Some Observations of Rumsen Ohlone Grammar
paper published online
My paper titled, Some Observations of Rumsen Ohlone Grammar has been published online in the Kansas Working Papers in Linguistics (KWPL). Here is the link:
Friday, January 22, 2010
Wednesday, January 06, 2010
Mississippian and Maya cosmology
The Hand constellation and the Milky Way
As I have been working on a Biloxi ethnography (still in progress) and researching both MIIS1 and Maya mythology and cosmology, interesting similarities occur between the two. For instance, it is interesting that both cultures focus on Orion's Belt as having major cosmological significance in relation to creation, life, and death. In Mississippian cosmology this is reflected in the Hand constellation, where Orion's Belt forms the wrist of the cut-off hand (various Plains myths refer to a celestial chief's arm or hand being cut off and left to dangle in the sky) facing downward in the night sky (Lankford 2007). In Maya cosmology, Orion's Belt is referred to in the Popol Vuh, the Maya creation story, as both the 'three stones of creation' and the 'hearthstones' (Freidel et al. 1993).
Similarly, both cultures refer to the peculiar movement of the Milky Way in the night sky. The 'rising and falling sky' motif was apparently prevalent throughout the US Southeast (among at least the Chitimachas, Alabamas, Cherokees, Choctaws, Shawnees) (we can probably safely add Biloxis here), the Plains (Foxes, Poncas), and the Southwest (Navajos) (Lankford 2007: 204), represented in mythology and apparently based on the nightly movement of the Milky Way. The Milky Way moves from a near vertical position, in which Mayas refer to it as the 'cosmic tree,' to a nearly horizontal position, in which Mayas refer to it as the 'sky canoe.' This is the celestial canoe carrying the Two Paddler Gods who set the 'Three Stones of Creation' (Orion's Belt, Ak 'Ek, or Turtle) in place, from which First Father, or the Maize God, is reborn, thus creating a new universe (Freidel et al. 1993). The Canoe then 'sinks' on the western horizon at dawn, the time of the birth of creation (ibid.).
The Hand constellation is said to mark the location of the Portal to the Otherworld, at least in Southeastern mythology. Within the Hand constellation "lies a galaxy (Messier 42) visible as a fuzzy star that is understood to be a hole in the sky, a portal" (Lankford 2007: 197). "Today, [Alnitak, Saiph, and Rigel in Orion] are said to be the three hearthstones of the typical Quiché [Maya] kitchen fireplace, arranged to form a triangle, and the cloudy area they enclose (Great Nebula M[essier] 42) is said to be the smoke from the fire" (Tedlock 1985: 261 in Freidel et al. 1993: 79). The Southeastern Hand constellation portal may indeed be the same portal into which the Maya king "Pakal falls on his sarcophagus lid and out of which beings of the Otherworld emerge" (Freidel et al. 1993: 87).
Similarly, the Milky Way plays similar roles in both cultures as a 'Path of Souls' used by the dead to journey into the Otherworld. In fact, the Mayan term for 'death' is 'och be, literally meaning 'enter the Road [of Souls],' meaning the Milky Way. There is a "quite similar understanding of the Milky Way among Siberian groups" (Lankford 2007: 212) suggesting "an impressive time-depth" (ibid.) for this association of the Milky Way with death and as a path to the afterlife.
More work remains to be done on Southeastern (or Mississippian) cultural beliefs and cosmology in comparison with those of Mesoamerica. Perhaps more entries to come on this very complex topic....
1 MIIS = Mississippian Intercultural Interaction Sphere (also known as the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex, or SECC)
References
Freidel, David, Schele, L. & Parker, J. 1993. Maya cosmos: three thousand years of the shaman's path. New York: HarperCollins.
Lankford, George. 2007. The "path of souls": some death imagery in the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex. In Ancient objects and sacred realms: interpretations of Mississippian iconography. Reilly, F. Kent & Garber, James, eds. Austin: University of Texas Press.
