Language Log

I write to announce an exceptional opportunity to learn the Turkish languages of Central Asia.

Illuminating new book from Hong Kong University Press edited by Richard VanNess Simmons:

Studies in Colloquial Chinese and Its History:  Dialect and Text

ISBN : 978-988-8754-09-0

The book also has a Chinese title:

Hànyǔ kǒuyǔ de lìshǐ yánjiū: fāngyán hé wénxiàn

漢語口語的歷史研究：方言與文獻

I would prefer to render this into English as:

Studies on the History of Spoken Sinitic:  Topolects and Texts

Cantonese — its nature, its status, its past, present, and future, its place in the realm of Sinitic languages and in the world — has been one of the chief foci of Language Log.  Consequently, it is my great pleasure to announce the publication of the three-hundred-and-thirty-fourth issue of Sino-Platonic Papers:

“The Concept of the Cantophone: Memorandum for a Stateless Literary History,” by Wayne C. F. Yeung.

https://sino-platonic.org/complete/spp334_cantophone.pdf

This is a landmark work of scholarship that penetratingly probes the position of Cantonese — and thereby all "Chinese" topolects — in the complex mix of language, literature, nation, politics, and culture.  

Handbook of Formosan Languages (Online): The Indigenous Languages of Taiwan

Editors:

Paul Jen-kuei Li, Academia Sinica
Elizabeth Zeitoun, Academia Sinica
Rik De Busser, National Taiwan Cheng-Chi University

Leiden:  Brill, 2023

Outright Purchase: € 2249 / US dollars 2495
Subscription: € 350 / US dollars 390

A print version is forthcoming (September 2023 ; 3 vols, ~ 2200 pp.)

Features

• The first comprehensive reference work on Formosan languages, relevant for decades to come.
• Sketch grammars of almost all known Formosan languages, living or extinct.
• Written by renowned scholars in the field from around the world.

Publication Schedule

Handbook of Formosan Languages Online was launched in May 2023 with 50% of the total content. The other 50% will be published in July 2023.

Sino-Platonic Papers is pleased to announce the publication of its three-hundred-and-thirty-second issue:

“The Sutradhar and the Ringgit: A Study of Terms Related to the Early Puppet Theatres,” by Keith Rawlings.

ABSTRACT

Certain words in Sanskrit, Old Javanese, and Ancient Greek that appear in centuries-old texts are thought by many scholars to be early references to puppetry, leading to certain theories about the history of that art. These particular words from antiquity and the Middle Ages and their interpretations and translations underpin currently received views about the antiquity of puppetry. This paper discusses the history of the related scholarship, examines varying interpretations of the words, and suggests other possible meanings, leading to questions about their interpretation. I hope to show that, because words in earlier eras of a language may have different interpretations from those accepted later, texts and the scholarship that relies on them should be re-examined in the light of current knowledge.

Sino-Platonic Papers is pleased to announce the publication of its three-hundred-and-thirty-first issue:

Bettina Zeisler, “Combinatory Sound Alternations in Proto-, Pre-, and Real Tibetan: The Case of the Word Family *Mra(o) ‘Speak,’ ‘Speaker,’ ‘Human,’ ‘Lord’” (free pdf), Sino-Platonic Papers, 331 (March, 2023), 1-165.

Among many other terms, discusses the Eurasian word for "horse" often mentioned on Language Log (see "Selected readings" below for examples).   Gets into IIr and (P)IE.

ABSTRACT

At least four sound alternations apply in Tibetan and its predecessor(s): regressive metathesis, alternation between nasals and oral stops, jotization, and vowel alternations. All except the first are attested widely among the Tibeto-Burman languages, without there being sound laws in the strict sense. This is a threat for any reconstruction of the proto-language. The first sound alternation also shows that reconstructions based on the complex Tibetan syllable structure are misleading, as this complexity is of only a secondary nature. In combination, the four sound alternations may yield large word families. A particular case is the word family centering on the words for speaking and human beings. It will be argued that these words ultimately go back to a loan from Eastern Iranian.

Despite its being a Middle Iranian language that has been extinct for a millennium, we've often mentioned Sogdian on Language Log.  That's because of its intrinsic linguistic interest, but also because its speakers, as I have often said, were Eurasian Kulturvermittlers par excellence and outstanding socioeconomic entrepreneurs.

