing strings. Language, Cognition and Neuroscience, 33(3), 293–299.[Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) compared illiterates with literate adults in their processing of strings made out of letters (either words or pseudowords) or visual objects. In a visual search task, literates outperformed illiterate participants for all types of materials. More interestingly, while illiterate participants processed letters in a similar way as non-letters, literates performed considerably better in the letter condition than in the object condition, and better with words than with pseudowords. This, according to the authors, reflects the advanced ability of literates to break down written strings into smaller units following literacy acquisition, an ability that partly generalises to the visual processing of non-linguistic material. In other words, literacy acquisition promotes a type of analytic, part-based processing that does not seem to be inherent to the visual system as it is not observed in illiterate people.

Many aspects of reading and writing can be characterised as universal across cultures and writing systems. There are, however, also some important differences. Chinese, for instance, makes use of a morphosyllabic system whereas English uses an alphabetic script. Zhou et al. (2018Zhou, Y., McBride, C., Leung, J. S. M., Wang, Y., Joshi, M., & Farver, J. A. (2018). Chinese and English reading-related skills in L1 and L2 Chinese-speaking children in Hong Kong. Language, Cognition and Neuroscience, 33(3), 300–312.[Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) compared native Chinese-speaking children (L1) with children learning Chinese as second language (L2). As expected, the native Chinese-speaking children showed a clear advantage in Chinese word reading and writing, but the L2 group showed an advantage in English word reading and writing. Crucially, whereas phonological awareness was essential for both groups when learning to read and write in English as second language, it was only for the L2 young learners that Chinese literacy performance varied solely according to their phonological awareness skills. In contrast, in reading and writing Chinese, the L1 children recruited a range of skills beyond phonological awareness, in particular morphological awareness and visual-spatial as well as visual-motor (copying) skills. Zhou et al. conclude that the latter set of skills are crucial for Chinese reading and writing and suggest that children who first learn an alphabetic or alphasyllabic script may be disadvantaged as they are prone to rely only on phonological skills for learning Chinese.

Although good phonological awareness skills are essential for proficient reading, it is also the case that literacy greatly improves phonemic awareness. Indeed, individuals with reading impairments tend to show typical symptoms, in particular deficits in phonological awareness and in phonological processing more generally. Stein (2018Stein, J. F. (2018). Does dyslexia exist? Language, Cognition and Neuroscience, 33(3), 313–320.[Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) argues that this does not necessarily mean that phonological processing deficits are the one and only causal factor for developmental dyslexia. He suggests that one important underlying cause of dyslexia is a deficit of the magnocellular system, characterised by transient responses and hence responsible for timing visual events when reading. This deficit would result in impaired temporal processing in the brain and hence in difficulties in the linear sequencing of sounds and letters in a word. According to this account, the phonological awareness deficit in dyslexia is thus a secondary symptom of a primary low-level deficit.

Banai and Ahissar (2018Banai, K., & Ahissar, M. (2018). Poor sensitivity to sound statistics impairs the acquisition of speech categories in dyslexia. Language, Cognition and Neuroscience, 33(3), 321–332.[Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) also argue that low-level auditory deficits underlie reading impairments. They propose that sensitivity to distributional statistics is impaired in affected individuals. In particular, their implicit memory of speech stimuli is assumed to decay faster than in typical readers, thereby limiting the temporal window over which distributional statistics can be calculated. Impaired distributional learning therefore, they argue, results in impoverished speech categories that hamper reading acquisition. As this view proposes that dyslexic individuals suffer from a deficit in integrating stimuli across long temporal intervals, it seems in contradiction to the magnocellular deficit hypothesis.

Distinguishing cause from effect in reading impairments however is far from trivial. Huettig, Lachmann, Reis, and Petersson (2018Huettig, F., Lachmann, T., Reis, A., & Petersson, K. M. (2018). Distinguishing cause from effect – Many deficits associated with developmental dyslexia may be a consequence of reduced and suboptimal reading experience. Language, Cognition and Neuroscience, 33(3), 333–350.[Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) suggest that many deficits associated with developmental dyslexia are in fact a consequence of reduced and/or suboptimal reading experience. They point out that almost all deficits observed in individuals with dyslexia have also been observed in illiterate and low literate people. They conclude that the search for the causes of reading impairments will only succeed if both quantitative and qualitative reading experience is taken adequately into account.

Literacy impacts not only individual minds but also society and humanity as a whole. Morais (2018Morais, J. (2018). Literacy and democracy. Language, Cognition and Neuroscience, 33(3), 351–372.[Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) develops a conceptual framework to account for the complex interactions between literacy and democracy. He argues that literacy does not stop at the end of the reading acquisition process but has continuous profound effects on thinking and knowledge. Morais suggests that literacy can be negative if it is focused on mere skills and oriented towards serving purely capitalist market needs or totalitarian and pseudo-democratic systems. He argues that literacy must be free to serve the flow of ideas and critical thinking, open to analysis of complex issues, and enable well-informed public debate and collective decision-making. Morais argues that the more literate individuals are the better they participate in exercising control over the affairs of their community and can contribute to truly democratic governing. This idea is particularly challenging in the light of the fact that, as Morais remind us, illiteracy rates remain quite high worldwide, with about 15% of people aged 15 years or more (this represents 758 million!) who are illiterate in the sense that they are unable to read and write a very short and simple statement (the United Nations definition for literacy, UNESCO, 2016UNESCO. (2016). Education for people and planet. Global education monitoring report 2016. Paris: Author. Retrieved fromhttp://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0024/002457/245752e.pdf [Google Scholar]).

Illiterate individuals are over-represented among the elderly in many countries (24% of individuals aged 65 years old or more are illiterate, UNESCO, 2015UNESCO. (2015). UIS fact sheet. September 2015, No. 32. Retrieved fromhttp://www.uis.unesco.org/literacy/Documents/fs32-2015-literacy.pdf [Google Scholar]). Kosmidis (2018Kosmidis, M. H. (2018). Challenges in the neuropsychological assessment of illiterate older adults. Language, Cognition and Neuroscience, 33(3), 373–386.[Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) discusses the fact that their discrepancies in cognitive functioning compared with literates calls into question the appropriateness of the cognitive measures used in clinical assessments. Indeed in many tests illiterate individuals’ performance resembles that of literates suffering from a progressive neurodegenerative disease (e.g. dementia), leading to potential over-diagnosing illiterate individuals. Kosmidis critically analyzes several ways of improving diagnostic assessment of elderly illiterate individuals. This issue is complicated by the fact that literacy modifies both brain functioning and brain structures, and by the possibility that, according to the cognitive reserve hypothesis, increased education (usually correlated with literacy level) affords the brain increased resistance to cognitive decline and brain pathology or alterations correlated with aging. She suggests that perhaps the most appropriate approach to the neuropsychological assessment of illiterate elderly individuals would be to train them on the test before assessment, to the extent that schooling trains a series of cognitive strategies, procedures and skills that illiterate unschooled individuals have had no opportunity to automatise. This would help illiterate participants to develop metacognitive processes that are needed to understand the demands of the tasks at hand and rehearse strategies.

Indeed, as literate people we tend to forget that over our recent past the human mind has become the literate mind and that the history of humankind over the last thousands of years is inextricably linked to the history of literacy. The recent technological advances for instance are unimaginable without the advent of literacy. Reading and writing also change our brains and cognitive processing in non-trivial ways. The papers in this special issue provide pertinent examples of this. Investigating how cultural inventions such as reading and writing modulate perceptual and cognitive processing and brain functioning thus offers a valuable tool to understand the human mind and brain itself.

