Tag Archives: foreign languages/linguistics

Penutian Languages

Posted on November 21, 2024 | Leave a comment

“Penutian languages: Hypothetical superfamily of North American Indian languages that unites a number of languages and language families mainly of the far western United States and Canada. The Penutian hypothesis was proposed by Roland B. Dixon and Alfred B. Kroeber in 1913 and refined by Edward Sapir in 1921. Like the Hokan hypothesis (see Hokan Languages), it attempted to reduce the number of unrelated language families in one of the world’s most linguistically diverse areas. At its core was a group of languages spoken along California’s central coast and in the Central Valley, including Ohlone (Costanoan), Miwok, Wintuan, Maidu, and Yokuts. Sapir added Oregon Penutian (spoken along the lower Columbia River), Plateau Penutian (languages of Plateau Indian peoples), Tsimshian (spoken in western British Columbia), and Mexican Penutian (spoken in southern Mexico). Aside from the Mexican group, all the languages today are either extinct or spoken exclusively by older adults. Though the hypothesis remains unproven, at least some languages of the group are probably related to each other.”

Excerpted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.

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Salishan Languages

Posted on November 21, 2024 | Leave a comment

“Salishan languages: Family of about 23 North American Indian languages, spoken or formerly spoken in the Pacific Northwest and adjoining areas of Idaho, Montana, and southern British Columbia. Today, Salishan languages are spoken almost exclusively by older adults. They are remarkable for their elaborate consonant inventories and small number of vowels. Grammatically, all words except for particles tend to assume predicative function, so there is no clear demarcation between nouns and verbs.”

Excerpted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.

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American Indian Languages

Posted on November 21, 2024 | Leave a comment

“American Indian Languages: Languages spoken by the original inhabitants of the Americas and the West Indies and by their modern descendants. They display an extraordinary structural range, and no attempt to unite them into a small number of genetic groupings has won general acceptance. Before Columbus, more than 300 distinct languages were spoken in North America north of Mexico by an estimated population of 2-7 million. Today there are fewer than 170 languages, of which a great majority are spoken fluently only by older adults. A few widespread language families (Algonquian, Iroquoian, Siouan, Muskogean, Athabaskan, Uto-Aztecan, Salishan) account for many of the languages of eastern and interior North America, though the far west was an area of extreme diversity (see Hokan, Penutian). In Mexico and north Central America (Mesoamerica), an estimated 15-20 million people spoke more than 300 languages before Columbus. The large Otomanguean and Mayan families and a single language, Nahuatl, shared Mesoamerica with many smaller families and language isolates. More than 10 of these languages and languages complexes still have over 100,000 speakers. South American and the West Indies had an estimated pre-Columbian population of 10-20 million, speaking more than 500 languages. Important language families include Chibchan in Columbia and south Central America, Quechuan and Aymaran in the Andean regions, and Arawakan, Cariban, and Tupian and north and central lowland South America. Aside from Quechuan and Aymaran, with about 10 million speakers, and the Tupian language Guarani, most remaining South American Indian languages have very few speakers, and some face extinction before linguists can adequately record them.”

Excerpted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.

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Cultural Literacy: Aborigines

Posted on November 8, 2024 | Leave a comment

Moving right along this morning, here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the concept of an aborigine. This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of two sentences and three comprehension questions.

This, as is often the case with The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, informs its user that the word aborigine means “the earliest known inhabitants of a region,” though the word is often used to refer to “the native hunting and gathering population of Australia.” In the English vernacular, that is probably the first association that comes to mind for most users of this word. If you use it to refer to the aboriginal peoples of Australia, then it is a proper noun and requires capitalization.

In general, the adjectives aboriginal and indigenous are roughly synonymous.

If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

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Iroquoian Languages

Posted on November 1, 2024 | Leave a comment

“Iroquoian languages: Family of about 16 North American Indian languages aboriginally spoken around the eastern Great Lakes and in parts of the Middle Atlantic states and the South. Aside from the languages of the Iroquois Confederacy (Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca, all originally spoken in New York, along with Tuscarora, originally spoken in North Carolina) and Cherokee (originally spoken in the southern Appalachians), the Iroquoian languages are extinct and with the exception of Huron and Wyandot, the extinct languages are poorly documented. Iroquoian languages are remarkable for their grammatical intricacy, Much of a sentence’s semantic content is bound around a verbal base, so a single very long word may constitute a fairly complex utterance.”

