Through the Language Glass: Why the World Looks Different in Other Languages
Page 33
“freedom within constraints”
French
gender systems and
grammar and
morphology and
French Polynesia
Fromkin, Victoria
Galibi
Gatschet, Albert
Geiger, Abraham
Geiger, Lazarus
gender markers
gender systems
influence of, on thought
origin and evolution of
sexual equality and
General Anthropology (Boas)
genetics (biological heredity)
German
complexity of
concept of “mind” and
gender systems and
grammar and
morphology of
“when” vs. “if” and
German Romanticism
German textual criticism
Gilbert, Aubrey
Gladstone, William Ewart
Gleitman, Lila
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von
grammar
Australian aboriginal languages and
Boas on, and what must be conveyed
complexity and
coordinate systems
cultural freedom and
gender systems and
morphology
need for
non-European languages and
structure of, and society
verbs and
“gray”
“-yellow” distinction
Greek
gender systems and
verb tenses and
“green” See also “blue-green” distinction
Homer and
Japanese and
light wavelength of
retina and sensitivity to
“-yellow” distinction
Gurr-goni
Guugu Yimithirr
habitual use
Haeckel, Ernst
Hagenbeck, Carl
Hai||om bushmen
Halevy, Yehuda
Hanunoo
Harvey, William
Haviland, John
Hawaiian
Hay, Jennifer
Hebrew
body parts and
gender systems and
pronouns and
subordination and
verb tenses and
Heine, Heinrich
Helmholtz, Hermann von
Henley, John
Henry VIII, king of England
Herder, Johann Gottfried
Hittite
Hjelmslev, Louis
Hockett, Charles
Holmgren, Frithiof
Homer
“Homme et la mer, L’ ” (Baudelaire)
Hopevale, Australia
Hopi
Hopi Time (Malotki)
House in Bali, A (McPhee)
Hughes, Ted
human nature, See also culture-nature debate
human vs. non-human, gender systems and
Humboldt, Wilhelm von
Hungarian
Hupa
Icelandic sagas
Iliad (Homer)
“improvement through practice” model, See also acquired characteristics, inheritance of; Lamarck, Jean-Baptiste; Lamarckian evolution
India
Indo-European languages
gender systems and
morphology and
verb tenses and
Indonesian
Ingalik
“interference task”
Introduction to Language (Fromkin and Rodman)
Italian
gender systems and
Ivry, Richard
Jakobson, Roman
Jaminjung
Japanese
Jefferson, Thomas
Jerusalem, odes to
Jespersen, Otto
Jesuits
Journal of Ethnology
Journal of the Indian Archipelago and Eastern Asia (Crawfurd)
Kant, Immanuel
“kangaroo”
Kay, Paul
Kayayardild
Kempton, Willett
Kgalagadi
Khetarpal, Naveen
King, Philip Parker
kinship terms
Kipling, Rudyard
Klamath Indians
Konishi, Toshi
Koran
Krause, Ernst
Kutchin
labels
Lagerlunda train crash
Lamarck, Jean-Baptiste
Lamarckian evolution
language(s). See also color; culture-nature debate; grammar; thought, influence of language on; and specific color vocabulary, grammatical concepts, languages, and theorists
brain’s left hemisphere as seat of
complexity of
concepts vs. labels in
coordinate systems in
disappearance of
gender systems in
grammar as necessary to
as lens
as mirror
parts of
perception and
“prison-house” of
structure of society and grammatical systems and
subordination and
two lives of, in public vs. private roles
verbs and
what may vs. what must be conveyed and
lapis lazuli
La Salle de l’Étang, Simon-Philibert de
Latin
Lazarus, Emma
left hemisphere, of brain
left-right asymmetry
Le Laboureur, Louis
Levinson, Stephen
Lévi-Strauss, Claude
Li, Peggy
light
energy of, vs. wavelength
wavelengths of
“linguistic relativity”
“Linguistic Relativity in French, English, and German Philosophy” (Harvey)
Linnean Society
literacy
Lloyd’s List
Locke, John
Louisiana Purchase Exposition (St. Louis, 1904)
low-light vision
Magnus, Hugo
Malay
Mali
Malotki, Ekkehart
Maltese
Manambu
Marquesas Islands
Marx, Karl
Matses
Maxwell, James Clerk
Mayali
Mayan languages
McPhee, Colin
memory
metameric colors
Mexico
Milne, A. A.
“mind,” concept of
missionaries
“monistic view” of universe
monochromacy
monochromatic light
morphology
Moscow Psychological Institute
Most Excellent and Perfecte Homish Apothecarye, The
MRI scans
Müller, Max
Murshili II, king of Hittites
Mycenae
My Sister Life (Pasternak)
Namibia
Napoleon Bonaparte
nativism
natural selection
nature. See culture-nature debate
Navajo
Neruda, Pablo
Ngan’gityemerri
Nias islanders
Nietzsche, Friedrich
1984 (Orwell)
Nineteenth Century, The
Nootka
Norman Conquest
Norwegian
nouns. See also verb-noun fusion
case endings
morphology and
plurality and
“Nubians” exhibit (Berlin, 1878)
“Ode to the Sea” (Neruda)
Odyssey (Homer)
Old English
“On the Color Sense in Primitive Times and Its Evolution” (Geiger)
On the Historical Evolution of the Color Sense (Magnus)
“orange”
wav
elength of
Origin of Species, The (Darwin)
Orwell, George
Ovaherero tribe
Oxford English Dictionary
Paiute
Papua New Guinea
parametric variations theory
passive vocabulary
Pasternak, Boris
pattern-recognition algorithms
Perkins, Revere
Philosophy Today
photoreceptor cells
Pindar
“pink”
wavelengths of light and
Pinker, Steven
Pirahã
Planck, Max
plurality
Polish
Portuguese
primates
Primitive Culture (Tylor)
“primitive” peoples, See also specific groups and languages
changing attitudes of anthropologists to
color words in languages of
complex grammar and
Geiger’s sequence and
Torres Straits study on
pronouns
“purple”
race
Ray, Verne
“red”
“black” and
as first color named
Geiger’s sequence and
Homer and
Magnus’s evolution of color sense and
primitive people and
wavelength, energy, and retina and
red-green blindness
Regier, Terry
relativism
retina
Rivarol, Antoine de
Rivers, W. H. R.
