Reflections on language and culture 1. First of all, trace the remains of the past culture from the etymology and evolution of words; In this part, Mr. Luo Changpei traces the extreme changes of the sources of several commonly used words and gives several examples to illustrate the cultural changes in the same period. For example, the word "wall" was first related to "wicker" and "willow branch", which is the common ground of several languages. In other words, at first all countries were woven with willow branches and leaves, which is a kind of thing.
Second, look at the cultural level of the nation from the psychology of word-making; This part is very intuitive and interesting. Through the rise and fall of some words, we can see the cultural progress of the whole nation. For example, the vocabulary of cattle and sheep in ancient China is extremely rich, and there are unique words to describe them, such as age, gender, shape, color, disease, sports, personality and so on. The appearance of a large number of these words shows the important position of cattle and sheep in people's minds at that time, which shows that the animal husbandry life in ancient China cannot be extinguished. Now, in our life, these words almost no longer appear, almost only in ancient books, which also shows that cattle and sheep no longer play such an important role in modern life, and our social system and economic system have undergone earth-shaking changes.
Third, look at cultural contact from loanwords; I am most interested in this part, so I will focus on this part.
Sapir was quoted as saying, "Language, like culture, is rarely self-sufficient. The need for communication brings people who speak the same language into direct or indirect contact with people who speak neighboring languages or culturally dominant languages. Communication can be good or bad. It can be carried out on the plane of ordinary affairs and trading relations, or it can be the borrowing or exchange of spiritual values-art, discipline and religion. It is difficult to point out a completely isolated language or dialect, especially among primitive people. Contact between neighbors, regardless of the degree and nature, is generally enough to cause language interaction. "
This part is almost all about this content. From the sources of these loanwords, we can infer our historical origins with other countries and nations, both friendly and hostile, and loanwords reflect historical diplomatic relations; Textual research on the time and year of loanwords can be extended to other historical events in the same period; The appearance of loanwords can also reflect some historical events; Because some loanwords have a long history and are difficult to be accurately verified, we need to read a lot and choose from a large number of materials, instead of judging that "Shi Bi" comes from Indo-European like Menchen. Loanwords are "borrowed", so their stability is much worse than that of their mother tongue, which may be completely different in different periods. In this paper, loanwords are divided into four categories: phonetic substitutes, new homophonic words, loanwords and descriptive words; In each category, examples are given separately.
Compared with loanwords, loanwords are much less. One of the reasons is that the dialects in China are so complicated that it is often difficult to communicate smoothly when speaking different dialects, so it is difficult for even locals to tell whether a word originated in China. In the past, China's foreign trade was mainly based on silk porcelain tea, from which a large number of foreign words were derived. Because trade may be concentrated in some areas, it has the characteristics of regional dialects. People who speak other dialects can hardly tell them apart, but they are extremely kind and similar to the locals.
Fourth, look at the traces of ethnic migration from place names.
Place names usually provide important evidence to historians and archaeologists to supplement the fields they do not fully understand. In China, place names can show people's traffic conditions at that time and reflect some historical events. I won't say much about the example given by Teacher Luo. Let me give you an example I know: I am from Chengdu, and there is a small town in Chengdu. What was its previous name no longer exists, but now it is called Tianhui Town. It is said that Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty fled all the way here during the Anshi Rebellion. He just stopped to get the news that Tang Jun won and the thief lost. He was too excited to sit still and immediately led the troops back to the DPRK. The son of heaven returned to the DPRK, and since then he has been called Tianhui Town.
Fifth, look at ethnic origin and religious beliefs from surnames and nicknames.
The Chinese nation contains many ethnic groups, which have gradually merged in the long-term life. There is no difference in many places, but some details can give us some enlightenment. Many surnames are mentioned in the book. I thought it was always the surname of China people, but I didn't expect so many exquisite surnames. For example, the words Ma, Bai, Hong, Ding and Gu, in the long period of historical integration, we saw this surname and thought of foreigners long ago; However, it is obvious that there are many words that reflect religious beliefs. Words like "Sabao" are obviously different from the usage habits of Han people, but what kind of religious vocabulary they belong to needs textual research.