References

Banai, K., & Ahissar, M. (2018). Poor sensitivity to sound statistics impairs the acquisition of speech categories in dyslexia. Language, Cognition and Neuroscience, 33(3), 321–332. [Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®], [Google Scholar]

Fernandes, T., Coelho, B., Lima, F., & Castro, S. L. (2018). The handle of literacy: Evidence from preliterate children and illiterate adults on orientation discrimination of graspable and non-graspable objects. Language, Cognition and Neuroscience, 33(3), 278–292. [Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®], [Google Scholar]

Huettig, F., Lachmann, T., Reis, A., & Petersson, K. M. (2018). Distinguishing cause from effect – Many deficits associated with developmental dyslexia may be a consequence of reduced and suboptimal reading experience. Language, Cognition and Neuroscience, 33(3), 333–350. [Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®], [Google Scholar]

Kosmidis, M. H. (2018). Challenges in the neuropsychological assessment of illiterate older adults. Language, Cognition and Neuroscience, 33(3), 373–386. [Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®], [Google Scholar]

Malik-Moraleda, S., Orihuela, K., Carreiras, M., & Duñabeita, J. A. (2018). The consequences of literacy and schooling for parsing strings. Language, Cognition and Neuroscience, 33(3), 293–299. [Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®], [Google Scholar]

Morais, J. (2018). Literacy and democracy. Language, Cognition and Neuroscience, 33(3), 351–372. [Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®], [Google Scholar]

Stein, J. F. (2018). Does dyslexia exist? Language, Cognition and Neuroscience, 33(3), 313–320. [Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®], [Google Scholar]

UNESCO. (2015). UIS fact sheet. September 2015, No. 32. Retrieved from http://www.uis.unesco.org/literacy/Documents/fs32-2015-literacy.pdf [Google Scholar]

UNESCO. (2016). Education for people and planet. Global education monitoring report 2016. Paris: Author. Retrieved from http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0024/002457/245752e.pdf [Google Scholar]

Zhou, Y., McBride, C., Leung, J. S. M., Wang, Y., Joshi, M., & Farver, J. A. (2018). Chinese and English reading-related skills in L1 and L2 Chinese-speaking children in Hong Kong. Language, Cognition and Neuroscience, 33(3), 300–312. [Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®], [Google Scholar]

[hardtostudy]

linguistics

MORPHOLOGY - MORPHEME, MORPH Morphology = a subbranch of linguistics which deals with the internal structure of words (word - forms) and meanings of units of which words are constructed Inflectional morphology = deals with inflectional operations which leave syntactic category of the base untouched but add extra elements of grammatical meaning and grammatical function Derivational morphology = deals with derivational operations (word - formation processes) which typically create a word of a syntactic class different from that of the base (e.g. affixes er / - action form verbs into nouns) Morpheme = the smallest linguistic sign, the smallest bilateral unit, so it is the smallest linguistic unit that has both - form and meaning. - the meaning of morpheme - sememe - the form of morpheme - formeme Morph = concrete realizations of morpheme e.g. - /s, z, dz/ are morphs of the same morpheme ‘'plural of nouns’' because of their phonetic realization — we speak about allomorphs of a morpheme if: 1) They have the same meaning 2) They are in relationship of complementary distribution, i.e. they occur in mutually excluding contexts 3) They are used in parallel constructions 4) They feature a certain degree of phonetic invariance admitting only regular changes There are 2 types of morphemes: 1. Free = they can function independently - stay by themselves as single words: a) lexical morphemes - words which carry the content of the messages we convey b) functional m. - functional words of language 2. Bound = they cannot occur independently: a) derivational m. - to make new words - diff. gram. cat. b) inflectional m. - to indicate aspects of the gram. Function of the word - same gram. cat. INFLECTION, DECLENSION, CONJUGATION Inflection = the combination of lexical and grammatical morphemes - a change made in the form of a word to express its relation to other words in the sentence - it includes the declension of nouns, adjectives, and pronouns, and the conjugation of verbs according to paradigms — providing word-stem with grammatical morphemes Declension = occurs in nouns, adjectives and pronouns - indicates such features as number, syntactic category, case, gender Conjugation = the modification of a verb form its basic form using inflection - it may be affected by person, mood, tense, aspect, number or other grammatical categories

WORD-FORMATION, ITS POSITION IN THE SYSTEM, METHODS - SEMASIOLOGICAL, ONOMASIOLOGICAL, MONEME. Word-formation = the branch of linguistics which studies the patterns on which new lexical units (words) are coined - there is no agreement among linguists whether WF is included in morphology: Morphology deals with morphemes as component parts of word-forms, word-formation focuses on morphemes that generate new naming units (lexemes) Semasiological method = it proceeds in general - from the form of naming units to their meaning - it concentrates on the question concerning the meanings (semantic structure) of WF types - it focuses on the analysis of WF units, the specification of the individual components and morphological structures of naming units - it specifies analyzable naming units (morphologically motivated and correspond to the particular WF type. = A discipline within linguistics concerned with the meaning of a word independent of its phonetic expression. Onomasiological method = It focuses on the process of coining new naming units, starting point is the concept or conceptual meaning or it may be set into the extralinguistic reality as an object of the process of denomination - the particular object of denomination is conceptually processed in human consciousness and classified according to the principles valid in the given language - it is usually distinguished between the onomasiological basis (determined component) that classifies the object within a certain conceptual group / class and then, within that group it is specified by means of an O. Mark (determining component). These two polar members of the O. Structure are connected by logical and semantic relations subsumed under the notion of O. Connective = the branch of linguistics that deals with concepts and the terms that represent them, in particular contrasting terms for similar concepts, as in a thesaurus. Units of word-formation: Moneme = minimal linguistic sign —> unanalyzable in smaller bilateral units e.g. receive, deceive, cranberry Naming unit = if WF is considered a branch of linguistics - naming unit is the basic unit of WF - a lexeme that is synchronically related to the word from which it was coined immediate constituents of naming units: word-formation base (stem) - the part of the motivating word which enters the naming unit word-formation element - the derivative element (suffix, prefix) root - part of a word-form that remains when all inflectional and derivational morphemes have been removed DETERMINANT - DETERMINATUM Syntagma = F. De Saussure’s term - a combination of morphemes the relationship btw them being that between the determinant (determing element - modifier) and determinatum (determined element - head) —> each naming unit falling within the scope of word-formation is a syntagma consisting of determinant and determinatum Determinatum = identifies the object to be named with other similar objects, Determinant = specifies its typical features by which it differs from all the other objects of its class WORD-FORMATION PROCESSES 1) Compounds = combination of WF basis of two or more originally independent words - the individual compound constituents do not contain any inflectional morphemes - only compound as a whole is inflected - can be written as single unit, separate units or connected by a hyphen EX: lifetime, football, upside, grandmother, passport, become 2) Affixation = attaching an affix morpheme to the beginning (prefix) or to the end (suffix) of a WF base - includes suffixation and prefixation EX: unwilling, submit, dependent, action, wonderful 3) Conversion (Functional shift) = the process of coining new naming units resulting in words of a different word class though having the same phonological shape of the fundamental grammatical forms EX: from verb to cheat to noun a cheat. 4) Backformation = formation of a new word by deletion of a suffix - like element from a complex form by analogy with other complex words - a word of one type is reduced to form another word of a different type EX: word babysit from babysitter 5) Blending = the process of coining new naming units by merging parts of originally independent words - joining of the beginning of one word to the end of another word EX: smoke + fog = smog OR motor + hotel = motel 6) Shortening of complex words = Clipping = an existing word is shortened while still retaining its original meaning EX: mathematics - math, gasoline - gas, advertisement - ad Acronyms = when initial letters are taken to stand for the whole compound EX: UNICEF, RADAR, NATO LEXICON - LEXICAL ENTRIES ABOVE WORDS Lexicon = vocabulary or total stock of words, or lexemes of a language - words, units smaller than words and larger than words have to be stored in a mental lexicon, which is studied by psycholinguistics. - words which are derived by common rules (e.g. [V+ion]n —> transmission - noun denotes the act) don’t need to be stored — we understand them - all words which are not derived by such rules have to be stored, as well as every unpredictable word (affixes, idioms, boy) - rules are not stored LEXICOLOGY, SEMANTICS, LEXICAL SEMANTICS, W-FORMATION Lexicology =a branch of linguistics concerned with lexicon - it deals with the structures existing in the system of lexemes, also with such issues as the size and structure of vocabulary, the link with extra-linguistic knowledge etc. Semantics - the branch of linguistics which studies meaning Pragmatics - the branch of linguistics which studies how utterances communicate meaning in context Lexical semantics - the study of meaning of lexicon, deals predominantly with paradigmatic relations among lexemes (homonymy) Word-formation - branch of linguistics which studies the patterns on which a language forms new lexical units (words)