The Hand constellation and the Milky Way
As I have been working on a Biloxi ethnography (still in progress) and researching both MIIS1 and Maya mythology and cosmology, interesting similarities occur between the two. For instance, it is interesting that both cultures focus on Orion's Belt as having major cosmological significance in relation to creation, life, and death. In Mississippian cosmology this is reflected in the Hand constellation, where Orion's Belt forms the wrist of the cut-off hand (various Plains myths refer to a celestial chief's arm or hand being cut off and left to dangle in the sky) facing downward in the night sky (Lankford 2007). In Maya cosmology, Orion's Belt is referred to in the Popol Vuh, the Maya creation story, as both the 'three stones of creation' and the 'hearthstones' (Freidel et al. 1993).
The fact that the stars of Orion's Belt were important to ancient Native Americans is evident in the pyramidal layout of Teotihuacan's three largest pyramids: Pyramid of the Moon, Pyramid of the Sun, and the Temple of the Feathered Serpent, which seem to match quite well the celestial configuration of Orion's three Belt stars. Of course, interestingly, the three pyramids of Egypt's Gizeh also seem to match this configuration!
Similarly, both cultures refer to the peculiar movement of the Milky Way in the night sky. The 'rising and falling sky' motif was apparently prevalent throughout the US Southeast (among at least the Chitimachas, Alabamas, Cherokees, Choctaws, Shawnees) (we can probably safely add Biloxis here), the Plains (Foxes, Poncas), and the Southwest (Navajos) (Lankford 2007: 204), represented in mythology and apparently based on the nightly movement of the Milky Way. The Milky Way moves from a near vertical position, in which Mayas refer to it as the 'cosmic tree,' to a nearly horizontal position, in which Mayas refer to it as the 'sky canoe.' This is the celestial canoe carrying the Two Paddler Gods who set the 'Three Stones of Creation' (Orion's Belt, Ak 'Ek, or Turtle) in place, from which First Father, or the Maize God, is reborn, thus creating a new universe (Freidel et al. 1993). The Canoe then 'sinks' on the western horizon at dawn, the time of the birth of creation (ibid.).
The Hand constellation is said to mark the location of the Portal to the Otherworld, at least in Southeastern mythology. Within the Hand constellation "lies a galaxy (Messier 42) visible as a fuzzy star that is understood to be a hole in the sky, a portal" (Lankford 2007: 197). "Today, [Alnitak, Saiph, and Rigel in Orion] are said to be the three hearthstones of the typical Quiché [Maya] kitchen fireplace, arranged to form a triangle, and the cloudy area they enclose (Great Nebula M[essier] 42) is said to be the smoke from the fire" (Tedlock 1985: 261 in Freidel et al. 1993: 79). The Southeastern Hand constellation portal may indeed be the same portal into which the Maya king "Pakal falls on his sarcophagus lid and out of which beings of the Otherworld emerge" (Freidel et al. 1993: 87).
The Hand-and-Eye motif of the MIIS. Could the 'eye' symbol represent 'see' while the 'hand' symbol represents the constellation? This may represent the idea of a god or gods seeing or looking down onto the earth from the Hand constellation, wherein lies the portal, possibly also represented by the eye, between earth and the Otherworld.
Similarly, the Milky Way plays similar roles in both cultures as a 'Path of Souls' used by the dead to journey into the Otherworld. In fact, the Mayan term for 'death' is 'och be, literally meaning 'enter the Road [of Souls],' meaning the Milky Way. There is a "quite similar understanding of the Milky Way among Siberian groups" (Lankford 2007: 212) suggesting "an impressive time-depth" (ibid.) for this association of the Milky Way with death and as a path to the afterlife.
This petroglyph from Chaco Canyon (once home to the Anasazis) in the US Southwest, thought by some to commemorate the 1054 CE Supernova explosion. The starburst may represent the explosion while the crescent moon and hand symbols represent the event's location in the sky: just above the moon and at or near the Hand constellation. If this interpretation is correct, it would show that the Hand constellation was known even in the Southwest and perhaps throughout much of Native America.
