Peter S. Bellwood. Prehistory in the Indo-Malaysian Archipelago.
Orlando, FL: Academic Press, 1985.
Andrew Sherrat, Editor. The Cambridge Encyclopedia of
Archaeology. New York: Crown Publishers, 1980.
Eric A. Havelock. Schriftlichkeit. Das griechische Alphabet als
Kulturelle Revolution. Weinheim: Verlag VCH, 1990.
Ishwar Chandra Rahi. World Alphabets, Their Origin and
Development. Allahabad: Bhargava Printing Press, 1977.
Current alphabets vary in number of letters from 12 letters of
the Hawaiian alphabet (transliterated to the Roman alphabet by
an American missionary) to 45 letters in modern Indian
(Devnagari). Most modern alphabets vary from 24 to 33 letters:
modern Greek, 24; Italian, 26; Spanish, 27; modern Cambodian, 32;
modern Russian Cyrillic, 33. Modern Ethiopian has 26 letters
representing consonants, each letter modified for the six vowels
in the language, making a total of 182 letters.
Walter J. Ong. Orality and Literacy. The Technologizing of the
World. London and New York: Methuen, 1982.
The comparison between orality and writing has had a very long
history. It is clear that Plato's remarks are made in a
different pragmatic framework than that of the present. Ong
noticed that: "...language is so overwhelmingly oral that of all
the many thousands of languages-possibly tens of thousands-spoken
in the course of human history, only around 106 have even been
committed to writing to a degree sufficient to have produced
literature, and most have never been written at all" (p.7). Ong
also refers to pictographic systems, noticing that "Chinese is
the largest, most complex, and richest: the K'anglisi dictionary
of Chinese in 1716 AD lists 40,545 characters" (p. 8).
Recently, the assumption that Chinese writing is pictographic
came under scrutiny. John DeFrancis (Visible Speech. The Diverse
Oneness of Writing Systems. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press,
1989, p. 115) categorizes the Chinese system as morphosyllabic.
Harald Haarman. Universalgeschichte der Schrift. Frankfurt:
Campus Verlag, 1990.
David Diringer. The Alphabet: A Key to the History of Mankind.
2nd ed. New York: Philosophical Library, 1953.
-. The Story of Aleph Beth. New York/London: Yoseloff, 1960.
-. Writing. Ancient Peoples and Places. London: Thames of Hudson,
1962.
Ignace J. Gelb. A Study of Writing. Chicago: Chicago University
Press, 1963.
Gelb, as well as Ong, assumes that writing developed only around
3500 BCE among the Sumerians in Mesopotamia. Many scripts are on
record: Mesopotamian cuneiform, Egyptian hieroglyphs, Minoan or
Mycenean Linear B, Indus Valley script, Chinese, Mayan, Aztec,
and others.
Ritual: a set form or system of rites, religious or otherwise.
Ralph Merrifield. The Archaeology of Ritual and Magic. London: B.
T. Ratsford, 1987.
Catherine Bell. Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice. New York: Oxford
University Press, 1992.
Rite: a ceremonial or formal, solemn act, observance, or
procedure in accordance with prescribed rule or custom, as in
religious use (cf. Webster's Unabridged Dictionary).
Roger Grainger. The Language of the Rite. London: Darton, Longman
& Todd, 1974.
Mythe-rite-symbole: 21 essais d'anthropologie littéraire sur des
textes de Homère. Angers: Presses de l'Université d'Angers,
1984.
Weltanschauung: one's philosophy or conception of the universe
and of life (cf. Webster's Unabridged Dictionary). A particular
philosophy or view of life; a conception of the world (cf. The
Concise Oxford Dictionary of Current English).
Francesco d'Errico. Paleolithic human calendars: a case of
wishful thinking? in Current Anthropology, 30, 1989, pp.
117-118.
He regards petroglyphs were looked at as a possible mathematical
conception of the cosmos, a numbering or even a calculation
system, a rhythmical support for traditional recitation, a
generic system of notation.
B.A. Frolov. Numbers in Paleolithic graphic art and the initial
stages in the development of mathematics, in Soviet
Anthropology and Archaeology, 16 (3-4), 1978, pp. 142-166.
A. Marshack. Upper paleolithic notation and symbol, in Science,
178: 817-28, 1972.
E.K.A. Tratman. Late Upper Paleolithic Calculator? Gough's Cave,
Cheddar, Somerset, in Proceedings, University of Bristol,
Speleological Society, 14(2), 1976, pp.115-122.
Iwar Werlen. Ritual und Sprache: Zum Verhältnis von Sprechen und
Handeln in Ritualen. Tübingen: Narr Verlag, 1984.
Inner clock, or biological clock, defines the relation between a
biological entity and the time-based phenomena in the
environment. As with the so-called circadian cycles (circadian
meaning almost the day and night cycle, circa diem), rhythms of
existence persist even in the absence of external stimuli. The
appearance, at least, is that of an inner clock.