Sixth, look at the marriage system from kinship terms.
According to the examples cited in the book, it can be seen that different nationalities and regions adopt different marriage systems. To look at the marriage system through kinship terms, it is necessary to analyze it according to the local system, so it is very complicated. But I feel that this usage is getting less and less useful, because our kinship terms are actually changing with the times. Only the black Yi people in the book call their father, father-in-law and father-in-law, which is very strange in Mr. Luo's time, but now many families in our society adopt this kind of address, which is closer; Secondly, because most of our generation are only children, the status of men and women is becoming more and more equal, and this title of distinction between men and women has gradually been diluted.
I really learned a lot from this book, and I also learned more about language and culture, but I also saw that some viewpoints are not as accurate as they were at the beginning, because the times are progressing and the society is changing, so we should combine the current phenomena and facts when doing these studies again; Compared with now, we are often too impetuous to calm down, while our predecessors are quite rigorous in writing books, spending a lot of time and energy to eliminate external interference and write quietly, which deserves our respect and study.
Reflections on language and culture II. Mr. Luo Changpei's Language and Culture is the achievement from linguistics to cultural anthropology, and is regarded as the "pioneer" and "pioneering work" of cultural linguistics in China. This book opens up a new way to guide language research with social culture. This bold breakthrough has built a bridge for the future study of linguistics and anthropology, and made great contributions to the construction of linguistics in China.
First, the "master"-Luo Changpei
Luo Changpei, whose name is Shentian and Tianan, whose pen name is Jia Yingeng, fasted without aid. Peking man, Manchu. 19 19 graduated from the literature department of China, Peking University, and is a famous linguist and language educator in China. He has been a professor at Northwest University, Xiamen University, Sun Yat-sen University and Peking University, a researcher at the Institute of Historical Linguistics, and the dean of Peking University College of Literature. After the founding of People's Republic of China (PRC), 1950 established the Institute of Linguistics of China Academy of Sciences, serving as the first director of the Institute of Linguistics, a member of the Central Ethnic Affairs Commission, and a member of the China Language Reform Commission. He was elected as a deputy to the National People's Congress twice in his life and attended the meeting. He has been engaged in language teaching, minority language research, dialect investigation and phonology research all his life. Together with Zhao Yuanren and Fang Guili, they are called the "Big Three" of early linguistics in China. His academic achievements have had a far-reaching impact on the study of linguistics and phonology in contemporary China.
Second, the groundbreaking work-"Language and Culture"
Language and Culture is divided into eight chapters. The first chapter "Introduction" puts forward the purpose of studying language by combining the social and national cultural history. The first sentence of the introduction quotes sapir, an American linguist: "There is something behind the language. Besides, language cannot exist without culture. The so-called culture is the sum of habits and beliefs passed down from society, which can determine our life organization. " And briefly introduces the content scope of other seven chapters.
The second chapter is "Looking at the cultural relics of the past from the etymology and evolution of ci". Mr. Luo Changpei used some examples in Chinese and foreign languages to illustrate the relationship between the evolution of word meaning and the stage of cultural development, and then specifically analyzed the etymology of English words such as "Wan, Chuang, Fei, Qian" and their cultural imprint, as well as the social and economic changes reflected by several etymologies in several North American Indian languages. And the relationship between the word "Bei" and the ancient monetary system, the original paper-making materials reflected by the radical of "paper", the social status of ancient women reflected by "An", the tragic punishment of "chop" and car crack, and the original form of "home" in Chinese. At the end of this chapter, the author also puts forward the view that linguistics and sociology can inspire each other.
