Patience Epps

Does Lateral Transmission Obscure Inheritance in Hunter-Gatherer Languages?

In recent years, linguists have begun to increasingly rely on quantitative phylogenetic approaches to examine language evolution. Some linguists have questioned the suitability of phylogenetic approaches on the grounds that linguistic evolution is largely reticulate due to extensive lateral transmission, or borrowing, among languages. The problem may be particularly pronounced in hunter-gatherer languages, where the conventional wisdom among many linguists is that lexical borrowing rates are so high that tree building approaches cannot provide meaningful insights into evolutionary processes. However, this claim has never been systematically evaluated, in large part because suitable data were unavailable. In addition, little is known about the subsistence, demographic, ecological, and social factors that might mediate variation in rates of borrowing among languages. Here, we evaluate these claims with a large sample of hunter-gatherer languages from three regions around the world. In this study, a list of 204 basic vocabulary items was collected for 122 hunter-gatherer and small-scale cultivator languages from three ecologically diverse case study areas: northern Australia, northwest Amazonia, and California and the Great Basin. Words were rigorously coded for etymological (inheritance) status, and loan rates were calculated. Loan rate variability was examined with respect to language area, subsistence mode, and population size, density, and mobility; these results were then compared to the sample of 41 primarily agriculturalist languages in [1]. Though loan levels varied both within and among regions, they were generally low in all regions (mean 5.06%, median 2.49%, and SD 7.56), despite substantial demographic, ecological, and social variation. Amazonian levels were uniformly very low, with no language exhibiting more than 4%. Rates were low but more variable in the other two study regions, in part because of several outlier languages where rates of borrowing were especially high. High mobility, prestige asymmetries, and language shift may contribute to the high rates in these outliers. No support was found for claims that hunter-gatherer languages borrow more than agriculturalist languages. These results debunk the myth of high borrowing in hunter-gatherer languages and suggest that the evolution of these languages is governed by the same type of rules as those operating in large-scale agriculturalist speech communities. The results also show that local factors are likely to be more critical than general processes in determining high (or low) loan rates.

Language Classification, Language Contact, and Amazonian Prehistory

The linguistic map of Amazonia presents a startling jumble of languages and language families. While some families – most notably Carib, Arawak, Macro-Je, and Tupi– are distributed widely throughout the region, their spread is interspersed with many dozens of tiny, localized families and language isolates, particularly in the Amazonian periphery. At the same time, distributions of lexical, grammatical, and phonological features suggest that this linguistic patchwork is overlaid in places by contact regions, where multilingualism has fostered lexical and/or structural resemblances among languages. This complex distribution of languages and linguistic features presents many challenges to our understanding of Amazonian prehistory. How did Amazonias language families arrive at their present distribution? Why did some families spread over huge distances, while others came to occupy only tiny geographical pockets or are limited to a single language? What kinds of interactions among peoples led to the formation of contact zones, and how are these regions defined? Complicating these questions further is the fact that very little is known about many Amazonian languages, and relationships among them are in many cases a matter of conjecture. This article surveys our current understanding of language classification and language contact in Amazonia, and addresses various perspectives concerning the implications of these relationships for Amazonian prehistory.

Loan and inheritance patterns in hunter-gatherer ethnobiological systems

Abstract We compare the etymologies of ethnobiological nomenclature in 130 hunter-gatherer and agriculturist languages in Australia, North America, and Amazonia. Previous work has identified correlations between systems of ethnobiological terminology and dominant means of community subsistence, relating stability of terminology to the “salience” of the items. However, the relevance of subsistence patterns to the development of ethnobiological nomenclature requires further investigation, as does the notion of “salience” and how it might relate to etymological stability. The current study probes the relationship between salience and stability and the variability within this relationship. We refine the notion of stability by studying both inheritance and loan rates. We refine the notion of “salience” by separately testing retention and loan rates in flora and fauna vocabulary that might be considered salient for different reasons. Results indicate that the most etymologically stable items are core foodstuffs (whether cultivated or wild). Psychotropic items were more likely to be loaned. There were no significant patterns for cultivar status or trade, though we note that the most frequently loaned items in the sample are also traded.

Introduction: Contact Among Genetically Related Languages

The study of language contact has blossomed in the last several decades, especially since the publication of Uriel Weinreich’s ground-breaking Languages in Contact 60 years ago (Weinreich, 1953). Linguists have come to see contact as one of the most important mechanisms of language change, with some going so far as to suggest that contact is the principal catalyst for change (e.g., Dixon, 1997). While the extent to which language contact should be given primacy in models of language change is debated (see, e.g., Bowern, 2010 for discussion), there is no question that the effects of contact are of critical importance to our understanding of language change and relationship, and that they provide intriguing insights into past interactions among peoples. The relevance of contact has been recognized by linguists for well over a century—the German linguist Hugo Schuchardt famously declared in the 1880s that there is no language completely free of foreign influence (Schuchardt, 1884).1 However, the scientific study of language contact gained its most solid foundation considerably later, with the publication of Weinreich’s (1953) seminal book; this work treated contact-induced change systematically according to the grammatical categories involved (lexicon, phonology, morphology, syntax, etc.) and the probability of transference within them, i.e., movement of features

