Author: Calvert Watkins Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt ISBN: 9780618082506 Category : Foreign Language Study Languages : en Pages : 196
Book Description
Discusses the nature, origins, and development of language and lists the meanings and associated word for more than thirteen thousand Indo-European root words.
Author: Calvert Watkins Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA ISBN: 0195085957 Category : Comparative linguistics Languages : en Pages : 630
Book Description
In How to Kill a Dragon Calvert Watkins follows the continuum of poetic formulae in Indo-European languages, from Old Hittite to medieval Irish. He uses the comparative method to reconstruct traditional poetic formulae of considerable complexity that stretch as far back as the original common language. Thus, Watkins reveals the antiquity and tenacity of the Indo-European poetic tradition. Watkins begins this study with an introduction to the field of comparative Indo-European poetics; he explores the Saussurian notions of synchrony and diachrony, and locates the various Indo-European traditions and ideologies of the spoken word. Further, his overview presents case studies on the forms of verbal art, with selected texts drawn from Indic, Iranian, Greek, Latin, Hittite, Armenian, Celtic, and Germanic languages. In the remainder of the book, Watkins examines in detail the structure of the dragon/serpent-slaying myths, which recur in various guises throughout the Indo-European poetic tradition. He finds the "signature" formula for the myth--the divine hero who slays the serpent or overcomes adversaries--occurs in the same linguistic form in a wide range of sources and over millennia, including Old and Middle Iranian holy books, Greek epic, Celtic and Germanic sagas, down to Armenian oral folk epic of the last century. Watkins argues that this formula is the vehicle for the central theme of a proto-text, and a central part of the symbolic culture of speakers of the Proto-Indo-European language: the relation of humans to their universe, the values and expectations of their society. Therefore, he further argues, poetry was a social necessity for Indo- European society, where the poet could confer on patrons what they and their culture valued above all else: "imperishable fame."
Author: J. P. Mallory Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA ISBN: 0199287910 Category : Foreign Language Study Languages : en Pages : 756
Book Description
The authors introduce Proto-Indo-European describing its construction and revealing the people who spoke it between 5,500 and 8,000 years ago. Using archaeological evidence and natural history they reconstruct the lives, passions, culture, society and mythology of the Proto-Indo-Europeans.
Author: Émile Benveniste Publisher: Hau ISBN: 9780986132599 Category : Indo-European languages Languages : en Pages : 0
Book Description
Since its publication in 1969, Émile Benveniste's Vocabulaire--here in a new translation as the Dictionary of Indo-European Concepts and Society--has been the classic reference for tracing the institutional and conceptual genealogy of the sociocultural worlds of gifts, contracts, sacrifice, hospitality, authority, freedom, ancient economy, and kinship. A comprehensive and comparative history of words with analyses of their underlying neglected genealogies and structures of signification--and this via a masterful journey through Germanic, Romance, Indo-Iranian, Latin, and Greek languages--Benveniste's dictionary is a must-read for anthropologists, linguists, literary theorists, classicists, and philosophers alike. This book has famously inspired a wealth of thinkers, including Roland Barthes, Claude Lévi-Strauss, Pierre Bourdieu, Jacques Derrida, Umberto Eco, Giorgio Agamben, François Jullien, and many others. In this new volume, Benveniste's masterpiece on the study of language and society finds new life for a new generation of scholars. As political fictions continue to separate and reify differences between European, Middle Eastern, and South Asian societies, Benveniste reminds us just how historically deep their interconnections are and that understanding the way our institutions are evoked through the words that describe them is more necessary than ever.
Author: Bill Bryson Publisher: HarperCollins ISBN: 0062417444 Category : Language Arts & Disciplines Languages : en Pages : 276
Book Description
“Vastly informative and vastly entertaining…A scholarly and fascinating book.” —Los Angeles Times With dazzling wit and astonishing insight, Bill Bryson explores the remarkable history, eccentricities, resilience and sheer fun of the English language. From the first descent of the larynx into the throat (why you can talk but your dog can’t), to the fine lost art of swearing, Bryson tells the fascinating, often uproarious story of an inadequate, second-rate tongue of peasants that developed into one of the world’s largest growth industries.