The third chapter, "Viewing the level of national culture from the psychology of word-making", discusses the relationship between the psychological process of word-making and the development of national economy by taking the minority languages in southwest China, Norte language in North America, animal husbandry vocabulary in modern English, the demise of ancient animal husbandry vocabulary in China, and words with corresponding semantic structures in China and Indian languages as examples.
The fourth chapter is "cultural contact brought by loanwords", including the definition of loanwords, the cultural exchange between China and foreign countries shown by Chinese loanwords, four ways of loanwords in modern China (phonetic loanwords, new homophonic words, translated loanwords and descriptive words), four reasons for the large number of Chinese loanwords, the study of Chinese loanwords in foreign languages, the misunderstanding of loanwords reduction and the difficulties in studying loanwords.
Chapter 5 "Traces of Ethnic Migration from Geographical Names" includes the role of geographical names research in history and archaeology, a geographical name belt of Celtic language in Europe, traces of Scandinavian colonization in Britain reflected by geographical names, traces of ancient ethnic traffic shown by Indian geographical names in North China, geographical names of, migration of overseas Chinese in counties and ethnic groups, ethnic differences between ancient and modern in Zhuang language, and etymology of several geographical names on the Yunnan-Myanmar border. The language materials about ethnic minorities in this chapter are published for the first time.
The sixth chapter looks at ethnic origin and religious beliefs from surnames and nicknames, including ethnic origin reflected by surnames and religious beliefs reflected by surnames and nicknames. "Father-son naming system is a cultural feature of Tibetan and Burmese people". This chapter focuses on the "father-son joint system".
The seventh chapter is "Looking at the marriage system from kinship terms", including "the importance of kinship terms in primitive society", "the staggered marriage system reflected by kinship terms in men in black", "the distribution area of staggered marriage system" and "other marriage systems reflected by kinship terms", and illustrates the cautious attitude that should be taken to infer the marriage system from kinship terms with cases.
Chapter 8 is the "summary" of this book. The main contents include the evolution of language with the progress of society, the organic connection of linguistics, the paleontological analysis method of linguistics, the influence of cultural changes on pronunciation and language forms, and the new direction of linguistics in China. In fact, this chapter is the theoretical achievement of this book in linguistic research.
In addition to the above eight chapters, Language and Culture also includes the preface of the second edition written by Xing Gongwan, the preface originally written by Lu Zhiwei for the first edition of the book and the author's "preface". Luo Changpei's preface reviews the writing process of the book; This book also includes four appendices, namely: On the Naming System of Father and Son of Tibetans and Burmans, Tea Mountain Songs, The Relationship between Hakka Dialects and Jiangxi Dialects from the Traces of Hakka Migration, and Linguistics of Yunnan. These appendices are all papers and reports written by the author in his early years, and they are also the basis of some viewpoints in the book. The appendices at the back of this book provide more detailed examples for the contents of the previous chapters respectively.
Third, the feeling after reading
Luo Changpei has done a lot of pioneering work and made outstanding contributions in the study of minority languages, dialect investigation and phonology. Mr. Luo Changpei is one of the founders of modern linguistics in China and a tireless pioneer of this science. Linguists in China call Mr Arrow a "master", which can be said to be a quasi-authoritative evaluation of his life.
(A) the courage to accept new things and create new things.
A large number of foreign and domestic examples are mentioned in the book, which links linguistics with social culture. This was a great attempt and challenge in the 1940s, and laid a good foundation for the future study of sociolinguistics and cultural linguistics. This spirit of courage to accept and create new things is worth learning.
(2) The book is rich in examples and easy to understand.
In the book, Mr. Luo Changpei talked about many interesting things. A book of100000 words contains rich examples. From ancient times to the present, from abroad to China, the rich cultural background and knowledge accumulation of Mr. Luo Changpei are reflected between the lines. It is easy to read with simple and easy-to-understand words, which makes you feel the fun in the book.