The notion of genetic code describes a system by which DNA and
RNA molecules carry genetic information. Particular sequences of
genes in these molecules represent particular sequences of amino
acids (the building blocks of proteins) and thereby embody
instructions for making of different types of proteins. On the
same subject, but obviously at a deeper level than a dictionary
definition, is James D. Watson's celebrated book, The Double
Helix: a personal account of the discovery of the structure of
DNA. (A new critical edition, including text, commentary,
reviews, original papers, edited by Gunther S. Stent). London:
Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1981.
Homeostasis: the tendency towards a relatively stable
equilibrium between interdependent elements of the human body.
Physiological processes leading to body equilibrium are
interlocked in dynamic processes.
References to the oral phase of language in Claude Lévi-Strauss:
La Pensée Sauvage (1962). Translated as The Savage Mind. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1966. Le Cru et le Cuit (1964) The
Raw and the Cooked. Trans. John and Doreen Weightman. New York:
Harper and Row, 1970.
Andrew and Susan Sherrat (quoted by Peter S. Bellwood, Op.cit): A
distinction accepted is that between unvocalized (Hebrew,
Arabic) and vocalized alphabets (starting with the Greek, in
which the vowels are no longer omitted). Some languages use
syllabaries, reuniting a consonant and a following vowel (such as
in the Japanese Katakana: ka, ke, ki, ko, ku). When two
different conventions are applied, the writing system is hybrid:
the Korean language has a very powerful alphabet, hangul, but
also uses Chinese characters, but pronouned in Korean. The
hangul system (15th century) expressed, for Koreans, a desire for
self- identity.
Plato. Phaedrus, and The Seventh and Eighth Letters (translated
from the Greek), with an introduction by Walter Hamilton.
Harmondsworth: Penguin Press, 1973.
In Phaedrus, Socrates, portrayed by Plato, articulates arguments
against writing: "it will implant forgetfulness in their souls
[of people, M.N.]; they will cease to exercise memory because
they rely on that which is written, calling these things to
remembrance no longer from within themselves, but by means of
external marks; what you have discovered is a recipe [pharmakon,
a potion; some translate it as recipe] not for memory, but for
reminder" (274-278e).
Oraltity and Language Today: What Do People Understand When They
Understand Language?
Ludwig Wittgenstein. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Translated
by D.F. Pears and B.F. Guinness. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul,
1961.
Amos Oz refers to self-constitution in language as follows: "...a
language is never a 'means' or a 'framework' or a 'vehicle' for
culture. It is culture. If you live in Hebrew, if you think,
dream, make love in Hebrew, sing in Hebrew in the shower, tell
lies in Hebrew, you are 'inside'. [...] If a writer writes in
Hebrew, even if he rewrites Dostoevksy or writes about a Tartar
invasion of South America, Hebrew things will always happen in
his stories. Things which are ours and which can only happen with
us: certain rhythms, moods, combinations, associations,
longings, connotations, atavistic attitudes towards the whole of
creation, and so forth," (Under This Blazing Light, Cambridge,
England: University Press, 1979, p. 189).
J. Lyons. Semantics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977.
Semantics requires that one "abstract from the user of the
language and analyze only the expressions and their designata"
(Vol. 1., p.115).
Noam Chomsky. The distinction between competence and performance
in Aspects of the Theory of Syntax. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press,
1965. Many scholars noticed the dualism inherent in the Chomskyan
theory. Competence is "the speaker- hearer's knowledge of his
language;" performance is "the actual use of language in concrete
situations" (p.4).
Noam Chomsky started to formulate the idea of the innate
constitution of a speaker's competence in the famous article A
review of B.K. Skinner's Verbal Behavior in Language, 35 (1959),
an idea he has developed through all his scholarly work. In the
review, he considered the alternatives: language is learned
(within Skinner's scheme of stimulus-response), or it is somehow
innate. In Aspects of the Theory of Syntax (Cambridge MA: MIT
Press, 1965), Reflections on Language (London: Fontana, 1976),
and Rules and Representations (Oxford: Blackwell, 1980), the
thought is constantly refined, though not necessarily more
convincing (as his critics noticed).
Roman Jakobson. Essais de Linguistique Générale, Paris: Editions
de Minuit, 1963.
Jakobson refused to ascertain any "private property" in the
praxis of language. Everything in the domain of language "is
socialized" (p. 33).
Feedback: "The property of being able to adjust future conduct by
past performance" (Norbert Wiener, The Human Use of Human
Beings, p.47).
In 1981, Martin Gardner and Douglas Hoffstaedter shared a column
in Scientific American, which Hoffstaedter called Metamagical
Themes. In his first article, he defined self-reference: "It
happens every time anyone says 'I' or 'me' or 'word' or 'speak'
or 'mouth.' It happens every time a newspaper prints a story
about reporters, every time someone writes a book about writing,
designs a book about design, makes a movie about movies, or
writes an article about self-reference. Many systems have the
capability to represent or refer to themselves, or elements of
themselves, within the system of their own symbolism"
(Scientific American, January, 1981, vol. 244:1, pp. 22-23).