Author: Gregory Nagy Publisher: Cornell University Press ISBN: 1501732021 Category : Literary Criticism Languages : en Pages : 384
Book Description
Gregory Nagy here provides a far-reaching assessment of the relationship between myth and ritual in ancient Greek society. Nagy illuminates in particular the forces of interaction and change that transformed the Indo-European linguistic and cultural heritage into distinctly Greek social institutions between the eighth and the fifth centuries B.C. Included in the volume are thirteen of Nagy's major essays—all extensively revised for book publication—on various aspects of the Hellenization of Indo-European poetics, myth and ritual, and social ideology. The primary aim of this book is to examine the Greek language as a reflection of society, with special attention to its function as a vehicle for transmitting mythology and poetics. Nagy's emphasis on the language of the Greeks, and on its comparison with the testimony of related Indo-European languages such as Latin, Indic, and Hittite, reflects his long-standing interest in Indo-European linguistics. The individual chapters examine the development of Hellenic poetics in the traditions of Homer and Hesiod; the Hellenization of Indo-European myths and rituals, including myths of the afterlife, rituals of fire, and symbols in the Greek lyric; and the Hellenization of Indo-European social ideology, with reference to such cultural institutions as the concept of the city-state. A path-breaking application of the principles of social anthropology, comparative mythology, historical linguistics, and oral poetry theory to the study of classics, Greek Mythology and Poetics will be an invaluable resource for classicists and other scholars of linguistics and literary theory.
Author: Benjamin W. Fortson, IV Publisher: John Wiley & Sons ISBN: 1444359681 Category : Language Arts & Disciplines Languages : en Pages : 570
Book Description
This revised and expanded edition provides a comprehensive overview of comparative Indo-European linguistics and the branches of the Indo-European language family, covering both linguistic and cultural material. Now offering even greater coverage than the first edition, it is the definitive introduction to the field. Updated, corrected, and expanded edition, containing new illustrations of selected texts and inscriptions, and text samples with translations and etymological commentary Extensively covers individual histories of both ancient and modern languages of the Indo-European family Provides an overview of Proto-Indo-European culture, society, and language Designed for use in courses, with exercises and suggestions for further reading included in each chapter Includes maps, a glossary, a bibliography, and comprehensive word and subject indexes
Author: Roger D. Woodard Publisher: Cambridge University Press ISBN: 1139469339 Category : Foreign Language Study Languages : en Pages : 207
Book Description
This book, derived from the acclaimed Cambridge Encyclopedia of the World's Ancient Languages, describes the ancient languages of Asia Minor, for the convenience of students and specialists working in that area. Each chapter of the work focuses on an individual language or, in some instances, a set of closely related varieties of a language. Providing a full descriptive presentation, each of these chapters examines the writing system(s), phonology, morphology, syntax and lexicon of that language, and places the language within its proper linguistic and historical context. The volume brings together an international array of scholars, each a leading specialist in ancient language study. While designed primarily for scholars and students of linguistics, this work will prove invaluable to all whose studies take them into the realm of ancient language.
Author: Bruce Catton Publisher: New Word City ISBN: 1612307906 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 200
Book Description
Here is Pulitzer Prize-winning author Bruce Catton’s unsurpassed account of the Civil War, one of the most moving chapters in American history. Introduced by Pulitzer Prize-winner James M. McPherson, the book vividly traces the epic struggle between the Blue and Gray, from the early division between the North and South to the final surrender of Confederate troops.
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Author: Calvert Watkins
Author: Calvert Watkins
Author: 
Author: J. P. Mallory
Author: Émile Benveniste
Author: Bill Bryson
Author: Gregory Nagy
Author: Benjamin W. Fortson, IV
Author: Roger D. Woodard
Author: Bruce Catton