More work remains to be done on Southeastern (or Mississippian) cultural beliefs and cosmology in comparison with those of Mesoamerica. Perhaps more entries to come on this very complex topic....
1 MIIS = Mississippian Intercultural Interaction Sphere (also known as the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex, or SECC)
References
Freidel, David, Schele, L. & Parker, J. 1993. Maya cosmos: three thousand years of the shaman's path. New York: HarperCollins.
Lankford, George. 2007. The "path of souls": some death imagery in the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex. In Ancient objects and sacred realms: interpretations of Mississippian iconography. Reilly, F. Kent & Garber, James, eds. Austin: University of Texas Press.
Friday, January 01, 2010
Avatar
OK, if you haven't seen this movie yet but plan to, you may want to skip down to the Na'vi Language part of this entry, since I do give my thoughts on the movie itself here in this first part.
You can read movie critics galore critiquing this movie, so I will not do much of that here. But I will graciously offer my opinion overall: the movie is cinematographically (that's a long word!) excellent (especially in 3D), and the dialogue is so so. And, of course, I found the artificial language created especially for this movie quite interesting, but I'll come back to that below in its own separate entry.
As a linguistic anthropologist whose interests and passion lie in the preservation and documentation of already dormant or moribund languages and cultures, I find the movie wreaking with what has become known as "Noble Savage Syndrome," as exemplified in the words of Alexander Pope in his 1734 Essay on Man:
The analogy to the nineteenth century US with its European colonization and the abhorrent treatment of indigenous peoples, up to and including forced removal and all-out genocide, is very evident throughout the movie. The only major difference, of course, is that the movie has a Hollywood happy ending, utterly insulting to any Native Americans watching. American Indians did not in reality, unfortunately, have any Jake Scully defecting from the genocidal European and Euro-American war machine hellbent on Manifest Destiny to save the day and bring an end to what the movie calls the "Time of Sorrow." This time of sorrow is short-lived in the movie and soon ends, but, lest we need to remind ourselves, such sorrow never ended for our indigenous peoples who still suffer the multi-generational effects of several centuries of European and Euro-American racism, cruelty, and genocide.
Lo, the poor Indian! whose untutor'd mind
Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind;
His soul proud Science never taught to stray
Far as the solar walk or milky way;
Yet simple Nature to his hope has giv'n,
Behind the cloud-topp'd hill, a humbler heav'n;
Some safer world in depth of woods embrac'd,
Some happier island in the wat'ry waste,
Where slaves once more their native land behold,
No fiends torment, no Christians thirst for gold!
To be, contents his natural desire;
He asks no angel's wing, no seraph's fire:
But thinks, admitted to that equal sky,
His faithful dog shall bear him company.
Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind;
His soul proud Science never taught to stray
Far as the solar walk or milky way;
Yet simple Nature to his hope has giv'n,
Behind the cloud-topp'd hill, a humbler heav'n;
Some safer world in depth of woods embrac'd,
Some happier island in the wat'ry waste,
Where slaves once more their native land behold,
No fiends torment, no Christians thirst for gold!
To be, contents his natural desire;
He asks no angel's wing, no seraph's fire:
But thinks, admitted to that equal sky,
His faithful dog shall bear him company.
The analogy to the nineteenth century US with its European colonization and the abhorrent treatment of indigenous peoples, up to and including forced removal and all-out genocide, is very evident throughout the movie. The only major difference, of course, is that the movie has a Hollywood happy ending, utterly insulting to any Native Americans watching. American Indians did not in reality, unfortunately, have any Jake Scully defecting from the genocidal European and Euro-American war machine hellbent on Manifest Destiny to save the day and bring an end to what the movie calls the "Time of Sorrow." This time of sorrow is short-lived in the movie and soon ends, but, lest we need to remind ourselves, such sorrow never ended for our indigenous peoples who still suffer the multi-generational effects of several centuries of European and Euro-American racism, cruelty, and genocide.
But if you can manage to overlook another obvious Hollywood attempt at assuaging our "white guilt," then the movie is fairly good and entertaining.
