"Crab Walk 'til e meet Kiss-Kiss" - Language Evolution

Linguistical research within anthropology typically looks at the history of language, the evolution of our (or at times animals') biology in order to create language and how language can help to create culture. It studies language histories to see the evolution of a language within one culture or how as cultures assimilate languages can also at time amalgamate based on crosses within societies that mix together.

Sound interesting? For this blog post I'm going to be looking at Creole through the eyes of anthropologist Douglas Carl Reeser's article, "Language and Everyday Life in Belize". Douglas Carl Reeser is a doctoral candidate at the University of South Florida. He is currently working on his dissertation based on research in southern Belize, examining the intersection of State-provided health care with a number of ethnic-based traditional medicines.The term Creole comes from the Portuguese word, crioulo, which meant literally a slave born in the master's household. In the 16th century, the term came to include any French, Spanish, or Portuguese settlers in the West Indies and Latin America (Caver and Williams 2006). Many of the original Creoles were French who fled Haiti during a slave insurrection and landed on the northern Gulf Coast, they are the ancestors of people who still today live in northwestern Florida and the Mississippi and Louisiana coast, most notably in New Orleans.

Today there are many Creole languages. In fact, Creole languages are spoken widely on every continent except for Antarctica. The language began as a mixture of French, Spanish, and Portuguese but when Louisiana Creoles mixed with English speaking Americans, after the Lousiana Purchase, the language adapted again and became a mix of Creole and English. Creole thus becomes a pidgin language in it's adaptability, it is a language that simplifies the languages of 2 or more groups in order to have a basic line of communication.

Douglas Carl Resser did his language research in Belize where he was trying to learn about basic fundamentals of everyday life. His research took him to a finer understanding of Kriol (the form of Creole spoken there). "There are plenty of English words in any given Kriol sentence or two, but they are surrounded by words unfamiliar and foreign, such that many visitors to Belize do not understand the language" (Reeser 2013). He felt his time there was giving him plenty of information and a mastery of the language but every once and a while there would be whole sentences he wouldn't understand, or pieces in sentences that just left him baffled.

The answer to his riddle led within Proverbs. Proverbs are quotes of wisdom that are considered to be a cultural universal, meaning every community around the world has them. Resser was told from one of his informants, "You fas like crofi?" (Reeser 2013) and he didn't even know how to respond. This was a Belizean proverb meaning he was overly inquisitive. Proverbs don't have easily created translations across languages and so he began to realize that his gaps in knowledge within the language were coming from a wide use of proverbs.

"Proverbs help explain complex, difficult, or ambiguous situations by relating them to phrases that are often just as difficult to understand – unless you have intimate knowledge of the language, history, and culture from which the proverb originates. In contexts where language use is thick with proverbs, learning the language is then only one step towards understanding it" (Reeser 2013).

The title of this work, "Crab Walk 'til e meet Kiss Kiss" is a Belizean proverb referring to the trappings of life. Kiss-Kiss is the name of tongs that they use in their crabbing techniques. The crab walks freely with no cares in the world until it is snatched up by kiss-kiss. Who else out there is getting hungry? What are some other languages that have evolved over time? Has the English language? Along with proverbs what are other aspects of language that are easily lost in translation?

http://www.anthropology-news.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Land-Crabs-in-PG.jpg

References

Caver, Helen Bush and Williams, Mary T. 2006. Creoles. Countries and their Cultures. http://www.everyculture.com/multi/Bu-Dr/Creoles.html. Accessed April 23rd, 2013.

Reeser, Douglas Carl. 2013. Language and Everyday Life in Belize. Anthropology News. http://www.anthropology-news.org/index.php/2013/04/16/speaking-in-proverbs/. Accessed April 23rd, 2013.

Bringing it Together

     This blog started out with an overview of anthropology. Then quickly went to a post about religion and then on to some posts about archaeology. I'd like to continue the archaeology discussion here a bit and try and bring some of this together. Each of the four fields of anthropology (recall: cultural, archaeology, biological and linguistics from the first post) has its own claim to fame and its own uniqueness that makes it worthy of study and important to the whole field of anthroplogy. I just finished reading an article by Monica L. Smith, entitled "Archaeology as a Gateway to the Four Fields" (2009) in which Smith details some of the reasons why archaeology tends to be the way in which many people come to learn about anthropology for the first time. Monica L. Smith got her PhD at the University of Michigan and she is currently a professor at UCLA. Her subfield is archaeology and she specializes in urbanism, economic networks, consumption and material culture, anthropology of food, comparative historical archaeology; South Asia, Mediterranean, Southwestern U.S.

Why Archaeology?

     Archaeology is the subfield with the biggest public media presence. The media allows students to gain a curiousity about what archaeology really is and this gives college professors the opportunity to discuss archaeology and the relation it has to the other fields. Smith (2009) says that she "teaches a large introduction to archaeology course, and with 400 students in fall 2009 it is one of the largest social science courses at (her) university. Many students enroll for general education credits and are unlikely to take another anthropology course" (26). As we discussed in the last post characters like Indiana Jones or Lara Croft: Tomb Raider put archaeology into the public eye and these introductory courses are a professor's chance to capture the interest of students for anthropology.

Archaeology 101

     When Professor Smith was an assistant professor, at the time she wrote this article, she taught the intro class for archaeology. She pulled away from the idea that archaeology was just about digging up "old stuff" (26). She wanted students to realize that archaeology was all about human interaction, and specifically human interaction with material culture. "I start the course with a discussion of trash as a ubiquitous and meaningful signature of human activity: a banana peel that is not a clue about our local environment but a marker of robust trade connections, a box of dental floss that reveals how specialized our production and consumption processes have become, a burnt-out birthday candle that shows how symbolism can transform objects beyond the concept of practical utility, a penny with scraped-off bubblegum stuck to it that reveals how context determines the perceived worth of an object" (Smith: 26). This idea of modernizing the archaeological process is one that is echoed in many introductory classes around the country.

http://everythingnallarchaeology.com/garbology-what-does-your-trash-say-about-you/

Bringing it together

     As her course continues she brings the other three subfields into the conversation. She talks about the ways in which the material culture of our ancestors through Homo and earlier, such as australopithecenes, can tell about the history of our interactions and how evolutionary changes in our body structure also help to give pieces to the puzzle of modern day humanity. In the area of linguistics she discusses the interaction with signs and visual histories through rock paintings and the advent of writing. She also discusses ideas about the process in which sound was codified into written symbols and words. Finally she goes into how archaeology works with cultural anthropology, two subfields that are very closely linked. Cultural anthropology being largely the creation and interaction of social groups she suggests that archaeology has a role of "examining the material evidence for socially cohesive acts such as monument construction and shared rituals, as well as socially divisive acts such as warfare" (Smith: 26).

     The four subfields only work when there are cross compared with each other. If you look to studies and universities outside of America there is only one field: anthropology and thus the four parts are always working as one. "Cultural perspectives also bring the class full circle, enabling students to critically assess why the past as a concept has value for present-day people and how abstract notions of identity are materialized through archaeological remains" (Smith: 26).

References:

2009. Smith, Monica L. "Archaeology as a Gateway to the Four Fields". Anthropology News. (50, 9). December 2009. p. 26.

UCLA: Anthropology. Monica L. Smith. http://www.anthro.ucla.edu/people/faculty?lid=1325. Accessed April 18th, 2013.