Rodman, Robert
rod monochromats
rods
Romanian
Rotokas
Russell, Bertrand
Russian
gender system and
two blues (siniy-goluboy) and
Sanskrit
Sapir, Edward
Sarcee
Sassoon, Siegfried
Schleicher, August
Schliemann, Heinrich
Schmidt, Lauren
Schwarz, G. H.
Science
Scientific Club of Vienna
Semitic languages
sentence complexity
Sera, Maria
Shaw, George Bernard
ships, gender for
simplification patterns
Sioux Indians
sky, color of
Slavic languages
Some Things Worth Knowing
Sorbian
sound inventory
South American Indian languages
Spanish
color terms and
gender system and
spatial coordinate systems
egocentric
geographic
influence of, on thought
lack of egocentric
Steiner, George
Stubbs, George
Studies on Homer and the Homeric Age (Gladstone)
Stuff of Thought, The (Pinker)
subordination
Sumerian
Supyire
Swahili
Swedish
“syntactic universals”
Syriac
systemic complexity
Tagalog
“Tale of the Fishwife and Its Sad Fate” (Twain)
Talmud
Tamil
Tarahumara
Tchaikovsky, Pyotr Ilich
Teda tribe
television
Tennyson, Alfred (Lord)
Thai
Thomson, James
thought, influence of language on
assumptions about, vs. demonstrations of
color and
directions on
future tense and
gender systems and
Hopi time and
Humboldt on
lack of conceptual vocabulary and
Müller, Whitney, and Clifford on
“prison-house” concept and
Sapir-Whorf theories and
scientific research on
what may vs. what must be conveyed and
“three blind mice” experiment
time concepts
Times (London)
Tlingit
Torres Straits (Murray Island) expedition
Troy
Tulo (Aborigine poet)
Turkish
Twain, Mark
Tylor, Edward
Tzeltal
ultraviolet light
Unfolding of Language, The (Deutscher)
U.S. Geological Survey
universal dictionaries
universalism
color naming and
grammar and
Uzbek
Vedic poems
verbs
evidentiality and
factive vs. non-factive
gender distinctions and
irregular
-noun fusion
tenses
Vietnamese
“violet”
etymology of
Homer and
primitive peoples and
wavelength, energy, and retina sensitivity to
Virchow, Rudolf
vocabulary
size of
Voltaire
vowels
Wade, Alex
Wallace, Alfred Russel
Warlbiri
Weismann, August
West Greenlandic
“white”
artificial dyes
Berlin and Kay and
Geiger sequence and
Homer and
primitive peoples and
Whitney, William
Whorf, Benjamin Lee
Wien, Wilhelm
Wilusa
Winawer, Jonathan
“wine-dark” sea
Wittgenstein, Ludwig
Witthoft, Nathan
women, gender systems and
Woodworth, Robert
word order
Wu, Lisa
!Xóõ language
Yana
Yanomamö Indians
“yellow” See also “gray-yellow” distinction; “green-yellow” distinction
Berlin and Kay on
dyes
etymology of
evolution of primate vision and
Geiger’s sequence and
Homer and
Magnus on
primitive peoples and
wavelength, energy, and retina sensitivity to
Young, Thomas
Yukatek
Zulu
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Guy Deutscher is the author of The Unfolding of Language: An Evolutionary Tour of Mankind’s Greatest Invention. Formerly a Fellow of St John’s College, Cambridge, and of the Department of Ancient Near Eastern Languages in the University of Leiden in the Netherlands, he is an honorary Research Fellow at the School of Languages, Linguistics and Cultures in the University of Manchester. He lives in Oxford with his wife and two daughters.
1. A rainbow.
2. Kit of wools for the Holmgren color blindness test.
3. The difference between these two pictures demonstrates Magnus’s revised theory. The picture on the top is what Europeans see, and the picture on the bottom is what Magnus argued the ancients would have seen: the red hues are just as vivid, but the cooler colors green and blue are much less so.
4a. The English colors “yellow,” “green,” and “blue.”
4b. An alternative division: “grellow,” “turquoise,” and “sapphire”.
5a. The Bellonese three-color system.
5b. The Ziftish three-color system.
6. The set of 320 colored chips used by Berlin and Kay, in 40 equally spaced hues and 8 degrees of brightness. All chips are at maximum saturation.
7. Official specifications for the approved hues of green traffic lights in Japan and the United States, defined as regions of t
he standard CIE 1931 chromaticity diagram.
8. The “Russian blues” experiment.
9. Circle of squares in green and blue shades.
10. Easy-to-name and difficult-to-name colors in Chinese.
11. The visible spectrum, with wavelengths marked in nanometers (millionths of a millimeter).
12. The normalized sensitivity of the short-wave, middle-wave, and long-wave cones as a function of wavelength.