Now we have a comprehensive, reliable grammar of Sogdian, which is cause for celebration:

Yoshida Yutaka 吉田豊 2022. Sogudogo bunpō kōgi ソグド語文法講義
[Lectures on Sogdian Grammar]. Kyoto: Rinsen. iv, 500 pp.
ISBN: 978-4-653-04188-7.

Although this hefty tome is in Japanese, Adam Alvah Catt has written an informative review that enables those who cannot read it themselves to get a good idea of the book's contents.

Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae, Volume 76: Issue 1 (March 17, 2023), 165-167

DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1556/062.2023.00325

URL:  https://akjournals.com/view/journals/062/76/1/article-p165.xml

Here I will make available the first, next to last, and last paragraphs of the review.

As the S2O website explains,

“Subscribe to Open” (S2O) is a pragmatic approach for converting subscription journals to open access—free and immediate online availability of research—without reliance on either article processing charges (APCs) or altruism. […]

S2O allows publishers to convert journals from subscriptions to OA, one year at a time. Using S2O, a publisher offers a journal’s current subscribers continued access. If all current subscribers participate in the S2O offer (simply by not opting out) the publisher opens the content covered by that year’s subscription. If participation is not sufficient—for example, if some subscribers delay renewing in the expectation that they can gain access without participating—then that year’s content remains gated.

The offer is repeated every year, with the opening of each year’s content contingent on sufficient participation. In some cases, access to backfile content may be used to enhance the offer.

[Please read all the way to the bottom of this post.  There are some big surprises here, including references to a book and an article on linguistics by the novelist Tom Wolfe (1930-2018), who's clearly on the wrong side of the political fence.  Despite the spate of mostly unremittingly anti-Wolfe comments, many important issues about the field are raised there.]

Meant to send this more than a month ago.

Interesting new journal in Iranian Studies

"Berkeley Working Papers in Middle Iranian Philology is a new open access e-journal hosted by UC Berkeley’s Department of Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures and edited by Adam Benkato and Arash Zeini. It publishes short and longer articles or research reports on the philology and epigraphy of the Middle Iranian languages (Middle Persian, Parthian, Bactrian, Sogdian, Chorasmian, Khotanese). Submitted papers will be reviewed by the editors and published on an ongoing basis. The journal promotes a simple and quick publishing process with collective annual volumes published at the end of each year. The editors encourage scholars working on Middle Persian documents in particular to submit their work."

Registration is open for Artificial Intelligence in Language Education

Sino-Platonic Papers is pleased to announce the publication of its three-hundred-and-twenty-eighth issue:

"On the Origins of the Alphabet: The Cycle of Emmer Wheat and Seed/Word Selection within the Proto-Sinaitic/Phoenician/Hebrew Alphazodiac and the Chinese Lunar Zodiac," by Brian R. Pellar.  (free pdf)

ABSTRACT

This paper presents evidence that the Proto-Sinaitic script, the Phoenician twenty-two-letter alphabet (and, by extension, the Chinese twenty-two ganzhi and the Chinese twenty-eight-mansion lunar zodiac) are patterned on the solar zodiac and Mesopotamian/Egyptian celestial diagrams, and that these are based on the cultivation cycle of wheat. The evidence shows that the animal figures such as the ram, bull, and lion that are seen in the Mesopotamian cylinder seals, the zodiac, and the Egyptian celestial diagrams symbolize the various stages of the growth of Emmer wheat. A prominent part of the process, selecting seeds for future resowing, corresponds to Word selection (a concept rooted in the Egyptian conflict stories of Horus and Seth). It is also shown that the cycle of wheat was established in the Neolithic and Upper Paleolithic in the idea of the Solar Lion-Lunar Bull Conflict, itself ultimately based on the sun/moon cycle and the mythology of the Great Goddess.

Language Is Not Enough for Brains in Conversation

Zoom Webinar: https://uu-se.zoom.us/j/69177119780

4 October, 2:15 p.m. SEMINAR – WEB EVENT

Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study (SCAS), Uppsala

Julia Uddén, Pro Futura Scientia Fellow, SCAS, and the Departments of Linguistics and Psychology, Stockholm University.
Affiliated Researcher, Department of Neurobiology of Language, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen