Amondawa Time

Several sources report on Professor Chris Sinha's paper, When Time is not Space: The social and linguistic construction of time intervals
and temporal event relations in an Amazonian culture., which discusses the nature of the time as space metaphor in the Amondawa Language:

• PressTV: Tribe with no concept of time found
• BBC: Amondawa tribe lacks abstract idea of time, study says
  
• Sun: Time? What's that?
  Tribe has no dates or ages
  
• Telegraph: Amazonian tribe has no calendar and no concept of time
  
• Metro: Amazonian tribe discovered with no concept of time
  

Notable points:

• Both Metro and PressTV report the discovery of this tribe, rather than the analysis that they lack an abstract concept of time. This is contrary to The Sun's report that they were "first contacted by the outside world in 1986".
• PressTV independently refer to the Amondawa as a "Primitive Tribe"
• The Sun points out that "They have learned Portuguese and there are fears their own language is dying."
• Metro link this story to the story of the last two Ayapeneco Speakers
• The BBC Article also includes the views of Pierre Pica, (mentioned on this blog recently, regarding Mundurucu perceptions of Geometry)
• The BBC Article mentions that although they don't map events in time to passage through space, "When the Amondawa learn Portuguese ... they have no problem acquiring and using these mappings from the language."

Don't listen to us, go and do chores

A dance for the winds


Australian Geographic reports on a new work by dancer/choreographer Elma Kris.

What is interesting for this blog is that she mentions the nature of language use in her childhood home life:

When she was growing up her mother didn't speak much "language" as she calls Kalaw Lagaw Ya, the language of the western and central Torres Strait Islands, but would converse in Creole, a form of English. "The only time you got to see them talk language was when there was an event on the island or people coming to a celebration. My mother would always say to me, 'don't listen to us - go and do chores'."

This highlights one of the causes of language death. The reluctance to use a language around one's children, favouring a different language perceived to be more "useful" in some way. Whether it be more widely spoken or prestigious.

Geometry skills are innate, Amazon tribe study suggests

Geometry skills are innate, Amazon tribe study suggests

The BBC Reports on the study Flexible intuitions of Euclidean geometry in an Amazonian indigene group

The study investigates perceptions of geometry amongst Mundurucu speakers. The Mundurucu Language is notable in that its vocabulary of numbers stops at 5, and that words for higher numbers are approximate.

The article notes that, the Mundurucu participants outperformed their US & French counterparts in the study, when dealing with lines on the surface of a sphere. This is attributed to the prejudices of those educated in Euclidean Geometry.

This appears to be a follow-up of a study published in 2006, Core Knowledge of Geometry in an Amazonian Indigene Group by most of the same team.
which was reported on by National Geographic in 2006 (Amazon Children "Spontaneously" Understand Geometry)

Children's book aims to save dying Alaskan language

Children's book aims to save dying Alaskan language

The Guardian Reports on the Tlingit children's book Aanka Xóodzi ka Aasgutu Xóodzi Shkalneegi.

The book was originally written in English by Ernestine Hayes (Author of Blonde Indian: An Alaska Native Memoir, and translated. It was inspired by The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse.

The article mentions the challenges of "translating an oral language into text", and that first language Tlingit speakers are often literate in English, but not Tlingit.

According to the article, the translation appears to take a purist approach, stating that:

... there are no words for cars, bear-proof garbage cans, bird feeders or hamburgers in the pre-contact Tlingit language. With the story following the adventures of a forest bear visiting his relative in town, the translators had to find their way around these issues; the bears are chased through town in "the thing that drives around", for example.

Free copies are being provided to Alaskan schools, and an Audio version, read by elders, is due out soon.

At the time I write this, it is notable none of the Reader Comments on the Guardian post are negative.

Global Post reports on language death in Colombia

Colombia: Saving dying languages

Languages mentioned in the article include: the already extinct Tinigua (Ethnologue reports 2 speakers left, UNESCO, 1); and also Nasa, Uitoto, Embera and Wayuu, the four of which are taught at the National University.

This demonstrates some problems with printing language names without context. After reading the article, I could find no language called Nasa in Ethnologue or the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger. Embera is a family of six languages, 5 of which have Embera in their canonical name in Ethnologue, and two of which have an alternate name of simply "Embera". Uitoto, I surmise, may refer to either Minica Huitoto, or Murui Huitoto.

The article points out some of the causes of the demise of indigenous languages in the area: The "ongoing drug and guerrilla war", that has uprooted thousands of indigenous people; the prestige associated with Spanish, coming from pressure to assimilate; and that Spanish is the medium of education in any public schools not.

SIL activities in the area are also mentioned.