Here, NPR reports on the intonation of the cries of infants: Babies May Pick Up Language Cues in Womb.
Human Communication – Acquiring intonation
November 6th, 2009 by hfrancisAnimal Communication
November 6th, 2009 by hfrancisHere’s an example of Hocket’s design feature interchangeabiliy – only male crickets chirp. Slo-mo Cricket Chirps Reveal Secret Seranades discusses the chirp patterns of different species of crickets. Overall, NPR’s Wild Sounds series is pretty interesting.
And, monkeys lie: White Face Capuchin lies
Here, crows crack nuts: Wild crows in the city; Here, a crow makes a tool: Tool-making crow; And crows teach each other to recognize danger: Crows recognize faces
Presentation for Anth 190: Cherokee World
October 28th, 2009 by hfrancisHere are a couple of references. Our WCU Cherokee Language Program blog is blog.wcu.edu/cherokee. Our website is paws.wcu.edu/cherokeelanguage. We have an itunes university site. It is at itunes.wcu.edu (public login).
Our partners, Kituwah Preservation and Education Program of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians in Cherokee, North Carolina, have the website Fluent1.com.
Cherokee is a language that is in danger. National Geographic’s Enduring Voices project is a good introduction to the problem.
Sounds of Languages
October 28th, 2009 by hfrancisWe want to consider a few kinds of sounds. First, Wikipedia has a decent International Phonetic Alphabet for reference.
We want to listen to some Xhosa Click sounds on the UCLA Phonetics Lab site. After consideration of these sounds, we want to listen to Miriam Makeba’s song in Xhosa.
We are interested in Hmong tones. And also in Polish consonant clusters.
Finally, we’re interested in the English vowels.
Sounds of Dialects Assignment
October 28th, 2009 by hfrancisHere is the Sounds of Dialects assignment as a pdf: DialectAssignment102809
Here is the sound clip mp3 from Mountain Talk: MountTalkMedley102809
I will post your sound clips here.
Teacher0539 mp3
Student0540 mp3
Student0541 mp3
Student0542 mp3
Student0543 mp3
Mid Term Exam (due Monday Oct 19)
October 7th, 2009 by hfrancisI have attached the pdf for the exam. Mid-term exam pdf: Mid Term Take Home Short Essay Exam
ASL, Plains Indian Sign Language – Independent of spoken language
October 7th, 2009 by hfrancisBoth American Sign Language and Plains Indian Sign Language are independent of spoken language. But ASL is a complete language equal in power to spoken language. Plains Indian Sign Language is probably a trade language – reduced in scope, more iconic than abstract.
Very interesting set of videos on Plains Indian Sign Language: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JST8l3ilsSQ
I’m a big fan now of b storm – the repetition of signs in his Marilyn Manson cover is interesting and I like the way pitch is represented in the ‘0h, 0h, 0h’ section of Pump It: http://www.youtube.com/user/st0rmfx
I’m a big fan of myhappyhands: http://www.youtube.com/user/MyHappyHands
Whistle, Drum Languages – Dependent on Spoken Language
October 7th, 2009 by hfrancisListen to the Whistle Spanish of La Gomera of the Canary Islands http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFPY60UceJQ
Compare it to the Whistle Mazateco of Oaxaca, Mexico http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jfl-NJTgUzI
Note that in addition to being based on different languages, the whistles themselves sound different.
Here is a bit of Twi (Akan) drum language: http://www.philtulga.com/Drum%20Language.html
M. Albright’s Read My Pins
September 30th, 2009 by hfrancisMadeleine Albright has just come out with a book titled Read My Pins. How is ‘reading’ Albright’s pins different from actual reading? How is interpretation of the pins different from language?
National Public Radio interview with Allbright:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=113278807
Bowerbirds communicate by nest building
September 28th, 2009 by hfrancisHere is a short clip of the Australian bowerbird building a nest to impress a mate.