Na'vi Language
First Tolkien's Elvish, then Okrand's Klingon, and now Frommer's Na'vi! Perhaps there will be a future for us linguists and linguistic anthropologists in the creation and development of artificial languages for sci-fi movies. In this latest sci-fi hit, the indigenous peoples of the planet Pandora are given a real (invented) language with real vocabulary and grammar. Paul Frommer, the USC professor who invented the language, tried to make it sound "alien" yet pronounceable. Probably the most notable sounds are the ejective p, t, and k, which appear in some Native American languages, including Mayan. Frommer was not the first linguist to examine Amerindian languages as models for inventing an artificial language. Okrand, a linguist who got his PhD at UC Berkeley with his dissertation on Mutsun Ohlone (a close cousin of Rumsen), admitted that the Ohlonean languages were the inspiration for some of the sounds and grammatical aspects he put into Klingon.
Click here for a short YouTube report on the Na'vi language. Perhaps there will be a dictionary and grammar forthcoming?Rumsen Folklore
It occurred to me that I didn't post information on the Rumsen (Ohlone) folklore article I got published in the Journal of Folklore Research in December 2008. Here is the abstract:
Sadly, it often happens that languages and cultures become dormant with no written record of their existence, of how the people perceived their world, and how they described it through their folk stories. Such would have been the case of the now dormant Rumsen Ohlone language of California were it not for the tireless dedication of linguist John P. Harrington. He spent years collaborating with the last native speaker of Rumsen, Isabelle Meadows, to discuss her culture and her folk stories. Among the cultural gems that arose from these discussions are the two narratives published here. Both stories feature the trickster figure, Coyote. The first tells of a visit by a sea monster, which causes Coyote's wife to die of fright. The second describes a battle of wits between Coyote and Hummingbird. Both stories give us, through the original Rumsen language, insight into the culture and sense of humor of the Rumsen people, whose descendants still inhabit the central coast of California.
A PDF version of the article can be purchased for $13.50 directly from the Journal via this link:
In relation to this, one of the stories from this article will be published in the upcoming online edition of the Kansas Working Papers in Linguistics (KWPL) that also includes a brief Rumsen grammatical sketch based on the grammatical aspects of the Rumsen version of the story. This will be free and downloadable from the Working Papers link (on the left) on the University of Kansas's Linguistics Department website. My two prior papers on Biloxi are also free and downloadable anytime from this site.
Uyghur language - Uyghurche - ئۇيغۇرچە
In this coming Spring semester, I will be taking my first class in the Uyghur language. Uyghur (oo-ee-ghur) is spoken primarily in Xinjiang 'new dominion' (also called Chinese Turkestan) in the northwestern portion of the People's Republic of China (PRC). There are also speakers in neighboring Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan1. Uyghur is a Southeastern Turkic language. It is related to Turkish. (Turkish is spoken in Turkey, while other Turkic languages are spoken across central Asia, including Uyghur, Turkmen, Tatar, Uzbek, Kazakh, and Kyrgyz. Just remember that, while Turkish is a Turkic language, not all Turkic languages are Turkish.) While Uyghur has several million speakers, it is considered a "threatened" language due to the infiltration and imposition of the PRC's primary official language, Mandarin. (This is not unlike the situation here in the US with the imposition of our official language, English, upon Native Americans, for example, whose languages and cultures for the most part, if not already extinct, are close to it.)
Uyghur-speaking region of western China, centered around Kashgar.
The Uyghurs (often erroneously referred to as 'Chinese Muslims' even on such respected US national media as NPR, which should know better!) are one of over 50 ethnic minority groups of the PRC. They have inhabited northwestern China, which includes the Teklimakan Desert (Tarim Basin), since about 900 CE. The famous Silk Road passes through here and it has long been a major crossroads and trade route between West and East. Its inhabitants have included Tocharians (a possible Celtic group who inhabited the region from about 2000 BCE2), Persians, and Mongols as well as Uyghurs. Mummies have been unearthed in the Tarim Basin region buried under desert sands for some 4,000 years that are apparently the well-preserved bodies of the blond and blue-eyed Tocharians (see my prior post on this topic), probably originating in northern Europe. (In fact, many inhabitants of the region still have the light hair and facial features of their Tocharian ancestors.)