(C) to build a bridge between linguistics and culturology
In China in the 1940s, it was an unprecedented bold attempt to link social culture with language. Based on the backward languages of foreign and domestic ethnic minorities, this book explores the cultural characteristics of ethnic minorities, focusing on the relationship between language and culture, and points out a unified road for the development of linguistics in China.
Reflections on language and culture. Language and culture come from the third series of Everyone's Short Stories by Luo Changpei. The so-called "everyone" includes two meanings: first, the author of the book is everyone; Second, books are written for everyone, and they are everyone's reading materials. The so-called "short story" is just a little short in length (from the preface of "Everyone's Short Story" by Yuan Xingpei). It contains works in literature, history, philosophy, art and other fields of liberal arts, not only works by famous artists, but also shows academic achievements in a simple way. It is also a reading for everyone, which can broaden readers' horizons and get a glimpse of the academic hall. And a little book condenses the wisdom of human beings and the lifelong efforts and talents of scholars. The so-called everyone should interpret his way of doing scholarly research in a simple way, so that all readers can taste the mystery. Those so-called obscure articles not only show the author's profound scholarship, but also mean the author's lack of knowledge.
The author of this book is Luo Changpei, a famous linguist and educator. Peking man, Manchu. He has been a professor at Northwest University, Xiamen University, Sun Yat-sen University, Peking University and Southwest United University, a researcher at the Institute of History and Language of Academia Sinica, and the director of the Peking University Institute of Liberal Arts. After 1949, the Institute of Linguistics of China Academy of Sciences was established as the first director and member of the Social Science Department of China Academy of Sciences. He has been engaged in language teaching and research all his life, and has made great achievements in Chinese phonology and Chinese dialect research. Known as a master of linguistics by academic circles as "connecting the past with the future".
In the introduction of this book, sapir, an American linguistics professor, was quoted as saying: "There is something behind the language. Besides, language cannot exist without culture. The so-called culture is the sum of habits and beliefs passed down from society, which can determine our life organization ",and explains that we should discuss the relationship between language and culture from the perspective of word meaning. "The content is divided into six sections:
First, trace the remains of past culture from the past language and evolution;
Second, look at the cultural level of the nation from the mentality of coining words;
Third, look at cultural contact from loanwords;
Fourth, look at the traces of ethnic migration from place names;
Fifth, look at ethnic origin and religious belief from the form and nickname;
Sixth, look at the marriage system from kinship terms. We can see that these are important issues in sociology and anthropology. What the author wants to do is to try to build a bridge between linguistics and other disciplines.
In each chapter, the author gives a large number of examples, which is enough to illustrate the author's extensive knowledge in the field of linguistics. In the second chapter, we can see the interesting semantic evolution, and then understand the clear picture of cultural evolution. For example, English pen comes from Latin penna, which means feather. At first, it was strictly applied to the original quillpen. Later, although the material of the pen changed, the words remained. If we analyze the relationship between modern characters and feathers, we can know some ancient pen systems. Most of the figures in the famous Shuo Wen Jie Zi can be found in some historical relics, such as An and Ye Jing. From the moment a woman is at home, she knows. That is to say, if she is kept at home, she will be quiet, which shows the concept of women in ancient China.
The third chapter, from the idioms or slang in many languages, explores the psychological process of word-making and the cultural level of the nation.
After reading language and culture, I compiled this part under "language and culture". From the beginning, I began to explain the close relationship between words and culture-without culture, there would be no words, and without words, culture would slowly lose its inheritance.
The author's attitude can be clearly found in this book: in the car of culture, Chinese characters are just the shell, the wheel, not the engine, not the steering wheel. Perhaps I can guess from this that the author's idea is that writing is the carrier and culture is the core, that is, writing is a manifestation of cultural development. I feel that writing is a vassal of culture.