Hup's typological treasures: Description and explanation in the study of an Amazonian language

Abstract This paper presents several of the typologically most intriguing features of Hup, an endangered Nadahup (Makú) language spoken in the northwest Amazonian Vaupés region; these are differential object marking, evidentiality, noun classification, “bound” nouns and inalienable possession, and the multifunctional form teg. Each of these areas of Hup grammar and its typological significance are best understood within an approach that weaves explanation together with description, and in the process takes a view of language as a dynamic, non-autonomous system, which cannot be abstracted away from its own past or the culture and environment of its speakers.

A Holistic Humanities of Speaking: Franz Boas and the Continuing Centrality of Texts1

We take up Boas’s commitment to the establishment of a large corpus of texts from the indigenous languages and peoples of the Americas, examining what we take to be his fundamental principles: using texts as the philological record from which to document and explore language, culture, and intellectual life on their own terms; training speakers to engage in documentation through the creation and analysis of texts; and a focus on the emergence of patterns and interrelationships. We then outline what we see as his influence up to now, both directly through the kinds of projects he promoted and indirectly through a broader application of Boasian principles that has animated a series of later movements. Finally, we discuss the prospects for a more comprehensive text- and documentation-centered approach to language and culture that welds together these themes and movements, and which we envision as a holistic humanities of speaking.

New challenges in typology : transcending the borders and refining the distinctions

This volume continues the tradition of presenting the latest findings by typologists and field linguists, relevant to general linguistic theory and research methodology. Cross-linguistic studies based on large samples and in-depth studies of previously undescribed languages highlight new refinements and revisions to our current understanding of established categories and classifications.

Reconsidering the “Makú” Language Family of Northwest Amazonia1

The so-called Makú or Makú-Puinavean language family of the Northwest Amazon has long been assumed to include the languages Hup, Yuhup, Dâw, and Nadëb (the “Naduhupan” group), the sisters Kakua and Nukak, and the language Puinave (or Wã́nsöjöt). Here we evaluate these putative relationships, drawing on a range of newly available lexical and grammatical data. We argue that, although there is solid linguistic evidence of genetic relationship among the four Naduhupan languages, as between Kakua and Nukak, the association between these two groups is unfounded. A distant relationship between Kakua-Nukak and Puinave is more plausible but cannot at this point be confirmed. Many of the shared lexical and grammatical features that do exist among these languages are more easily attributed to contact than genetic inheritance. We conclude with a discussion regarding the choice of names for the distinct family groupings established here and urge the abandonment of the name “Makú.”

Inheritance, calquing, or independent innovation? Reconstructing morphological complexity in Amazonian numerals

The reconstruction of morphologically complex forms offers familiar problems. As illustrated by textbook examples like Bloomfield’s seemingly reconstructable anachronism—Algonquian ‘fire-water’ for ‘whisky’—the existence of corresponding complex forms across related languages can alternatively be attributed to calquing or parallel independent innovation. This paper considers the problem of accounting for the history of complex forms in the context of the northwest Amazon, where lexical borrowing is actively resisted but calquing is rampant. Where complex forms are widely shared across related and unrelated languages, is there any hope of identifying their source, or establishing their relative age in particular groups of languages? I focus in particular on numeral terms, which reveal considerable complexity among northwest Amazonian languages. I evaluate the challenges encountered in gauging the time-depth and reconstructability of morphologically complex forms, and the criteria—comparative, typological, and geographical—that must be brought to bear in weighing more or less probable histories of complex forms.

Subsistence pattern and contact-driven language change: A view from the Amazon basin

While it is well known that processes of contact-driven language change are sensitive to socio-cultural factors, the question of whether these apply differently among hunter-gatherers and agriculturalists has engendered considerable debate. These dynamics have been particularly underexplored in the Amazon basin, where high linguistic diversity has until very recently been coupled with a dearth of quality documentation. This investigation undertakes a systematic assessment of the effects of contact on fourteen languages (representing six distinct language families/isolates), spoken by northern Amazonian peoples whose subsistence practices all involve a relative emphasis on hunting and gathering. The effects of contact are assessed via an extensive survey of lexical and grammatical data from nearly a hundred languages of this region, and take into account lexical borrowing, Wanderwort distributions, and grammatical convergence. This comparative approach indicates that most Amazonian foraging-focused peoples have been heavily involved in regional interactive networks over time, as have their more horticulture-dominant neighbors, but that the linguistic effects of contact are variable across subsistence pattern. While subsistence thus does not appear to be correlated with the degree of contact-driven change experienced by the languages of this region, it is, on the other hand, a strong predictor of the direction of influence, which favors a unidirectional farmer-to-forager linguistic transmission.