Red-haired child of Xinjiang
Uyghur and the other Turkic languages are part of the broader Altaic language family, which includes Turkic, Mongolian, Korean, and possibly Japanese. While Altaic was for a while also believed related to the Uralic languages, including Hungarian and Finnish, but this idea remains controversial. (The inclusion of Japanese under the Altaic umbrella is also still hotly debated.) For me, one of the most intriguing aspects of studying Uyghur is from the historical-comparative linguistic perspective of seeing how the language has borrowed from other languages throughout its history. For example, kitab 'book' and mu'ellim 'teacher' are from Arabic; istakan 'glass' and poyiz 'train' from Russian; dunya 'world' from Persian; much 'pepper' from Sanskrit; pul 'money' possibly from Tocharian (?); and yangyu 'potato' from Chinese. The meanings of these borrowed words occasionally changed when introduced into Uyghur; the Uyghur word lughet 'dictionary' was borrowed from Arabic, in which the word originally meant 'language.' Sometimes two borrowed words compete with each other: tëlëwizor (Russian) and dyanshi (Chinese), both meaning 'television.'
The letters of the (Latin) Uyghur alphabet are: a, e, b, p, t, j, ch, x, d, r, z, zh, s, sh, gh, f, q, k, g, ng, l, m, n, h, o, u, ö, ü, w, ë, i, and y. For English speakers, the hardest sounds to pronounce are the very Scandinavian-like ö and ü, and the three guttural sounds x, gh, and q. Uyghur has been written with three different scripts: Latin-based, Cyrillic-based (as used in Kazakhstan and other Commonwealth of Independent States [CIS] [formerly of the USSR] countries), and a modified Perso-Arabic script (used in writing Farsi, or Persian). The latter has been adopted by the Xinjiang Language and Script Committee (Xinjiang Til-Yëziq Komitëti Tetqiqat Merkizi 2008) as the official transliteration system for Uyghur.
Tarim Basin, Xinjiang
Like other Turkic languages, Uyghur is subject to rules of front-back vowel harmony. For instance, the locative ending -da changes according to the final vowel sound of the noun it is attached to: suda 'at/on the water', atta 'on the horse', mektepte 'at school.' Uyghur is heavily agglutinative, meaning suffixes are added to roots to build up larger words, words that must often be translated by entire sentences in English: oquwatqanimda 'When I was studying...." (Such agglutination, I might add, is also characteristic of many Native American languages, including those of the Algonquian family.) Uyghur, like its Turkic relatives, has a complex modal system, including a system of evidentiality, through which one communicates how they received a certain bit of information: first-hand, through witnessing the event directly oneself, or second-hand, via a second or third party report, which may incorporate the speaker's judgment of the information's reliability or believability. Such systems of evidentiality also occur (surprise, surprise?) in many Native American languages, including Biloxi, as well as in Tibeto-Burman languages.
Artist's rendition of Mahmud Kashgari, compiler of the first Uyghur dictionary ca. 1050 CE.
Some Uyghur words English speakers might recognize: chay چاي 'tea' , bazar بازار 'bazaar, market', aral ارالئ 'island' (Aral Sea 'Island Sea'), tansa تانسا 'dance' (Russian), nan نان 'bread' (Indian or Persian nan), salam سالام 'peace' (Arabic), seper ~ sefer سەفەر 'trip/journey' (cf. Swahili 'safari'; Arabic).
1 The ending -stan is a Persian suffix meaning 'place of' and is related to Sanskrit sthāna, Latin status, and English state.
2 Modern anthropologists have generally adopted the abbreviations BCE (Before Common Era) and CE (Common Era) in place of the former BC (Before Christ) and AD (After Death [of Christ]) due to the Christian religious connotations of the latter.
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