However, from another perspective, what can be felt in the author's statement is that writing is another expression of culture, which, like language, painting and music, expresses this abstract cultural concept in a way that others can easily accept. Just like a woman's book, just like the writing of various nationalities. The formation of women's books mentioned in the book is closely related to women's life at that time. They can't go to school to learn the written expression of words like men, but they need to talk to people far away, and there was no object to convey their voices at that time, so women's books appeared. Its appearance solved the problem that women could not communicate with others, and further, it actually reflected the local social atmosphere and culture at that time. The characters of all ethnic groups also reflect their living conditions, especially when the characters are hieroglyphics. Cattle and sheep are the main characters of herding people, and land is the main character of farming people, but the characters of herding people are more vivid, and the characters of farming people are more disciplined-perhaps the nomadic people's social structure was simple at that time, and people's lives were more free and simple, while the farming people were more concentrated, and people lived in a disciplined Fiona Fang, which was reflected in the characters.
The culture in words will be expressed not only by the structure of words, but also by the arrangement of words, which is our sentence. In the sentence, poetry seems to be more obvious, just like the sentence quoted by the author, "Take it from the heart and note it in the hand". For a poem, it needs a person's "heart", while for many poems, it needs a culture that spans the great era. Just like in The Book of Songs, most of the words we can read are onomatopoeia and orthography, and most of them are rare words. But what these rare words represent is simple and clear, just like "Yi" imitates the shape of rain and fog, "Yi" chases the sound of yellow birds, and "Bo" learns the rhyme of grass insects and knows its meaning by hearing its sound. It simply and directly describes what the author wants to convey. In fact, this also indirectly reflects the social culture at that time-simplicity, simplicity and frankness. The author only uses overlapping words to make readers feel that they are in fields and forests. If they don't often communicate with nature and listen to the voice of nature, how can they properly introduce readers into the singing of insects and birds? With the passage of time, cultural development has experienced several ups and downs. In the Tang and Song Dynasties, the expression of words also changed, and many excellent poets and poets emerged, leaving a lot of works. It can be found that the poetry at this time has changed from simple and straightforward to euphemistic and implicit, no longer directly explaining the environment, but using simple images, such as the common "bright moon", "weeping willow" and "lonely sail". From the poem, we can feel that the social environment at this time has lost its simplicity, the upper class is gradually corrupt, and extravagance is prevalent. There are many people who are willing, but it is difficult to reverse it. The dribs and drabs revealed in poetry, whether right or wrong, faithfully reflect the culture at that time, or the written expression of culture.
So in the process of reading, what I feel most is these. Many viewpoints are different from the attitude expressed by the author. Maybe I didn't understand the original intention, or I misunderstood the author's point of view. But this is the biggest feeling after reading this part.
The post-reading feeling of language and culture 5 people are animals of symbols, and language is the most important symbol among all symbols, so the relationship between culture and language is irreplaceable by culture and any other relationship. If the difference between people and animals is that people have culture and animals have no culture, then the most important element in culture is language.
Existence. The so-called culture is the sum total of habits and beliefs passed down from society, which can determine our life organization. Bermer also said: "The history of language and the history of culture are complementary, and they can help and inspire each other." From these words, we can know the close relationship between language and culture and the breadth of their scope. Let's look at those aspects!
On the remains of past culture from the etymology and changes of words
There are many meanings that are popular in various languages now, which are quite different from their original etymology. If we don't know their past cultural background, we can't figure out what their relationship is at all. However, if you know their history, you can not only find interesting semantic evolution, but also reflect a clear picture of the stage of cultural progress. For example, the relationship between ancient language and culture in China is inseparable from writing. Nowadays, words related to coins, such as wealth, commodities, tributes, relief, loans, credit, buying (buying) and selling (selling) all belong to Beibei. Shells are just a kind of shells. Why use them to express the meaning of money?
