Comparing The Languages Of Hunter-Gatherer Societies

Animal behavior can often imitate our own. There is much to find out by looking at research on the linguistics of primates. In an experiment a chimp named Lana was able to learn a lot about human communication with the use of lexigrams. Lexigrams are symbols that correspond to words or ideas. They were invented by Duane Rumbaugh.The lexigram keyboard and synthesizer was a system that allowed Lana to communicate hundreds of terms to her human counterparts ("Can Animals Understand Human Language?" )

The transition from the traditional hunter gatherer societies, in to an agriculture based living system, has allowed humans to increase their population size, putting strains on the Earth’s environment. Agriculture has also brought along with it a decrease in women’s roles in the community, while also bringing about a class system where the wealthy rule, and were the weak and poor obey. As humans began to domesticate more plants and animals, they settled in permanent areas. The Change from hunter gatherer benefited few, but had dire consequences for the earth and groups with in it. One such consequence was the population increase, which has lead to major issues throughout history, and one that has ties to current global issues.

The following four lines describe how languages may travel and spread. Much like mountain for a river, there is a source of a language. From its source it may go from nation to nation and spread or mix, much like a river can travel and merge with other rivers. A language travels with people as they travel from nation to nation. In some places languages combine into one. In others they coexist alongside each other.

The Paleolithic and Neolithic periods displayed major cultural differences in religion, lifestyles, government, and technology. “Culture is the way of life of a group of people. Culture includes common practices of a society, its shared understandings, and its social organizations are always changing” (McDougal, World History: Patterns of Interaction, 2004) The Paleolithic time period was full of inventions and was a time where new technology and lifestyles were blossoming through all cultures. Tools made out of pressure flaked stone and rock were created during this period to help with everyday tasks. The Paleolithic period was also the period where the creations of fires were discovered along with religion and languages. The Neolithic age, however, was more technologically improved, than the Paleolithic age. This was the start of the agricultural revolution and the start of civilizations and societies. These two periods were ever changing.

Have you ever celebrated Christmas? Remember the feast, tree, friends, gifts, and prayers. These are all similar events or activities that occur in a potlach, the word potlach means'' gift giving ''. This tradition is derived from the Tlingit and American Indians, in fact, the potlach is a festival that is about '' giving more than taking ''. Located in the Alaskan coastal islands and Dakota, the Chilkat Tlingit's and Sioux Indians compare and contrast in characteristics such as religion, celebrations, and daily life.

We are all members of a social group and members of `society´ as a whole. People interact in many ways and communication is just about the most common and among the most important. Whatever is meaningful to a group, from their everyday life to their traditions constitutes their very own culture and is generally respected by all group members. Language is only one of such items. For ethnic minority groups that may have a language of their own, their language is a cornerstone in their culture.

The ancestral language of India was Sanskrit. Over time, Sanskrit evolved into Hindi and other Indian languages. The Indo-European language family is the largest in the world. The Indo-European language family is believed to have its origins in Eastern Europe. Indo-European offspring include languages such as Latin and the various Romance languages and Celtic languages among many others.

Early agricultural societies differed from those of the Paleolithic era in many different ways. They were two similar and different things. The Paleolithic era was more towards not staying in one specific area. They wanted to follow where their food went. In the agricultural societies, many people leaned towards being a lot less nomadic. They stayed in one spot and decided to farm for food.

The cultures of diverse populations united them to form civilizations. The cultures made a unified religion, language, and technology. Most of the early civilizations had tribal beliefs, or other polytheistic religions, as the dominant religions. Monotheistic religion wouldn’t be introduced into the world until later. Languages formed amongst these civilizations in order to effectively communicate to each other.

In Vanishing Voices by Russ Rymer, the author gives readers an in depth overview of the significant loss in the number of languages over the years. “One language dies every 14 days. By the next century nearly half of the roughly 7,000 languages spoken on Earth will likely disappear, as communities abandon native tongues in favor of English, Mandarin, or Spanish. What is lost when a language goes silent?” he asks. A major argument Rymer includes in his essay is that languages are seeming to “compete” with one another. Parents children who speak tribal languages encourage their children to break away and learn to speak major languages such as English, Spanish, or

Over centuries we have seen the amount and complexity of languages all across the globe reduced. If this trend continues, we could see the number of world languages potentially reduced from 6,000 to 600 in the future. Colonization and urbanization has led to the abolishment of languages spoke by smaller and less dominant civilizations. McWhorter uses the Native Americans in North America and the Aboriginal

Diversity in Language – Parillo argues that there were 200 or more distinct societies that spoke 200 mutually unintelligible languages with hundreds of dialects. Different languages point to different perceptions and understandings of the worlds around them. For example, the Navajo did not distinguish third person pronouns like his, her, and their, but instead used compound words mixed with adjectives and nouns. To say “his wife” the Navajo would say something like “one-wife-of-one-man.”

According to the story of Genesis, it claims that you do not need to work as hard in a hunter gatherer society, but according to William Buckley, a 16th to17th century Englishman, it was clearly much harder to be a hunter-gatherer society. In Genesis, at first it says, “And the Lord God commanded the man, ‘You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die’” (Genesis 2:16-17). It later states, “When the women [eve] saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it” (Genesis 3:6). According to God’s word, this gets them banished from the Garden

To hunt effectively a group of hunters must have a type of language to communicate during hunts. The Kebara 2 hyoid bone found in 1989 was studied and found to be anatomically comparable to modern human hyoid bones allowing support for the base of the tongue. The FOXP2 gene found during sequencing the Neanderthal genetics suggested the Neanderthals had the capacity for speech, however the gene does more than allow speech. Finding the hyoid bone was necessary to establish the fact Neanderthals had language because the FOXP2 gene is pleiotropic and could have had other roles in body function other than language. Culture and language are interrelated, culture being taught by language and language is learned through culture. Science has

First, the language variety that you speak as a native language is closely tied to the geographical identity. Because body language is also a part of language, which helps other people in the society identify an individual from others. To maintain respectful social standards in the society, a person is responsible in developing a self-identity that is unique from the others. Language is a key for everyone, a key that would aid in conforming to new society and new people. Without language, culture would not exist. “We pass ideas, knowledge, and even attitude on to the next generation” using language. Without the ability to communicate, knowledge from one