Anthropology Essential Ideas/Terms

Chapter 12 Summary notes

1. Essential function of language is communication.

2. Spoken language is the primary vehicle through which culture is shared/transmitted

3. System of communication not unique to humans

4. Animals communicate by sound, odor, body movement…

5. Symbolic language not exclusive to humans (ex. Gorillas/chimps learning sign language)

Chapter Essential Ideas

6. Human language is unique-it spoken and symbolic nature provides for infinite combinations

7. Structural Linguists attempt to discover rules of phonology (patterning of sounds), morphology (patterning of sound sequences and words) and syntax (patterning of phrases and sentences)

8.Historical linguists focus on discovering “protolanguage” (common ancestral language)

Continued…

9. When two groups speaking same language separate they will develop small changes in phonology, morphology and syntax

10. If separation endures-they will develop separate languages.

11. Contact between groups leads to language resemblance.

Code switchingUsing more than one language in the course of conversing

CognatesWords or morphs

that belong to different languages but have similar sounds and meanings

Night and Nacht

Core VocabularyHighly functional,

meaningful, high-frequency words and phrases

The small number of words that are used for the majority of communication. .

Dialectsthe usage or

vocabulary that is characteristic of a specific group of people

Historical LinguisticsThe study of how

languages change over time

Lexicondictionary: a reference book containing an alphabetical list of words with information about them

ProtolanguageA hypothesized

ancestral language from which two or more languages seem to have derived.

Structural LinguisticsThe study of how

languages are constructed.

Phonology=sounds

Morphology=words

Syntax=sentences