I believe many people know that shells were used as a medium of transaction in ancient China. After the Qin Dynasty, money was abandoned, but this ancient monetary system still preserved its degeneration in the form of words. Another example is why the word "paper" was originally changed from "paper". That's because before Cai Lun invented new methods and new materials for papermaking, China used silk wadding to make paper. There is also the word "pen", which is interpreted by "bamboo" as "jade", and "Shuo Wen Jie Zi": "Jade is therefore a book." In other words, I am a writing tool. During the Qin and Han dynasties, the pens were mostly made of bamboo, so the bamboo prefix was added.
Viewing the cultural level of the nation from the psychology of word-making.
From idioms or slang in many languages, we can often spy out the psychological process of word-making and the cultural level of that nation. Now let's put aside a few national languages with high culture for the time being, and find some examples from the languages of some ethnic tribes in the southwest border of China. For example, the Yi people in the suburbs of Kunming, Yunnan call their wives "women who pierce needles", while the ethnic minorities in Yunnan call them "marriage" and "buying women". From these two sentences, we can see the views of minority society on wives and the remnants of buying and selling marriages. When we study the national language of low culture, it is often much more difficult to encounter abstract words, such as words expressing actions or States, than to study things that can be seen and pointed. However, once we understand their word-formation psychology, we can also arouse great interest. For example, the Yi people in the suburbs of Kunming are called angry, bloody, bullying, playing dumb and sad. The formation of these words is related to the psychological state of these actions or States. In primitive society, many guesses about natural phenomena often occur easily, because they are beyond their knowledge. For example, the Lisu people in Fugong call the rainbow "Huang Ma Draft", while Sani in Lunan (a branch of Yi people) calls the solar eclipse the sun eaten by tigers and the lunar eclipse the moon eaten by dogs.
On cultural contact from loanwords
Although language itself can reflect the cultural color of history, it can also absorb new elements and mix old elements when contacting foreign cultures. The so-called "loanwords" are loanwords mixed in a country's language. Can show the influence of two cultures on language; On the other hand, cultural exchange can also be seen from the blending of languages. For example, transcribe the sounds of foreign words, or mix foreign words with local meanings to create new words. Just like pure transliteration: soft chairs are called sofas, coffee, cocoa, chocolate and so on. Phonetics and semantics (that is, some foreign words are transliterated, but the words chosen are often related to the meaning of the object): Guangzhou dialect calls the consul "consul", telephone "telephone" and American cold drink "Coca Cola"; There are also accents: shirts are called shirts in Guangzhou dialect, ice cream in Mandarin, cars, cards and so on.
On ethnic origin and religious belief from surnames and nicknames
The Chinese nation was originally a fusion of many tribes. Although the degree of sinicization of various tribes has been very deep, we can sometimes get a glimpse of their origins from their surnames. This kind of example is easy to find in history and modern people. For example, Wei Chi was a famous family in the Tang Dynasty. According to legend, the royal family in Khotan belonged to Vijaya (Tibetan) before the Tang Dynasty. Therefore, people who travel to and from China in Khotan take Wei Chi as their surname.
As for the Wei Chi family who lived in Chang 'an in the Tang Dynasty, there are probably three sources: one is from the Wei Chi family who lived in China for a long time; One came to China to rush protons during the Sui and Tang Dynasties; There is another one, whose family background is unknown. Also, Murong was originally a Xianbei surname, and his descendants are divided into two branches: one is Rong in Dongguan, Guangdong, and the other is Mu in Penglai, Shandong. These two surnames seem to have nothing to do with you, but they actually come from the same ancestor. Surnames and nicknames can also reflect religious beliefs. Of course, the surnames of Muslims in China are the same as those of Han people, such as Zhang, Wang, Liu, Yang, Li and so on. At the same time, there are their unique pure Hui surnames such as Hui, Ha, Hai, Hu, Hei and Xian, and quasi-Hui surnames such as Ma, Ma, Bai, Man and Lan. Pure Hui surnames are based on Muslim descent, and quasi-Hui surnames are based on Han surnames. So sometimes we can infer whether they are Muslims or not based on these surnames.