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Language loss and cultural consequences

Language loss and cultural consequences. Alessandra Giglio TOK Seminar, 25 January 2013. How does this seminar work. First half : Prof. Giglio will talk about the phenomenon of the death of languages and which is its direct cultural consecuence

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Language loss and cultural consequences

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  1. Language loss and cultural consequences Alessandra Giglio TOK Seminar, 25 January 2013

  2. How doesthis seminar work • First half: Prof. Giglio will talk about the phenomenon of the death of languages and whichisitsdirect cultural consecuence • Second half: the studentswill be dividedintotwogroups, depending on the languagethey are studying (or studieduntil 10° grade) and willmeetM.meGoalard and Prof. Sanchez, thatwillspeakaboutwhathasbeenlostand changed in French and Spanish

  3. How manylanguages do wehave? 7 billion of people

  4. Why? Because of the supremacy of Lingua Franca. (English, in thisparticular moment; French, in the past; Spanish, evenbefore, …)

  5. “Essa non poteva essere la lingua di una cultura, e noi apprezziamo il favore che padre Goudon fece loro quando decise di tornare ad insegnare loro il francese nel 1860. Questa iniziativa li mise in condizione di entrare in contatto con l’alta cultura dell’Occidente” Storico francese in Nuova Caledonia

  6. Haveyoueverheard of “biodiversity”?

  7. So, what’s the pointhere??! Not a big deal ifwelooselanguages: wewillcommunicatebetterin the future, that’sit. No, it’snot.

  8. “Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose”…100% sure?!? • Inuit peoplehave a lot of words to express all the conceptsrelated to “snow”/”ice” G. Stein on Shakespeare’sinspiration

  9. • ‘snowstorm’ — pirsuq/pirsirsursuaq • ‘large ice floe’ — iluitsuq • ‘snowdrift’ — apusiniq • ‘ice floe’ — puttaaq • ‘hummocked ice/pressure ridges in pack ice’ — maniillat/ingunirit, pl. • ‘drifting lump of ice’ — kassuq (dirty lump of glacier-calved ice = anarluk) • ‘ice-foot (left adhering to shore)’ — qaannuq • ‘icicle’ — kusugaq • ‘opening in sea ice imarnirsaq/ammaniq (open water amidst ice = imaviaq) • ‘lead (navigable fissure) in sea ice’ — quppaq • ‘rotten snow/slush on sea’ — qinuq • ‘wet snow falling’ — imalik • ‘rotten ice with streams forming’ — aakkarniq • ‘snow patch (on mountain, etc.)’ — aputitaq • ‘wet snow on top of ice’ — putsinniq/puvvinniq • ‘smooth stretch of ice’ — manirak (stretch of snow-free ice = quasaliaq) • ‘lump of old ice frozen into new ice’ — tuaq • ‘new ice formed in crack in old ice’ — nutarniq • ‘bits of floating ice’ — naggutit, pl. • ‘hard snow’ — mangiggal/mangikaajaaq • ‘small ice floe (not large enough to stand on)’ — masaaraq • ‘ice swelling over partially frozen river, etc. from water seeping up to the surface’ — siirsinniq • ‘piled-up ice-floes frozen together’ — tiggunnirit • ‘mountain peak sticking up through inland ice’ — nunataq • ‘calved ice (from end of glacier)’ — uukkarnit • ‘edge of the (sea) ice’ — sinaaq ‘sea-ice’ — siku (in plural = drift ice) • ‘pack-ice/large expanses of ice in motion’ — sikursuit, pl. (compacted drift ice/ice field = sikutiqimaniri) • ‘new ice’ — sikuliaq/sikurlaaq (solid ice cover = nutaaq) • ‘thin ice’ — sikuaq (in plural = thin ice floes) • ‘rotten (melting) ice floe’ — sikurluk • ‘iceberg’ — iluliaq (ilulisapitsirnga = part of iceberg below waterline) • ‘(piece of) fresh-water ice’ — nilak • ‘lumps of ice stranded on the beach' — issinnirit, pl. • ‘glacier’ (also ice forming on objects) — sirmiq (sirmirsuaq = inland ice) • ‘snow blown in (e.g. doorway)’ — sullarniq • ‘rime/hoar-frost’ — qaqurnak/kanirniq/kaniq • ‘frost (on inner surface of e.g. window)’ — iluq • ‘icy mist’ — pujurak/pujuqkanirnartuq • ‘hail’ — nataqqurnat • ‘snow (on ground)’ — aput (aputsisurtuq = avalanche) • ‘slush (on ground)’ — aputmasannartuq • ‘snow in air/falling’ — qaniit (qanik = snowflake) • ‘air thick with snow’ — nittaalaq (nittaallat, pl. = snowflakes; nittaalaqnalliuttiqattaartuq = flurries) • ‘hard grains of snow’ — nittaalaaqqat, pl. • ‘feathery clumps of falling snow’ — qanipalaat • ‘new fallen snow’ — apirlaat • ‘snow crust’ — pukak • ‘snowy weather’ — qannirsuq/nittaatsuq

  10. Evenif Stephen Pinkersaysthisisnotreallytrue… Butthisisnot the point: “youinvent the words to express [the world aroundyou]” S. Pinker http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5ljEBkCeMQ

  11. “Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose”…100% sure?!? • “C’è una tribù dell'Amazzonia che usa 16 parole distinte per dire 'verde', mostrando grande attenzione per la realtà circostante: la nostra società occidentale invece guarda più allo specchio che alla finestra.” • Niccolò Fabi

  12. Let’s take the concept of “colours”

  13. Sixthinkinghatstheory (De Bono)

  14. … surethatis negative??