LEXEME, LEXICAL UNIT, SEMEME, SEME, NAMING UNIT Cruse = defines the lexical unit as a union of a lexical form and a single sense, and the lexeme as a family of lexical units e.g. the lexeme fox includes two lexical units: fox (animal) + fox (person) - this distinction refers to polysemantic words, the lexeme covers a polysemantic word with all its individual meanings - it is a combination of one signifiant with all encompassed signifies, while the lexical unit refers to one particular meaning of a polysemantic word - it is a combination of a significant with one signifié within such a polysemantic word The meaning of a lexical unit is termed SEMEME. A sememe can be decomposed into semantic components, also called SEMES. Hence, sememe is a complex or hierarchical configuration of semes, which corresponds to a single meaning of a lexeme. The method used in this connection is called componential analysis. Di Scullio and Williams’ 4 motions of word: 1) morphological object = constructed out of morphological ‘’atoms'', i.e. morphemes, by processes of affixation and compounding 2) syntactic atom = invisible building block of syntax. Syntactic words are considered to be ‘'atomic'' units of syntax, and thus they are treated as invisible into morphemes. They represent one whole. 3) listed object (listeme) = listemes are linguistic expressions memorized and stored by speakers 4) phonological word = i.e. word consisting of sounds or letters. Thus Works, worked, man, men are four different words Matthews distinguishes 3 kinds of word: 1) phonological (orthographic) - word consisting of sounds and letters 2) dictionary word - lexeme 3) grammatical - a unit fulfilling particular grammatical function Potential vs. Actual words: Actual = any word that is used by the speech community Potential = reflect the unlimited human capacity to coin new naming units Sense vs. Meaning: Meaning = the characteristic of a linguistic form which allows it to be used to pick out some aspect of the non-linguistic world Sense = the central meaning of a linguistic form, regarded from the point of view of the way it relates to other linguistic items

PARADIGMATIC RELATIONS BETWEEN LEXICAL UNITS — ANTONYMY, SYNONYMY, HOMONYMY, POLYSEMY, HYPERO. Syntagmatic = the relation between any linguistic elements which are simultaneously present in a structure, e.g. the lexeme old is syntagmatically related with the definite article the and the noun man in the expression the old man. Paradigmatic = the relation between a set of linguistic items, which in some sense constitute choices, so that only one of them may be present at a time in a given position. 5 types of paradigmatic relations: 1. Homonymy = two or more words are identical in form (signifiant) but different in meaning (signifié), unrelated meaning a) homophones = identical sound form of the lexemes, different spelling (sell - cell) b) homographs = identical spelling but different pronunciation (lead: [li:d], [led]) c) full homonyms = identical sound form and spelling (lie, bank)

2. Polysemy = words with one form and several meanings, which are semantically related - relation among different meanings of one lexeme (fox) 3. Synonymy = words or phrases with the same or nearly the same meaning (refuse, reject) 4. Antonymy = a relation between signs whose content is different (opposite) but undoubtedly in a way related 3 types:

complementary - (male vs. female, dead vs. alive) - the denial of one implies the assertion of the other one and vice versa b) antonymy in narrow sense (good - bad) - gradable, 3rd possib. c) conversness - they imply each other mutually (husband - wife) 5. Hyponymy / Hyperonymy (flower - tulip, violet, rose) - paradigmatic relation between the contents of a linguistic sign finding themselves in a hierarchical relationship - the subordinate lexical item (the one with a narrower, more specified meaning) is called hyponym, the superordinate one, covering the meanings of all its hyponyms, is called hyperonym (archilexeme) - hyponyms which are on the same level of the hierarchical structure are called co-hyponyms hypernym = dog hyponym = labrador MULTI-WORD UNITS, LEXICAL FIELDS, METAPHOR, METONYMY Lipka = distinguishes between lexical fields (consisting of simple and complex lexemes) and word-fields (exclusively containing morphologically simple items - monemes) J. Lyons defines the lexical field as a paradigmatically and syntagmatically structured subset of the vocabulary (lexicon) - it is a set of lexemes that cover the conceptual area in any - one language system and by means of the relations of sense which hold between them give structure to it - lexical fields can be either linear or hierarchical Metaphor = a semantic change based on the association of similarity between two referents - they can be objective or emotive Ullman recognizes 4 major groups: 1. Anthropomorphic - based on similarities of parts of human body and inanimate objects 2. Animal - based on the denomination of objects after their resemblance to some aspects of animal word 3. From concrete to abstract - (to throw light on) 4. Synaesthetic - a transposition from one sense to another (sound to sight etc) Metonymy - the transfer of meaning is based on the association of contiguity - it is a semantic shift reflecting some kind of inherent relationship of referents SYNTAX - SENTENCE, CLAUSE, PHRASE Syntax = a subbranch of linguistics that deals with the analysis of structures and regular patterns of sentences —> it studies the principles, and rules for constructing sentences in natural languages - 5 units of grammatical description: morpheme, word, phrase, clause, sentence Sentence Mathesius - defines the sentence as an elementary speech utterance through which the speaker (writer) reacts to some reality, concrete or abstract, and which in its formal character appears to realize grammatical possibilities of the respective language, and to be subjectively, that is, from the point of view of the speaker, complete Bloomfield defines sentence as an independent linguistic form, not included by virtue of any grammatical construction in any longer linguistic form —> It means that the sentence is the largest unit of grammatical description. - he explains that in any utterance, a linguistic form appears either as constituent of some larger form (John (John in the exclamation John!) —> when a linguistic form occurs as a part of a larger form, it is said to be in included position, otherwise it is said to be in absolute position and to constitute a sentence Sentence types: Classification according to sentence functions: 1. Statements 2. Questions 3. Exclamations 4. Commands Classification according to sentence structural complexity: 1. Simple - consists of a single independent clause 2. Multiple - contains one or more clauses as its immediate constituents — compound = the immediate constituents are two or more coordinate clauses (equival.junct.) — complex = one or more of its elements are realized by subordinate clause which modifies the main clause Classification worked out by Darbyshire: - he distinguishes 5 sentence types in English based on different syntagmatic relations among: subject (S), complement (C), object (O), indirect object (O2), intransitive verb (I), transitive verb (T), adverbial group (A) Basic sentence types Intransitive sentences: 1. SI (the sun shines) 2. SIC (the sun is a star) Transitive: 3. STO (the sun melts the ice) 4. STO2O (the sun gives us warmth) 5. STOC (the people elected him president) CLAUSE - a sentence-like segment of a sentence - it can be structurally exactly the same as a sentence of any type There are 3 main types in English: 1. Nominal clause = it functions as subject, complement, object, indirect object, opposition 2. Adjectival clause = functions mostly as post-modifier of the head 3. Adverbial clause = functions as adjunct to verbs, can function as sentence adverb - 2 main functions: — to restrict the area of reference of verbs as to time, place, manner, condition — to indicate comparisons PHRASE - a word or a group of words which is grammatically equivalent to a single word and which does not have its own subject and predicate - the dominant word of the phrase is called the HEAD. - elements which precede the head - modifiers (premodifiers, postmodifiers) and those which follow the head - qualifiers - according to the dominant word, we distinguish: noun, phrases, verb phrases, adverb, adjective CONSTRUCTION - the grouping and combining of words in a sentence, and their resulting relation - ship to each other - they can be either endocentric (syntactically equivalent) or exocentric (basic sentence, further irreducible) SYNTACTIC VS LEXICAL CATEGORY Syntactic - any of the types of gram. Unit from which sentences of language are constructed Lexical - any of the gram. Characterized classes into which words of a language are grouped (noun, verb, adj.) S - sentence NP - noun phrase VP - verb phrase T - determiner PHRASE STRUCTURE GRAMMAR (PSG) PSG is a type of generative grammar, which represents constituents structure directly. The idea of PSG is that we first note what syntactic categories appear to exist in a given language and what different internal structures each of these have. Then for each structure we write a rule that displays its structure. —> so e.g. an English sentence typically consists of a NP followed by a VP (my sister bought a car) and we therefore write a phrase structure rule: S—>NP+VP - we continue this way until we have a rule for every structure in the language —> Nom the set of rules can be used for generating sentences —> starting with S, we apply suitable rules to tell us what units the sentence consists of —> until we reach the level of individual words —> we simply insert words belonging to the appropriate parts of speech. The result is usually displayed graphically in a tree FUNCTIONAL SENTENCE PERSPECTIVE, THEME, RHEME, THE ROLE OF CONTEXT FSP = Combines in itself a syntactic and semantic approaches to the organization of the sentence and makes it possible to understand how the semantic and grammatical structures function in the very act of communication - according to FSP, the sentence can be divided into two parts: THEME represents the basis, the part about which something is stated. It does not bring new information and usually represents a link to the previous part of the text RHEME is the nucleus of the utterance representing the new information. It is the part of the sentence with the highest degree of communicative dynamism. Objective ordering - focuses on the hearer - theme-theme Subjective ordering - emotionally coloured - reverse Passive construction - used to follow fixed word-order and place the theme at the beginning The role of context - those elements of the sentence which are context-independent have generally a higher degree of communicative dynamism compared to context-dependent elements THE DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE, ANALYTIC / SYNTHETIC According to Eduard Sapir there are 4 basic types of languages: 1. Analytic (Isolating) - a language that uses specific grammatical words or particles, rather than inflection, to express syntactic relations within sentences 2. Synthetic type - language in which syntactic relations are expressed by inflection a) agglutinating - 1-1 correspondence in meaning (Hungary, Turkish) b) inflectional - homonymy, synonymy in grammar (Slaronic languages) 3. Polysynthetic - Language in which all derivational categories and grammar are packed into one word - compound words - they can express in one word what is expressed in more words in other language 4. Introflecting - internal inflection - there is a consonantal skeleton, usually 3 consonants, which carry a very general meaning and by inserting vowels between them you can express meaning - create words DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH GRAMMAR SYSTEM: ANALYTIC TRENDS, WORD-ORDER, POSSESSIVE CASE, ADJECTIVIZATION - development of English language reflects a complete reshapement of once synthetic type into an analytic type of language - general tendency of the development is the tendency towards an overall simplification of the morphological system - Old English was a complex system of distinct word endings (inflections) overtime the distinction between them was lost —> the word-order became more and more important in conveying meaning —> grammaticalization of word-order - the fixed position of subject, predicate and object in a sentence - the only remaining variations in the standard language are plural (e)s, possessive apostrophe s, and third-person singular s on verbs. LANGUAGE AND CULTURE: LINGUISTIC DETERMINISM, SAPIR-WHORF HYPOTHESIS, LINGUISTIC RELATIVISM Linguistic determinism - it is the idea, that language shapes thoughts —> we can only think in the categories which our language allows us to think in Linguistic relativism (Sapir-Whorf hypothesis) - it is the idea that differences in language are related to the differences in cognition of the language users - there is no limit to the structural diversity of languages

