Whistled Languages

Whistled Languages

Author: Julien Meyer

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2015-02-19

Total Pages: 187

ISBN-13: 3662458373

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The main focus of this monograph on whistled speech is the result of a worldwide inquiry primarily based on the author’s unprecedented fieldwork and laboratory experience. The different questions raised by the origin and the evolution of whistled forms of languages are also explored, including the role of environmental constraints in the emergence of whistled speech, their phonetic and phonological typology, the cognitive processing of whistled signals, monogenesis and polygenesis scenarios, the hypothesis of a whistled system preceding voiced speech, the intricate relationship between music and language in whistling, and the convergence/divergence with whistled communication among animals (birds, dolphins and primates). This book also includes several documents and a chapter prepared in collaboration with René-Guy Busnel, a pioneer in the studies of whistled forms of languages who has worked with five different populations using whistled speech (from the late 60s to the early 90s). The author has been intensively studying this fascinating language practice for the past 12 years, including 30 months of onsite research in collaboration with the cultural representatives of approximately twenty linguistic communities around the world. Whistled speech represents an ancient traditional telecommunication system that has survived on all inhabited continents of our planet. In it, a whistle replaces the voice and carries the information. However, this practice does not replace ordinary speech but is used in a complementary way. It serves to increase the audible range, but also under certain circumstances, the degree of secrecy of spoken communications. Whistled speech is adapted to the structure of each language, to specific traditional rural activities such as hunting or shepherding, and to specific ecological milieux. It is today a severely endangered speech register that provides an alternative insight into the nature of human language.


Whistled Languages

Whistled Languages

Author: R. G. Busnel

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2013-03-08

Total Pages: 155

ISBN-13: 3642463355

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This monograph deals with curious and little-known acoustic systems of commun ication based on whistling that are in use at the present time in many parts of the world and have had, on the evidence available, even greater currency in the past. In spite of their wide distribution, they have not so far received the attention they might have been expected to attract: linguistically and in other ways they are most interesting. For it should be realized that they are much more than mere codes or conventional systems of signals; they function in exactly the same way as speech (in the sense we normally use the term), being in fact rather extraordinary realizations of the languages spoken in the re gions where they occur. They utilize the vocabulary, grammar and, in many cases to a large extent, the phonology of the local speech. However their phonetic system is profoundly modified acoustically and (in some cases less so) from the point of view of articulation, because the glottal tone of every day communication, the "voice", is repl aced by a whistl e which carries the in formation. The advantage of this procedure, from the point of view of the user, is a vastly increased range as well as, under certain circumstances, a degree of secrecy. It will be shown that whistled languages appear in two main, very different forms.


Keeping Languages Alive

Keeping Languages Alive

Author: Mari C. Jones

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2013-12-12

Total Pages: 285

ISBN-13: 1107655528

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Many of the world's languages have diminishing numbers of speakers and are in danger of falling silent. Around the globe, a large body of linguists are collaborating with members of indigenous communities to keep these languages alive. Mindful that their work will be used by future speech communities to learn, teach and revitalise their languages, scholars face new challenges in the way they gather materials and in the way they present their findings. This volume discusses current efforts to record, collect and archive endangered languages in traditional and new media that will support future language learners and speakers. Chapters are written by academics working in the field of language endangerment and also by indigenous people working 'at the coalface' of language support and maintenance. Keeping Languages Alive is a must-read for researchers in language documentation, language typology and linguistic anthropology.


The Routledge Handbook of Language Revitalization

The Routledge Handbook of Language Revitalization

Author: Leanne Hinton

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2018-03-05

Total Pages: 681

ISBN-13: 1317200853

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The Routledge Handbook of Language Revitalization is the first comprehensive overview of the language revitalization movement, from the Arctic to the Amazon and across continents. Featuring 47 contributions from a global range of top scholars in the field, the handbook is divided into two parts, the first of which expands on language revitalization issues of theory and practice while the second covers regional perspectives in an effort to globalize and decolonize the field. The collection examines critical issues in language revitalization, including: language rights, language and well-being, and language policy; language in educational institutions and in the home; new methodologies and venues for language learning; and the roles of documentation, literacies, and the internet. The volume also contains chapters on the kinds of language that are less often researched such as the revitalization of music, of whistled languages and sign languages, and how languages change when they are being revitalized. The Routledge Handbook of Language Revitalization is the ideal resource for graduate students and researchers working in linguistic anthropology and language revitalization and endangerment.


Living Language

Living Language

Author: Laura M. Ahearn

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2021-03-10

Total Pages: 400

ISBN-13: 1119608198

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A new, fully revised edition of this bestselling textbook in linguistic anthropology, updated to address the impacts of globalization, pandemics, and other contemporary socio-economic issues in the study of language Living Language: An Introduction to Linguistic Anthropology has introduced thousands of students to the engaging and compelling field of linguistic anthropology. Now in a new, fully updated and revised third edition, this bestselling textbook provides a student-friendly exploration of language as a social and cultural practice. Covering both theory and real-world practice, this clear and highly accessible textbook examines the relationship between language and social context while highlighting the advantages of an ethnographic approach to the study of language. The third edition includes a timely new chapter that investigates how technologies such as social media and online meetings have changed language. The new edition also considers the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on linguistic practices, ensuring that this text will be a valuable resource for students for years to come. This insightful text: Offers an engaging introduction to the field of linguistic anthropology Features all-new material covering contemporary technologies and global developments Explains how language use is studied as a form of social action Covers nonverbal and multimodal communication, language acquisition and socialization, the relationship between language and thought, and language endangerment and revitalization Explores various forms of linguistic and social communities, and discusses social and linguistic differentiation and inequality along racial, ethnic, and gender dimensions Requiring no prior knowledge in linguistics or anthropology, Living Language: An Introduction to Linguistic Anthropology, Third Edition, is the perfect textbook for undergraduate and graduate courses in introductory linguistic anthropology as well as related courses in sociolinguistics, sociology, and communication.