  15. http://www.internazionale.it/opinioni/lee-marshall/2012/08/21/nel-blu-dipinto-di-azzurro/http://www.internazionale.it/opinioni/lee-marshall/2012/08/21/nel-blu-dipinto-di-azzurro/ How to translatecolours? […] andate a cercare l’icona di Twitter che sta laggiù da qualche parte. L’uccellino di che colore è? Non pensateci troppo: vi chiedo di nominare il colore non come adulti che hanno studiato la gamma pantone, ma come dei bambini, usando una delle dodici parole base per i colori che esistono in italiano. Per me, sia il colore di sfondo della testata [della rivista Internazionale, nda] sia l’uccellino di Twitter sono blue. Il primo è sicuramente un dark blue, con un tocco di cobalt o indigo. Il secondo, l’uccellino, si avvicina a un light blue, pur essendo un lightblue piuttosto dark: in realtà, quasi un medium blue. Non so se vi ricordate (la nostra memoria informatica è notoriamente corta), ma fino a giugno di quest’anno l’uccellino Twitter era ben più light, e aveva anche un ciuffo in testa. Comunque, il concetto è questo: per un inglese come me, light blue, medium blue e dark blue sono gradazioni di un solo colore. In italiano ci sono due modi di tradurre l’inglese blue non qualificato da altro aggettivo: blu e azzurro. Lasciamo da parte il celeste, che sarebbe sempre tradotto in inglese con un blue accompagnato da qualche notazione: light blue, sky blue, eccetera. Potrei sbagliarmi, ma scommetto che per voi il colore dello sfondo della testata Internazionale è blu, mentre l’uccellino di Twitter è azzurro. Ditemi se sbaglio.

  16. First we express, thenwethinkorFirst wethink, thenwe express? The language or the culture goes first?

  17. Is a rose a rose a rose? Doesall of thismeanthatlanguageinfluencesworld’sperception? Or viceversa? “The limits of mylanguagemean the limits of my world.” L. Wittgenstein

  18. LAD • Noam Chomsky (1960) claimsthatwehave a Language Acquisition Device in our brain. Itis a cognitive, innate instinctthatallowus to learn a language. • A childbasicallyhasall the potentialstructures of all the languages in his brain; however, he selects and usesonly the structuresthat he hears. • In this way, welearn the onlylanguagewe are exposed to. Therefore, wedon’tdefineanything. The world (and the language!) isalready set and wecannotinterfere with that.

  19. Do differentlanguagesgiveus a differentknowledge of the world? • Do youknowdifferently in the differentlanguageyouknow? • Do weneed to understand a culture, in order to understand a language? • Why do wehave some conceptsthatseemuniversal?

  20. A reallygoodadd-onon this http://www.ted.com/talks/wade_davis_on_endangered_cultures.html

  21. Furthermaterials • http://www.ted.com/talks/patricia_ryan_ideas_in_all_languages_not_just_english.html • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5ljEBkCeMQ • D. Nettle, S. Romaine, Voci nel silenzio, Carocci, 2000, Roma

  22. References • http://infographiclabs.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/complex_world_language_families-600x2480.jpg • http://www.transparent.com/language-resources/infographic-speaking-of-languages.jpg • http://webmarketing.toweb.co/significato-colori-infografica/ • http://blog.focus.it/graphic-news/2012/02/21/il-significato-dei-colori-nel-mondo/ • http://affreschidigitali.blogosfere.it/galleria/2010/10/i-colori-piu-popolari-del-2010-e-il-loro-significato-quando-il-colore-rappresenta-il-mondo.html/2 • http://lizneale.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/32_large.jpg • http://www.docstoc.com/docs/123680090/Linking-TOK-to-Language-B • http://www.wikipedia.com • http://www.dr-fdtc.com/cultural-differences/cd/ch3-03a.html • http://johncarlosbaez.wordpress.com/2011/11/15/eskimo-words-for-snow/ • http://www.internazionale.it/opinioni/lee-marshall/2012/08/21/nel-blu-dipinto-di-azzurro/ • D. Nettle, S. Romaine, Voci nel silenzio, Carocci, 2000, Roma • M. Pagel, “Un mondo di parole”, Internazionale, n. 983 anno 20 • D. McCandless, Information Is Beautiful, Rizzoli, 2011, Milano

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