Excerpted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.

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Spanish Language

Posted on October 11, 2024 | Leave a comment

“Spanish language: Romance language spoken in Spain and in large parts of the New World. It has more that 332 million speakers, including over 23 million in the U.S. Its earliest written materials date from the 10th century, its first literary works from c.1150. The Castilian dialect, the source of modern standard Spanish, arose in the 9th century in north central Spain (Old Castile) and spread to central Spain (New Castile) by the 11th century. In the late 15th century, the kingdoms of Castile, Leon, and Aragon merged, and Castilian became the official language of all Spain, with Catalan and Galician (effectively a dialect of Portuguese) becoming regional languages and Aragonese and Leonese reduced to a fraction of their original speech areas. Latin-American regional dialects are derived from Castilian differ from it in phonology. Spanish has almost completely lost the case system of Latin. Nouns and adjectives show masculine or feminine gender, and the verb system is generally regular, but complex.”

Excerpted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.

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The Weekly Text, 27 September 2024, Hispanic Heritage Month Week II: A Lesson on the Latin Word Root Aqua

Posted on September 26, 2024 | Leave a comment

If you read last’s week’s text, you are aware that Mark’s Text Terminal is bereft of cogent or compelling–let alone relevant–materials for Weekly Texts for Hispanic Heritage Month 2024. I want, indeed I need, to remedy this situation. For a variety of entirely uninteresting personal reasons, I haven’t the stamina this fall to pull together new materials.

However, I can make a case for this lesson on the Latin word root aqua. It means, as you already know, water. The Spanish word, agua, is obviously a cognate; like aqua in English, it is an extremely vigorous root in Spanish, yielding common words like, aguacate (“avocado”), aguacero (“shower, downpour”) and aguado (“diluted, watered-down”). In English, this root gives us such high-frequency English words as aquarium, aqueduct, aquatic, and aqueous. Spanish-speakers, I argue, benefit from finding commonalities in roots in English and Spanish.

I start this lesson with this context clues worksheet on the noun vapor to point students in the general directions of analyzing and identifying this word root. This scaffolded worksheet, replete with Romance-language cognates, is the principal work of this lesson.

If you find typos in these documents, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

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The Weekly Text, 23 August 2024: A Lesson Plan on the Latin Word Root Uni

Posted on August 23, 2024 | Leave a comment

Alright, as the summer winds down and the days contract, this week’s Text is this lesson on the Latin word root uni. You already know, of course, that it means one. You also know that this root is quite productive in English, giving us words like unidirectional, unify, unilateral, and unique, all of which are included (along with a list of cognates in the Romance languages) on the scaffolded worksheet that is the primary work of this lesson.

Generally, I try to pair context clues worksheets with these lessons that point the way toward the meaning of the root under study. So I am uncertain what I was thinking or I attended when I prepared this worksheet on the noun discord for this lesson. Use it or not (and like it or not, which, as of this writing, I do not), but it is what I have for this at the moment.

If you find typos in these documents, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

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Cultural Literacy: Nota Bene

Posted on August 9, 2024 | Leave a comment

The first time I saw “N.B.” on a piece of academic work, I was a thirty-two-year-old “non-traditional student” studying the Russian language at Amherst College through the Five College Exchange (I was matriculated at Hampshire College). Once I figured out that it stood for nota bene, and then figured out what nota bene means–“note well,” just how it looks–I began using it regularly myself. If you’ve perused this blog at all, you’ve no doubt seen it in a post.

So here, without further ado, is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the Latinism nota bene. This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of two simple sentences and three comprehension questions. Just the basics.

If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

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The Weekly Text, 2 August 2024: A Lesson on the Latin Word Root Trans

Posted on July 26, 2024 | Leave a comment

This week’s Text is a lesson on the Latin word root trans. It means “across,” “through,” “change,” and “beyond.” This is an extremely productive root in English, yielding such high frequency words as transact, transcript, transit, transform, and transfer. In fact, all of those words are on the scaffolded worksheet that is the principle work of this lesson, and which includes, as all the Latin word root worksheets on this blog do, a list of cognates from the Romance languages.

I use this context clues worksheet on the transitive verb ford to open this lesson. It means “to cross (a body of water) by wading.” Needless to say, it is meant to point students toward the meaning of across in this word root.

If you find typos in these documents, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

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