language family tree
I'm working on a semester curriculum to introduce sixth-graders to 'the beginning of history.' I'm very excited about it. One thing I've been wanting to do is have the students put the puzzle pieces together and make some conjectures about early human migrations. This is part of my overall idea that students should be learning to "think like historians," i.e. they should be doing real tasks of scholarship, not just filling in blanks.
As far as I can tell, there are two main sources of conjecture about early human migration among scientists: artifacts (tracing the spread of technology & decorative styles) and language (relationships between different languages, when one language split off from another, etc). I was very excited about the possibility of having students use linguistic data for this unit.
But I can't seem to find any information about language divergence as evidence re early human migration--at least, I can't find any information that isn't over my head. I can find the theories, which only whets my appetite further, because I never knew for example that Celtic and Breton are related all the way back to some root in southern Russia--and nothing's more fun than a theory you would never have guessed on your own.
But, I find no information that I can use to reconstruct a lesson to let students make this discovery for themselves. I can pretty much read anything in any field and get something out of it, but apparently linguistics (along with physics) is an exception to that. All I want is something simple--a key word whose translation in different languages is a clue to their relationships, for example. I just want students to look at it and say, "oh, wow, the word is similar in these languages so the languages might be related," and color stuff in on a map and so on. Is that so much to ask? My own knowledge is no help--common words I can think of offer no clues whatsoever ("chien" and "perro" offer no clue of connection; same with "frau" and "woman," or "femme" and "mujer").
I had given up completely, but last week a dear friend from college resurfaced, and it just so happens that this friend majored in... drum roll please... linguistics! Now I'm hoping that he will help me put this lesson together. He's done a lot of favors for me in my life (like singing at my wedding) so maybe he doesn't owe me any more... but wait, there was the fish named Maurice, so actually, yes, he does owe me. Language and migration lesson, here we come!
posted by birdfarm @ 1:24 PM
3 Comments:
Dear college friend provided the following:
Here are two web sites I found that may have helpful information for you. The trick of course is that they may not be helpful to sixth graders.
The Early History of Indo-European Languages
"Knowing" Words in Indo-European Languages
Steven Pinker may have a chapter about this in one of his books. The first is called The Language Instinct. It's a really fabulous book about linguistics, very very smart but completely accessible to the lay person. He's written a few others. My copies aren't here or I'd check and tell you for sure.
As for a simple word or two, as mentioned on Mad Teach, you can look at the word for "father" in several languages:
pater (Latin)
pater (Greek)
père (French)
Vater (German)
father (English)
padre (Italian, Spanish)
So when you look at "père" and "Vater" they don't seem to be that connected, but if you compare them both to "pater," you can see that, essentially, one turned left and one turned right. (Not quite accurate, as Latin and Greek are both Romance rather than Germanic, but you get the point.)
And I'm sure you can come up with other words for father--look at other Germanic and Romance languages especially.
Whatever you do, DON'T pay attention to anything Joseph Greenberg writes about "Nostratic" or reconstructing something older than Indo-European. It simply isn't possible, and the people who claim to have done it are really sloppy.
[end message from Dear College Friend, aka Faustus]
Well, I am immensely heartened by this and look forward with equal enthusiasm to devouring Steven Pinker and ignoring Joseph Greenberg. I will keep you posted, dear readers, if you exist!
i exist! i'm liste..., er, reading!!
cool stuff. it all makes me want go read the pinker book, actually.
rie, definitely read the Pinker book. I've been out of the field for about ten years but I can't imagine that in that time anybody has written a smarter, funnier introduction to linguistics for the layperson than he has.
He's also written a few other books, but I haven't read those.
Faustus, M.D.
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