The Music Sound

The Music Sound

Author: Nicolae Sfetcu

Publisher: Nicolae Sfetcu

Published: 2014-05-07

Total Pages: 6042

ISBN-13:

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A guide for music: compositions, events, forms, genres, groups, history, industry, instruments, language, live music, musicians, songs, musicology, techniques, terminology , theory, music video. Music is a human activity which involves structured and audible sounds, which is used for artistic or aesthetic, entertainment, or ceremonial purposes. The traditional or classical European aspects of music often listed are those elements given primacy in European-influenced classical music: melody, harmony, rhythm, tone color/timbre, and form. A more comprehensive list is given by stating the aspects of sound: pitch, timbre, loudness, and duration. Common terms used to discuss particular pieces include melody, which is a succession of notes heard as some sort of unit; chord, which is a simultaneity of notes heard as some sort of unit; chord progression, which is a succession of chords (simultaneity succession); harmony, which is the relationship between two or more pitches; counterpoint, which is the simultaneity and organization of different melodies; and rhythm, which is the organization of the durational aspects of music.


A Rosetta Stone

A Rosetta Stone

Author: Michael Sandborn

Publisher: Virtuoso Publishing

Published: 2014-08-16

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13:

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The fundamental structure of the universe, from the particle and the atom to the biological evolution of organisms such as the eye and ear, exist because of the harmonic relationships of waves. The most significant characteristic of the human species to evolve was advanced communication abilities resulting from the perception of harmonics. This perception led directly to the unique biological morphology of the human vocal apparatus and the correlative neurocranial expansion of the auditory, memory, and language regions of the brain. New research is conclusively demonstrating that the modern human capacity for advanced language was in tact by approximately 200,000 B.C.E. and that the earliest advanced technologies to be created were harmonic sound and language devices. To date, there has never been a thorough examining or explanation of why the harmonic component emerged, nor has a model been discovered or developed to define and elucidate the harmonic structure of language which is the unifying mechanism of all fields. Within this treatise, a new harmonic model of Euclidean space is presented which elucidates the fundamental harmonic identities of numbers and their relationships within a naturally occurring resonant field system. This model is then applied to various harmonic phenomena in contrasting wave based fields to demonstrate unified harmonic structure and function. As a pièce de résistance, it is shown that the harmonic mechanisms which create the triangularity of vowel formant perception and the resultant Euclidean harmonic circularity of vowel space, is synonymous to the ocular cone trichromacy forming color perception and the resultant Euclidean harmonic circularity of color space. Due to the underlying harmonic frequency substrate of both these phenomena, an expanded harmonic correlation is demonstrated with wide ranging repercussions. One such consequence being the ability to linguistically transfer the categorical perception of harmonic structure from one field to another providing a plethora of new harmonic investigative and analytical tools for every wave based field. The core of the information presented herein is demonstrated through the medium of sound and the organizing harmonic elements of music language. Accordingly, the integral components of language formant vowels and consonants, color trichromacy, and dual harmonic frequency/wavelength systems are unified in an applied model which has been tested for the past decade showing fundamental harmonic cohesion and discourse between the underlying phenomena. Though this treatise is a scholarly presentation, it is designed to be accessible to a wide and diverse educated audience due to the sheer scope of facts presented from multiple niche disciplines to which no single scholar could be expected to possess an expert command. It is thus a comprehensive panorama of harmonic structure providing a never-before-seen perspective harmonic correlation between seemingly unrelated fields. As much as this treatise is an extensive exposition of the structure of harmonics, it is also an engaging expose of harmonic evolution within the biology of multiple species and the systems of color, language, and music. It has therefore been defined as a Rosetta Stone which not only provides for the decoding of fundamental evolutionary harmonic correlations between wide ranging organisms, but also provides new tools to investigate, analyze, and evolve the next frontier of harmonic order.


Coding Strategies in Vertebrate Acoustic Communication

Coding Strategies in Vertebrate Acoustic Communication

Author: Thierry Aubin

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2020-03-28

Total Pages: 329

ISBN-13: 3030392007

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Information is a core concept in animal communication: individuals routinely produce, acquire, process and store information, which provides the basis for their social life. This book focuses on how animal acoustic signals code information and how this coding can be shaped by various environmental and social constraints. Taking birds and mammals, including humans, as models, the authors explore such topics as communication strategies for “public” and “private” signaling, static and dynamic signaling, the diversity of coded information and the way information is decoded by the receiver. The book appeals to a wide audience, ranging from bioacousticians, ethologists and ecologists to evolutionary biologists. Intended for students and researchers alike, it promotes the idea that Shannon and Weaver’s Mathematical Theory of Communication still represents a strong framework for understanding all aspects of the communication process, including its dynamic dimensions.