TASKS 1. Which of the linguistic items below is best described as the smallest —> linguistic sign? — the word — the morpheme = has verb + meaning — the phoneme 2. Fill in: Declension is the occurrence of inflection in nouns, adjectives and pronouns. When inflecting nouns, we indicate such features as number (typically singular vs. plural), gender or case (in English 2 - N,G). Conjugation is the occurrence of inflection in verbs. Conjugation may be affected by number, person, tense, aspect (vid), mood or other grammatical categories. 3. Isolate the —> affixes in each of these words and state whether each is —> prefix or —> suffix: a) react b) happily c) active d) belittle - prefix e) attention f) repackage g) undecided h) restfully - suffix 4. Are following words —> simple or —> complex? and - S readers - C linked - C gain - S within - C redness - C killed - C readily - C dragged - C 5. In the following sentences, identify the —> word classes: a) Yesterday (adverb), I saw him walking down the street and he was not alone.

6. Fill in: Linguistic determinism is the idea that language shapes thought. Linguistic relativism is the idea that differences in language are related to differences in cognition of the language users.

7. Sentences —> simple, complex (podr. súvetie), compound (prir. súvetie) a) We have to go to work every day. - simple b) The teacher did not believe your excuse. - simple

c) As soon as they saw the burglar, they rushed straight to the police. - complex d) We rushed to the station, but the train was late. - compound Traditional grammar has two component parts: syntax and morphology. Morphology is the branch of linguistics that studies the internal structure of words. Syntax is the branch of linguistics that studies the principles and rules for constructing sentences. 8. Smog (smoke + fog) = blending language teacher (language, teacher) = blending editor = back formation 9. pass/fail = antonym expensive/cheap = antonym lead/lead = homonym vehicle/train = hyponym tulip/flower = hypernym

[jamiekturner]

What I learned from the $2,000 elusive design book “Designing Programmes”

Designing Programmes by Karl Gerstner is one of the most elusive design books in the world. Brand new copies retail for over $2,000, and even used versions go for over $250. Luckily for you, I spent my hard earned $277 for a copy so you don’t have to..

Let’s start

The book itself is surprisingly thin and it’s not really a book per se- it’s a compilation of four essays from Karl Gerstner.

The entire introduction is spent philosophizing the very definition of a “programme” but in essence, you can think of it as an algorithm that produces different, yet cohesive outcomes.

It starts with an example of a 15th century Gothic cathedral Karl passed by on his way to work every day…

Notice how every window design is different, yet looks related.

The architects of the cathedral used a “design program” which adheres to the same constraints and variables in order to produce different ornamental designs which feel like they belong together.

Karl describes it in detail:

MIT’s Media Lab Rebrand

Another great modern example of a visual design program comes from MIT’s media lab.

In 2011, they rebranded their identity and for a logo, they used a “program” that could generates 40,000 different permutations so each student, faculty member, building and project can get their own unique logo for the next 25 years…

      Small batch of the 40,000 possibilities

Just 3 years later, MIT’s media lab changed its identify yet again, but retained the grid of the earlier logo design program…

This in essence captures the spirit of what design systems are all about.

Deriving complexity from simplicity

The astonishing richness and beauty of geometrical patterns

The book offers another great example of a morphology program:

Divide a square into 9 smaller squares

Replicate 3x, forming a bigger square

Mark the 49 intersecting nodes (dots)

Now, the program itself is very simple: connect the nodes in the original 3×3 square (shown in #5 below) anyway you wish, then reflect it onto the other 3×3 squares as show in examples 6–20:

As you can see, immensely diverse and interesting possibilities exist within these extremely simple set of rules.

Now let’s shift to applying programmes outside of visual design to other fields as well.

Morphological Typography

Designing means to pick out determining elements and combine them

In this section, Gerstner presents us with his “morphological box of the typogram” which breaks down certain expressive characteristics of typography by rows…

The power of this mechanism is that you could blindly make selections as you go from row to row and arrive at the creative solutions shown below:

Let’s examine how the first example could have been generated by the typographic morphological box.

This logotype…

…is the result of the following choices:

This systematic, generative approach to creative output is another great example of a design programme.

Program as Grid

The typographic grid is a proportional regulator for composition, tables, pictures, etc. It is a formal program to accommodate x unknown items. The difficulty is to find the balance, the maximum of conformity to a rule with the maximum of freedom. Or: the maximum of constants with the greatest possible variability.

The grid is a fundamental principle in design which plays a major role in 60s Swiss design, thus explaining Gerstner’s affinity for it (he was a prolific Swiss graphic designer for those who haven’t Google’d him yet.)

His contribution to grid theory is his famous “mobile grid” which he developed for the German magazine Capital:

I know what your thinking- WTF.

But the grid is actually a lot less intimidating than it looks at first glance- I put together this diagram to show that it’s actually 6 separate grids into one:

Programs as Photography

An example is given of a photographic program: “a picture of pictures” which let’s the viewer select his or her own perspective of a car exterior:

Notice how the camera adheres to the same movement at each angle to provide a consistent perspective of the car.

Programs as Literature

As beautiful as this beautiful poem may be, it wasn’t written by a romantic staring into the moon out of his window. Much like the morphological typography box earlier, it was generated by a similar mechanism…

As you can see, you can combine any of the alphabetically labeled boxes above to form poetic sentences without much thought. Go ahead and try it.

Program as music

A partial example is give of a music generating program consisting of layers represented by squares.

This is the first layer:

The different sized points represent different sounds. In this second layer, the 5 lines represent different frequencies:

When you superimpose the 2 layers on top of each other, you get sounds played different frequencies:

Now in the last described step perpendicular lines are drawn between the points and lines, which represent “distance to be observed” which I only assume is time.

Although convoluted and difficult to understand, the beauty of this musical program is that it can be played by any number of performers with any kind of instruments.

Integral Typography

Integral means: shaped into a whole. There the Aristotelian dictum that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts is assumed. And this vitally concerns typography. Typography is the art of making a whole out of predetermined parts. The typographer “sets” individual letters into words, words into sentences

He goes on to say… “letters are the elementary particles of the written language- and thus of typography. They are figurative signs for sounds without content, parts which acquire meaning and a value only if they are combined. This means that combinations of two, three and more letters show in any case a word-picture, but define letters render a definite idea only in a certain sequence”

He demonstrates this by showing that only one combination of the four letters form a meaningful word- “wife.”