Hofstaedter finds that self-reference is ubiquitous.
Para-linguistic elements are discussed in detail in Eduard
Ataian's book Jazyk i vneiazykovaia deistvitelnost: opyt
ontologicheskovo sravnenia (Language and paralinguistic activity,
an attempt towards an ontological comparison). Erevan: Izd.
Erevanskovo Universiteta, 1987.
Luciano Canepari. L'internazione linguistica e paralinguistica,
Napoli: Liguori, 1985.
Canepari insists on prosodic elements.
The pragmatic aspect of arithmetic is very complex. Many more
examples relating to the use of numbers and their place in
language can be found in Crump (the examples given are referenced
in The Anthropology of Numbers, Cambridge/New York: Cambridge
University Press, 1990, pp. 34 and 37).
Face-to-face communication, or iteration, attracted the attention
of semioticians because codes other than those of language are
at work. Adam Kendon, among others, thought that non-verbal
communication captures only a small part of the face-to-face
situation. The need to integrate non-verbal semiotic entities in
the broader context of a communicative situation finally leads to
the discovery of non-verbal codes, but also to the question of
how much of the language experience is continued where language
is not directly used. Useful reading can be found in Aspects of
Non-Verbal Communication (Walburga Raffler-Engel, Editor),
Lisse: Swets & Zeitlinger, 1980.
Steven Pinker. The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates
Language. New York: William Morrow & Co, 1994. (His book
appeared eight years after this chapter was written.)
As opposed to pictograms, which are iconic representations (based
on likeness) of concrete objects, ideograms are composites
(sometimes diagrams) of more abstract representations of the
same. Chao Yuen Ren (in Language and Symbolic Systems,
Cambridge: At the University Press, 1968) shows how Chinese
ideograms for the sequence 1,2,3 are built up: yi, represented as
-; ér as -
; san as -
.
François Cheng. Chinese Poetic Writing, Bloomington: Indiana
University Press, 1982. (Translation by D.A. Riggs and J.P.
Seaton of L'écriture poétique chinoise, Paris: Editions du Seuil,
1977).
"The ideogram for one, consisting of a single horizontal stroke,
separates (and simultaneously unites) heaven and earth" (p. 5).
He goes on to exemplify how, "By combining the basic
strokes,...one obtains other ideograms." The example given is
that of combining [one] and [man, house] to obtain [large, big]
and further on [sky, heaven].
On protolanguage: Thomas V. Gamkredlidze and V.V. Ivanov, The
Early history of Indo-European Languages, in Scientific
American, March 1990, pp.110-116.
Reading by machines, i.e., scanning and full text processing
(through the use of optical character recognition programs) led
some companies to advertise a new literacy. Caere and
Hewlett-Packard, sponsors of Project Literacy US and Reading is
Fundamental came up with the headline "We'd Like to Teach the
World to Read" to introduce optical character recognition
technology (a scanner and software), which makes machine reading
(of texts, numbers, and graphics) possible. In another ad, Que
Software depicts English grammar, punctuation and style books,
and the dictionary opposite a red key. The ad states:
"RightWriter improves your writing with the touch of a hot key."
The program is supposed to check punctuation and grammar. It can
also be customized for specific writing styles (inquiry to your
insurance agent, answer to the IRS, complaints to City Hall or a
consumer protection agency). As a matter of fact, the phenomena
referred to are not a matter of advertisement slogans but of a
new means for reading and even writing. A program such as
VoiceWorks (also known as VoiceRad) was designed for radiologists
who routinely review X-rays and generate written reports on
their findings. Based on patterns recognized by the physician,
the program accepts dictation (from a subset of natural language)
and generates the ca. 150-word report without misspelling
difficult technical terms. VoiceEm (for Emergency Room doctors)
is activated by voice clues (e.g., "auto accident"), displaying
a report from which the physician chooses the appropriate words:
"(belted/non-belted,) (driver/passenger) in (low/moderate/high)
velocity accident struck from (rear/head-on/broadside) and
(claims/denies) rolling vehicle." Canned medical and legal
phrases summarize situations that correspond to circumstances on
record. When the doctor states "normal throat," the machine
spells out a text that reproduces stereotype descriptions:
"throat clear, tongue, pharynx without injections, exudate
tonsilar hypertrophy, teeth normal variant." The 1,000-word
lexicon can handle the vast majority of emergencies. Those
beyond the lexicon usually surpass the competence of the
doctor.
The subject of visual mnemonic devices used in the
interpretation of Shakespeare's plays is marvelously treated in
Frances A. Yates's book The Art of Memory (Harmondsworth: Penguin
Press, 1966). She discusses Robert Fludd's memory system of
theater, from his Ars memoriae (1619), based on the
Shakespearean Globe Theater. In ancient Greece, orators
constructed complex spatial and temporal schemata as aids in
rehearsing and properly presenting their speeches.