The following example is applied to the brand identity of a record shop called “Boîte à musique”

The brand flexibility is displayed below- example 14 is company card with various proportions, example 15- notepaper, example 16 and 17- ads, and 18- a gift voucher:

Another example is given with Holzäpfel’s brand:

3D Programmes

Gerstner dives into three dimensional examples of programmes at work. The first example is a 3D sculpture which can be viewed from multiple angles yet appear cohesive from all angles:

The second example is a cylinder split into 9 rings based on the golden ratio proportions, which can be rotated to form various permutations based on the angle it’s observed:

Color Programmes

The very end of the books touches upon color and how it could be used systematically. One of the examples Gerstner gives is similar to an earlier example of reflecting a 3×3 square in order to arrive at different color patterns:

That’s all folks… I’ve tried to capture the main ideas that I found interesting, but the book has plenty more. If you found this useful, please like and share with others who might also derive use from it. Let me know your thoughts, feedback or questions in the comments :)

The post What I learned from the $2,000 elusive design book “Designing Programmes” appeared first on Design your way.

from Web Development & Designing http://www.designyourway.net/blog/design/what-i-learned-the-2000-design-book/

[foggynightdonut]

Origin of language

Chomsky's single-step theory

According to Noam Chomsky's single-mutation theory, the emergence of language resembled the formation of a crystal; with digital infinity as the seed crystal in a super-saturated primate brain, on the verge of blossoming into the human mind, by physical law, once evolution added a single small but crucial keystone.[83][66] Thus, in this theory, language appeared rather suddenly within the history of human evolution. Chomsky, writing with computational linguist and computer scientist Robert C. Berwick, suggests that this scenario is completely compatible with modern biology. They note that "none of the recent accounts of human language evolution seem to have completely grasped the shift from conventional Darwinism to its fully stochastic modern version—specifically, that there are stochastic effects not only due to sampling like directionless drift, but also due to directed stochastic variation in fitness, migration, and heritability—indeed, all the "forces" that affect individual or gene frequencies ... All this can affect evolutionary outcomes—outcomes that as far as we can make out are not brought out in recent books on the evolution of language, yet would arise immediately in the case of any new genetic or individual innovation, precisely the kind of scenario likely to be in play when talking about language's emergence."

Citing evolutionary geneticist Svante Pääbo, they concur that a substantial difference must have occurred to differentiate Homo sapiens from Neanderthals to "prompt the relentless spread of our species, who had never crossed open water, up and out of Africa and then on across the entire planet in just a few tens of thousands of years. ... What we do not see is any kind of 'gradualism' in new tool technologies or innovations like fire, shelters, or figurative art." Berwick and Chomsky therefore suggest language emerged approximately between 200,000 years ago and 60,000 years ago (between the appearance of the first anatomically modern humans in southern Africa and the last exodus from Africa respectively). "That leaves us with about 130,000 years, or approximately 5,000–6,000 generations of time for evolutionary change. This is not 'overnight in one generation' as some have (incorrectly) inferred—but neither is it on the scale of geological eons. It's time enough—within the ballpark for what Nilsson and Pelger (1994) estimated as the time required for the full evolution of a vertebrate eye from a single cell, even without the invocation of any 'evo-devo' effects."[84]

The single-mutation theory of language evolution has been directly questioned on different grounds. A formal analysis of the probability of such a mutation taking place and going to fixation in the species has concluded that such a scenario is unlikely, with multiple mutations with more moderate fitness effects being more probable.[85] Another criticism has questioned the logic of the argument for single mutation and puts forward that from the formal simplicity of Merge, the capacity Berwick and Chomsky deem the core property of human language that emerged suddenly, one cannot derive the (number of) evolutionary steps that led to it.[86]

The Romulus and Remus hypothesis

See also: Recursion § In language, and Prefrontal synthesis

The Romulus and Remus hypothesis, proposed by neuroscientist Andrey Vyshedskiy, seeks to address the question as to why the modern speech apparatus originated over 500,000 years before the earliest signs of modern human imagination. This hypothesis proposes that there were two phases that led to modern recursive language. The phenomenon of recursion occurs across multiple linguistic domains, arguably most prominently in syntax and morphology. Thus, by nesting a structure such as a sentence or a word within themselves, it enables the generation of potentially (countably) infinite new variations of that structure. For example, the base sentence [Peter likes apples.] can be nested in irrealis clauses to produce [[Mary said [Peter likes apples.]], [Paul believed [Mary said [Peter likes apples.]]] and so forth.[87]

The first phase includes the slow development of non-recursive language with a large vocabulary along with the modern speech apparatus, which includes changes to the hyoid bone, increased voluntary control of the muscles of the diaphragm, the evolution of the FOXP2 gene, as well as other changes by 600,000 years ago.[88] Then, the second phase was a rapid Chomskian single step, consisting of three distinct events that happened in quick succession around 70,000 years ago and allowed the shift from non-recursive to recursive language in early hominins.

A genetic mutation that slowed down the prefrontal synthesis (PFS) critical period of at least two children that lived together.

This allowed these children to create recursive elements of language such as spatial prepositions.

Then this merged with their parents' non-recursive language to create recursive language.[89]

It is not enough for children to have a modern prefrontal cortex (PFC) to allow the development of PFS; the children must also be mentally stimulated and have recursive elements already in their language to acquire PFS. Since their parents would not have invented these elements yet, the children would have had to do it themselves, which is a common occurrence among young children that live together, in a process called cryptophasia.[90] This means that delayed PFC development would have allowed more time to acquire PFS and develop recursive elements.

Delayed PFC development also comes with negative consequences, such as a longer period of reliance on one's parents to survive and lower survival rates. For modern language to have occurred, PFC delay had to have an immense survival benefit in later life, such as PFS ability. This suggests that the mutation that caused PFC delay and the development of recursive language and PFS occurred simultaneously, which lines up with evidence of a genetic bottleneck around 70,000 years ago.[91] This could have been the result of a few individuals who developed PFS and recursive language which gave them significant competitive advantage over all other humans at the time.[89]

[whyshona]

Communicative competence is one of those terms which is so familiar that we no longer consider what it really means. Communicative competence, we rattle off in teacher training courses or to interested outsiders, is our ability to use language in interaction to understand messages and make ourselves understood in turn.

We use the term in opposition to a narrower construct, linguistic competence, used in Chomskyan approaches to the study of language (sometimes call formal or “code” linguistics) to refer to native speakers’ knowledge of formal properties of language, such as whether a given utterance is grammatical.

Code linguistics contrasts with context linguistics (e.g. Widdowson, 2017). Context linguistics arose partly in reaction to Chomsky’s formalist approach, and from the desire among other linguists (in fields like sociolinguistics or the philosophy of language) to include what they saw as a crucial contextual dimension governing language use.

Language teachers might be interested in some online resources on communicative language teaching I have turned up. They offer additional references and activities relevant to practical classroom concerns.

Bateman & Lago Communicative language teaching. Brigham Young

Blyth. Defining communication, Texas at Austin

Whyte, Communicative competence, Nice

In this post, though, I want to reproduce some theoretical discussion of communicative competence, mostly in relation to teaching and learning second and foreign languages. I think it’s important to go back to original sources from time to time to make sure we still know what we’re trying to talk about.

Most of the text is quoted; what is mine is in coloured ink. I read these texts (references at the end):

Hymes 1972

Wilkins 1972

Canale and Swain 1980

Widdowson 2003 (just what I could access on Google books)

Communicative competence (native-speaker)

Hymes 1972

The seminal text by Hymes opposing communicative competence to Chomsky’s linguistic competence, and also responding of necessity to the latter’s competence-performance distinction (more on that here).

1. Whether (and to what degree) something is formally possible; 2. Whether (and to what degree) something is feasible in virtue of the means of implementation available; 3. Whether (and to what degree) something is appropriate (adequate, happy, successful) in relation to a context in which it is used and evaluated; 4. Whether (and to what degree) something is in fact done, actually performed and what its doing entails.                                                         (Hymes, 1972: 281, emphasis in original)

Possible This formulation seems to express an essential concern of present linguistic theory for the openness, potentiality, of language, and to generalise it for cultural systems. When systemic possibility is a matter of language, the corresponding term is of course grammaticality.

Feasible The predominant concern here has been for psycholinguistic factors such as memory limitation, perceptual device, effects of properties such as nesting, embedding, branching, and the like. […] With regard to the cultural, one would take into account other features of the body and features of the material environment as well.

Appropriate As we have seen, appropriateness is hardly brought into view in the linguistic theory under discussion, and is lumped under the heading of performance, and, correspondingly, acceptability. […] ‘Appropriateness’ seems to suggest readily the required sense of relation to contextual features.

Performed The study of communicative competence cannot restrict itself to occurrences, but it cannot ignore them. Structure cannot be reduced to probabilities of occurrence, but structural change is not independent of them […] Something may be possible, feasible, and appropriate and not occur. No general term is perhaps needed here, but the point is needed, especially for work that seeks to change what is done.

A syllabus for communicative competence (second/foreign language)

Wilkins 1972

I think this paper is probably more quoted than read; I had certainly never looked it up before. It has some of the hallmarks of behaviourist and structuralist approaches to linguistics you would expect from a text produced in the early 1970s, and you can certainly see how it influenced early versions of the CEFR. It is also of its time in the reaction against traditional grammar-translation methods of language teaching:

What people want to do through language is more important than mastery of language as an unapplied system (Wilkins 1972)

The paper is cited as a precursor or founding text for the notional-functional syllabus. Having seen textbooks taking this approach, I was surprised at the very abstract level of categories Wilkins proposes. Here’s the list without the examples, of which there are plenty (original here).

Notional categories

A. Semantico-grammatical categories

1. Time 2. Quantity 3. Space 4. Matter 5. Case 6. Deixis

B Categories of communicative function

7. Modality 8. Moral discipline and evaluation 9. Suasion 10. Argument 11. Rational enquiry and exposition 12. Personal emotions 13. Emotional relations 14. Interpersonal relations

Grammatical core and situational units

We must now decide whether it is possible simultaneously to provide a firm grammatical basis for subsequent learning and to meet predictable situational needs […] Provided three conditions are accepted, it is perfectly feasible to do the two things at once. 1. one must not expect the language in the learning units to be identical or even nearly identical with the language that would probably occur in the real situations. There are no simple language situations. The most simple situation may demand complex language. 2. forms are presented not solely for their relevance to immediate context of presentation but because they are of general value throughout the language. The occurrence of a new form but therefore be generalised and related to the entire grammatical system of which is it a part 3. Although the learner controls the language he produces outside the learning situation itself, he cannot control the language he hears. In this case provision may well have to be made for his early exposure to a much wider range of language than he will be required to produce.

Communicative competence (second/foreign language) Canale & Swain 1980

This is probably one of the key texts on the notion of communicative competence. There is a lot of discussion of previous writing, including Hymes, Wilkins, and Widdowson.

Guiding principles for a communicative approach

1. Communicative competence is composed minimally of grammatical competence, sociolinguistic competence, and communication strategies, or what we will refer to as strategic competence.

2. A communicative approach must be based on and respond to the learner’s communicative needs.

3. The second language learners must have the opportunity to take part in meaningful communicative interaction with highly competent speakers of the language, ie to respond to genuine communicative needs in realistic second language situations.

4. Particularly at the early stages of second language learning, optimal use must be made of those aspects of communicative competence that the learner has developed through acquisition and use of the native language and that are common to those communication skills required in the second language.

5. The primary objective of a communication-oriented second language programme must be to provide the learner with the information, practice and much of the experience need to meet their communicative needs in the second language.

Theoretical framework

Grammatical competence. This type of competence will be understood to include knowledge of lexical items and of rules of morphology, syntax, sentence-grammar semantics, and phonology.

Sociolinguistic competence. This component is made up of two sets of rules: sociocultural rules of use and rules of discourse. Sociocultural rules of use will specify the ways in which utterances are produced and understood appropriately with respect tot he components of communicative events outlined by Hymes (1967, 1968). The focus of rules of discourse in our framework is the combination of utterances and communicative functions and not the grammatical well-formedness of a single utterance nor the sociocultural appropriateness of a set of propositions and communicative functions in a given context.

Strategic competence. This component will be made up of verbal and non-verbal communication strategies that may be called into action to compensate for breakdowns in communication due to performance variables or to insufficient competence. Such strategies will be of two main types: those that relate primarily to grammatical competence (eg how to paraphrase grammatical forms that one has not mastered or cannot recall momentarily) and those that relate more the sociolinguistic competence (eg various role-playing strategies, how to address strangers when unsure of their social status).

Blyth summarises four strands of communicative competence thus:

grammatical (ability to create grammatically correct utterances),

sociolinguistic (ability to produce sociolinguistically appropriate utterances),

discourse (ability to produce coherent and cohesive utterances), and

strategic (ability to solve communication problems as they arise).

Communicative capability

Widdowson 2003

Going back to Hymes and Halliday, Widdowson proposes the term capability to replace competence and improve on problems he sees with the theoretical underpinnings of the notion of communicative competence. Briefly, he argues that grammatical competence should not be included in the construct of communicative competence because grammar relates to semantics and therefore to the language code, whereas communication involves language use in context, that is, pragmatics. To claim otherwise is to misrepresent the nature of communication, in his words.

Retrieving and adapting underlying knowledge

I introduced the notion of virtual language, by which I meant the potential inherent in the language for innovation beyond what has become established as well-formed or ‘correct’ encodings. In Chapter 10 I suggested that the nonconformities of learner language can be understood as realisations of this virtual language, and that such exploitations of linguistic potential are comparable to those which result in dialectal variation in language spread. The difference is that they do not stabilise: learners are induced into a conformity with actual encodings. But they are evidence of a developing capability for exploiting the virtual resources of the the code, and it is just such a capability, I have argued, that teaching should be designed to develop. Although learners will obviously adjust to the conventions of actual encodings as a course progresses, we should recognise that this process can only be partial and will have to continue after the course is over, as learners learn for themselves how to adjust appropriately to the encoding conventions they encounter. Capability on this account combines two things: the ability to exploit the virtual language, and the readiness to adjust to the conventions of actual encodings as and when required (Widdowson, 2003: 173)

Commmunicative capability as an underlying competence

This capability is essentially a knowledge of how meaning potential encoded in English can be realised as a communicative resources. A consideration of the language that expert uses, typically native speakers, actually produce makes it quite clear that this potential is only very partially realised on different occasions of use. The reason for this is obvious: people use their language pragmatically as a complement to context. The more informative the context, the less explicit the language needs to be. Effective communication depends on the subtle online regulation of the relationship between the two, and this will involve recognizing when it is contextually appropriate not to draw on the semantic resources as your disposal. But the crucial point to be made is that the resource is available when you need it. so although, for example, the analysis of actual conversation will reveal that people interact by means of elliptical utterance, with phrasal fragments of talk, these can be extended, if need be, by more explicit linguistic means. It is, of course, true that actual language behaviour does not consist of well-formed syntactic expressions, quite simply because they are surplus to requirement, but speakers nevertheless know what they are, and can draw on this knowledge as resource in cases where it turns out that they are not surplus to requirement after all. The language that people actually produce as observable behaviour presupposes a vast knowledge of language as unexploited potential. If learners of a language are to be come capable in a language, they clearly cannot just learn the patterns of what actually occurs as behaviour, but must also have a knowledge of the back-up linguistic resource that this behaviour presupposes. (Widdowson, 2003: 177)

Communicative capability > linguistic competence > explicit grammatical knowledge

There is more to linguistic competence than a knowledge of grammar, and more to language capability than linguistic competence. And it is capability, I have suggested, which is ‘at the core of language learning.’ The discussion in this book leads to the conclusion that it is the meaning potential of English that is ‘the most salient features to teach, and to test.’ This is the E of subject TESOL. Contriving ways of getting learners to engage with it and to appropriate it is, I would argue, what the subject is all about. (Widdowson, 2003: 174).

  No conclusion, just food for thought. But with a little packaging.

References

Bateman, B., & Lago, B. Communicative language teaching. Methods of Language Teaching. 2008?

Blyth, C. Defining communication, in Speaking. Foreign Language Teaching Methods, COERLL. 2010?

Canale, M., & Swain, M. (1980). Theoretical bases of communicative approaches to second language teaching and testing. Applied linguistics, 1, 1. PDF

Hymes, D. 1972. On communicative competence. In J.B. Pride and J. Holmes (eds.). Sociolinguistics. Harmondsworth: Penguin. PDF

Widdowson, H. (2007). Un‐applied linguistics and communicative language teaching. International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 17(2), 214-220.

Widdowson, H. (2003). Defining issues in English language teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Wilkins, D. A. (1973). The Linguistic and Situational Content of the Common Core in a Unit/Credit System. Systems development in adult language learning. Strasbourg: Council of Europe. PDF

What is communicative competence? Communicative competence is one of those terms which is so familiar that we no longer consider what it really means.

[trihalo42]

Schizophrenia and the Left Ear

Schizophrenia and the Left Ear, by Trihalo42

TL;DR:  I believe that in patients where the problem lies more in the right hemisphere that by blocking the left ear the right hemisphere may receive less stimulation and reduce schizophrenic symptoms. In other words, some schizophrenics may benefit from walking around with an ear-plug in their left ear.

Slightly Longer Explanation:

Research has shown there is a difference in right brain / left brain function in thought processing. For example, when processing language, the left brain works more on the mechanical aspects and the right brain works more with emotion and creativity, but both work together for total processing of speech.

Some research suggests that damage to the right hemisphere is involved in schizophrenia, while other research points towards interference between the hemispheres, and other research suggests it's more about the frontal cortex than one hemisphere or the other. I'm referring to cases where the right hemisphere appears to be more involved.

Each ear also affects the opposite side hemisphere more, the same as each hemisphere controls the opposite side of the body.

Wall of Science:

The following are (relatively) short quotations that do not truly do justice to the research involved. I recommend fully reading each article / study to gain a better overall understanding.

Some research indicates that damage to the right brain is associated with schizophrenia.

“...McGilchrist believes that the growing epidemic of psychiatric conditions can be tied to right brain deficiencies. For example, symptoms of depersonalization and derealization that lead to a diagnosis of schizophrenia, are also typical of people who have suffered massive strokes or damage to the right hemisphere...”

https://www.madinamerica.com/2016/01/the-genetics-of-schizophrenia-a-left-brain-theory-about-a-right-brain-deficit-in-a-left-brain-world/

Other research shows that reduction in communications between right brain and left brain is important in schizophrenia.

“...People with schizophrenia have significantly decreased interhemispheric coordination compared to those without the disorder, according to a new study...”

https://psychcentral.com/news/2012/08/22/brain-hemispheres-out-of-sync-in-schizophrenia/43506.html

Other research shows that it might just be the frontal cortex and no so much one side or the other.

“...Right brain-damaged patients significantly often revealed elevated mood, lack of adequacy of self-evaluation and active or negative attitude towards the environment. Left brain-damaged patients showed depressed mood, resignation, positive or seldom passive attitude to others and adequate self-evaluation. Schizophrenic patients mostly revealed indifferent mood and passive attitude to environment, their self-evaluation was rather adequate. Based on our data, the changes in emotional behaviour in schizophrenic patients might reflect frontal lobes dysfunction rather than dysfunction localised in one of cerebral hemispheres...”

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12149918

Other research shows that the right brain functions tend to involve the whole brain, while left brain functions tend to be more limited to the left brain.

“...several studies on schizophrenia have reported a loss of the developmental brain torsion (the so-called cerebral torque) with resulting failure of the left-hemisphere dominance (Mitchell and Crow, 2005). Interestingly, significant reductions in gyrification (hypogyria) are predominantly in the left hemisphere (Palaniyappan and Liddle, 2012). This morphologic evidence may play a role in the impairment and abnormal asymmetry of neural connectivity (White and Hilgetag, 2011), as well as in confirming the hypothesis of a failure of this hemisphere dominance and an abnormal brain lateralization.

A revision of the more recent functional connectivity studies reveals an overall rightward global asymmetry, both in healthy subjects (Medvedev, 2014) and in SCZ (Jalili et al., 2010). However, the patients show a more generally attenuated asymmetry, which increases with the duration of the disease and correlates with the psychotic symptoms (Jalili et al., 2010; Rotarska-Jagiela et al., 2010). Interestingly, patients exhibiting positive symptoms have significantly increased leftward asymmetry of functional connectivity, while the negative symptom group, in contrast, exhibits increased rightward asymmetry of functional connectivity (Ke et al., 2010). The DTI studies also confirm these data with the SCZ showing a significant reduction of leftward asymmetry in some peculiar white-matter tracts, like the uncinate fasciculus (Kubicki et al., 2002; Kitis et al., 2012; Miyata et al., 2012). Furthermore, different studies have also shown that left-hemisphere white-matter tracts are more impaired than are the right-hemisphere ones (Ellison-Wright and Bullmore, 2009).

An important aspect of brain lateralization in the healthy brain is that the left hemisphere has a greater preference for within-hemisphere interactions, whereas the right hemisphere has interactions that are more strongly bilateral. At a macroscopic scale, this is broadly consistent with proposals that hold that cortical representations are more focal in the left hemisphere and more diffuse in the right hemisphere (Gotts et al., 2013). Therefore, in the healthy subjects, left-hemisphere regions are biased to interact more strongly within the same hemisphere, whereas right-hemisphere regions interact more strongly with both hemispheres. These two different patterns of interaction are associated with left-lateralized functions, such as language and motor abilities, and right-lateralized functions, such as visuospatial attention (Gotts et al., 2013). Therefore, as a consequence of abnormal brain asymmetry and of the failure of the left-hemisphere dominance in schizophrenia, lateralized functions are compromised in schizophrenia. Indeed, different studies have revealed abnormal patterns of connectivity in the left hemisphere in relation to specific psychotic domains (Rotarska-Jagiela et al., 2009; Gavrilescu et al., 2010; Vercammen et al., 2010).

In this paper, we also hypothesize that the abnormal asymmetry of the functional connectivity may be partly due to the well-observed inter-hemispheric communication in schizophrenia. As reported above, there is evidence that reduced functional inter-hemispheric connectivity goes along with abnormal brain asymmetry (Innocenti et al., 2003). Furthermore, deficits in white-matter connectivity in the corpus callosum could disrupt the synchrony between homotopically connected regions because neural signals are not transmitted with fidelity (Hoptman et al., 2012).

One possible hypothesis is that the abnormal asymmetry of connectivity may be related to a dysfunctional inter-hemispheric communication. Indeed, insufficient communication between hemispheres might further affect the developmental process of each individual hemisphere, resulting in the relative lack of asymmetry observed in schizophrenic brains (Innocenti et al., 2003). Future studies should investigate the degree of connectivity of a brain region in relation to the efficiency of the inter-hemispheric connectivity in schizophrenia...”

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4273663/

Ear:

Other research shows that each ear is processed more by one side of the brain.

“..."The difference between the two ears is not only attributable to a different performance of the ears per se (which has been nonetheless documented in previous work), but to preferential processing by the left and right hemispheres, that are wired more strongly with the contralateral ears," Tommasi told LiveScience. (Contralateral means "on the opposite side," so in this case, it means that right ear sounds are processed more on the left side of the brain, and left ear sounds are processed more on the right.)...”

http://www.livescience.com/9679-people-prefer-ear-listening.html

“Marzoli et al. Side biases in humans (Homo sapiens): three ecological studies on hemispheric asymmetries”

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19543876

Another study showed that subjects required to imagine a voice or sound unilaterally showed a strong bias to generate the imagery in the right ear, which was said to be, “...likely the result of left-hemispheric dominance in auditory processing...”.

“Hearing it right: Evidence of hemispheric lateralization in auditory imagery.” https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26706706

But my assumption about the left ear is not about imagining voices or audio processing, which other research suggests actually involves both hemispheres (both the meaning of words and implied emotion from how words are said), but rather reducing direct stimulation of the right hemisphere.

Conclusion:

I propose that if schizophrenia is seated more in the right brain in a patient, that reducing sounds in the left ear could reduce right brain stimulation and thus reduce symptoms. Other patients may not receive benefit from blocking the one ear. Blocking one ear instead of both is safer as far as spatial awareness and has less impact on social interactions (because some people make a binary assumption that someone can hear perfectly or not at all).

In other words, some schizophrenics may benefit from walking around with an ear-plug in their left ear.

[alexstrick]

On Reading in Arabic: The Evidence

[This is the second post in a series on the importance of reading when studying Arabic (or any other language). Read the first post here.]

It is notoriously difficult to study and show which are the most efficient methods to study second languages. For starters, everyone is slightly different, so it's hard to compare between individuals. Learning a language is also such an involved pursuit (taking place over all hours of the day, and in the mind, where microscope or dictaphone can't usefully reach) that it is impractical to follow the student for all twenty-four hours of the day.

Having given the pitch for why I think reading is so important for students of Arabic, today I wanted to summarise a study that was carried out from 1970-1977. This study, by ElSaid Badawi, is entitled "In the quest for the Level 4+ in Arabic: training Level 2–3 learners in independent reading" and can be found as an article in Betty Lou Leaver and Boris Shekhtman's fascinating (and underrated / underred) edited volume, Developing Professional-Level Language Proficiency. Given its somewhat obscure provenance, it's unlikely you'd come across this fascinating article in the normal course of your day, hence my interest in summarising it for you here.

Badawi offers an overview of his experience running the CASA (Center for Arabic Study Abroad) programme between 1970-1977. This programme was originally started in 1967 for advanced-level students and the idea of it was to give a year of intensive study in order to really catapult students into real competency in being able to read, speak and use Arabic in a professional capacity. (Badawi begins his article with a justification for reading, but I'll skip those details since their is a great deal of overlap with what I've already written).

The original CASA curriculum in the 1967-era programme was established around a 3000-word vocabulary list, reading of some short passages using those words in context, a grammar book and two long 'authentic' texts that would be covered over the course of the year. The students found this dull and unrewarding, however, so CASA's administrators decided to design a new course based around familiarising students with a 'language domain of their interests'. In other words: allowing them to read things that were related to their interests and professional trajectory.

Students taking part in the programme were assessed (prior to joining) as being at a high level, but their vocabulary was generally limited to political subjects. They had a poor understanding of morphology and little to no facility with semantics. They had, Badawi writes, bad reading habits in Arabic: too much focus on sentence structure, engaged in 'parsing-based reading' and with only a minimal grasp of the "semantic role of punctuation". In that last case, this is the way Arabic uses words, phrasing and sentence constructions to signify the meaning of a sentence, whereas in English a lot of those meaning structures are conveyed through punctuation. Most of all, students suffered from an 'excessive / crippling' use of the Arabic-English dictionary, which was identified as an obstacle to spontaneous and contextualised language learning; words were quickly forgotten.

The programme sought to encourage a switch in its students: "a change of attitude toward Arabic from that of a language they are being taught to one which they should start learning". The responsibility, at this level, generally should switch from the teacher to the students.

The programme was split up into three semesters / terms:

Semester 1: 8-week summer programme

This was made up of introductory cultural classes (based around Cairo, Egypt, where students were living. It offered classes to bring students up to a competent level in functional colloquial Arabic. (Students could solve all their problems and interact with Egyptians in a functional way, following the course). There was also a component of media Arabic where students would become familiar with the formalised language used in printed and spoken contexts.

Semester 2: 14-week autumn programme

This semester was for allowing students to gain a higher competence in MSA. Reading was one of the core elements here (news reading became effortless and there was some inclusion of classical language as well). Colloquial Arabic was encouraged through the reading of plays (which often used colloquial/dialect expressions and language). An intensive reading programme was added alongside this to boost confidence.

Semester 3: 14-week spring programme

The final semester included three graduate-level courses in subjects of the students' interest / choice. There was also some training in 'Educated Spoken Arabic' (i.e. the discussion of high-culture topics).

The Intensive Reading Course

The core belief behind the programme was that reading was important to the students' knowledge of Arabic in a fundamental way. All the other skills would benefit and develop alongside the reading done as part of the programme. There were different kinds of texts available and a selection criteria for what kinds of reading took place:

Finding materials for intensive / analytic reading was easy. The harder issue was finding materials suitable for extensive reading, i.e. the kind of wide-reading that students are able to do with some level of ease. Arabic poses a particular problem in this regard, given its 'wide range of active vocabulary in use', and the 'complexity of the morphs-semantic system'.

Plays were believed to be the best for extensive reading. They carried a "high degree of word and sentence redundancy", usually had only a single theme and were of moderate length. (It was found that reading two 200-page books was much more satisfying than reading a single 400-page book). Plays also lend themselves to real-life activities. There is also the possibility of watching the plays being performed (or, now, on YouTube).

Novels were also considered useful, but the fact that dialogue is used only minimally means that they were kept for later in the semester. Short stories were denser in meaning and language use and thus harder. They were included in the programme, though, for the sake of variety.

Overall, texts were chosen for the language structures used rather than for their literary value / content.

Reading Texts

The course had students reading three items each week. Usually one novel or a play (a long item) and a short story and a 1-act play (i.e. two short items). These were generally from the same author, and difficulty would escalate over time. All texts were authentic and unabridged. Ideally they were selected from leading literary figures and they would all be texts for which no English translations already exist. Selecting these texts was hard at the beginning, but over the years they settled into a broad pattern, escalating in difficulty:

Group 1 (first three weeks)

Plays by Tawfiq al-Hakim (short and long). These were good because he uses a lot of redundant vocabulary, follow familiar thematic sources to those with which students would have been familiar, used a lively dialogue and generally contained "straightforward language".

Group 2 (5 weeks)

This consisted of works by Ihsan Abdul Quddus, a journalist, novelist and short story writer. These works tackled themes from social phenomena and thus were appropriate to a young audience. They referenced local customs and expressions. They included fewer dialogues in the novels and short stories. They had a lucid structure and controlled range of vocabulary.

Group 3

This was works by Yusuf Idris, blending MSA with colloquial idioms, Qur'anic citations and quotations from the hadith literature. These were at a higher difficulty level.

Group 4

This was a mix of items chosen for special topical interest or artistic value. For example, in the final week, students read Fathy Ghanem's 1958 novel Al-Gabal. They also tackled some of the non-famous novels by Nagib Mahfouz.

Mixed in these various groups were shorter items: one-act plays and short stories. There was generally a balance between length of a text and its linguistic difficulty.

Reading Instructions

I found this section of the article the most interesting / instructive. Students were told the following:

The beginning of a story / text is always the hardest. You don't know what's going on, who the characters are and what the context / scene is. Bear with it. A lot of this will be scene-setting. You can always return back to it later on.

Arabic has a lot of redundancy. Compare what you are stuck on with what follows and check if you can figure out the meaning that way.

Continue reading as long as you can make out a story or theme for yourself. Don't worry or second-guess yourself as to whether what you understand from the story is the same thing as what the author intended you to understand.

If you find a word or part of the structure you don't understand and stop, DON'T look the word up in the dictionary unless:

you have failed to guess the meaning

there is nobody around to ask the meaning

Mark / highlight the words you were able to guess in the text. Mark the words you were able to do without understanding.

Make a list of cultural features that you'd like to be addressed in class.

Mark and make a list of any expressions and grammatical features or constructions that you want addressed in class.

Classes

Class sessions were essentially there to ensure that students were keeping up with the reading volume. Students would narrate their understanding of the texts they had read, and would raise any issues they wanted to learn more about.

Classes were also a good time to increase students' semantic understanding -- allowing students to identify shared roots and usages in different contexts and forums.

Students submitted written responses / follow-ups to the text in the class with the teacher present. A weekly conference with students gathered feedback on the choices of texts, allowing teachers to adapt the programme depending on the ease/difficulty perceived by each individual cohort of students.

Results

By the end of the 14-week programme, students had read an average of 2500 pages of authentic Arabic texts. Graded text levels showed that their language was improving. They were encouraged by managing to review words and structures that had been marked as 'hard' earlier on in the semester. (Usually 25-40% of these words had become intelligible to them, despite no vocabulary learning strategy specifically targeted at learning these words.) The graduate-level courses (all taught in Arabic, obviously) of the final semester were also a proving ground for students.

This reading programme increase students' competence and was transferrable to their other skills. (Yes, even their spoken Arabic.) Reading helped with writing. Reading 'complete texts' did a lot for the morale of the students at the intermediate-level, too. And the literary focus of the content was useful for students even if their interests didn't lie in that particular area.

My next post about reading Arabic will detail some options that are available to the intermediate-level student of Arabic, and some practical considerations resulting from this article.