Mythical Origins Of Language
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Mythical Origins Of Language
There have been many accounts of the origin of language in the world's mythologies and other stories pertaining to the origin of language, the development of language and the reasons behind the diversity in languages today. These myths have similarities, recurring themes, and differences, having been passed down through oral tradition. Some myths go further than just storytelling and are religious, with some even having a literal interpretation even today. Recurring themes in the myths of language dispersal are floods and catastrophes. Many stories tell of a great deluge or flood which caused the peoples of the Earth to scatter over the face of the planet. Punishment by a god or gods for perceived wrongdoing on the part of man is another recurring theme. Myths regarding the origins of language and languages are generally subsumed or footnoted into larger creation myths, although there are differences. Some tales say a creator endowed language from the beginning, others count la ...
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Origin Of Language
The origin of language (spoken and signed, as well as language-related technological systems such as writing), its relationship with human evolution, and its consequences have been subjects of study for centuries. Scholars wishing to study the origins of language must draw inferences from evidence such as the fossil record, archaeological evidence, contemporary language diversity, studies of language acquisition, and comparisons between human language and systems of communication existing among animals (particularly other primates). Many argue that the origins of language probably relate closely to the origins of modern human behavior, but there is little agreement about the facts and implications of this connection. The shortage of direct, empirical evidence has caused many scholars to regard the entire topic as unsuitable for serious study; in 1866, the Linguistic Society of Paris banned any existing or future debates on the subject, a prohibition which remained influen ...
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Prajapati
Prajapati ( sa, प्रजापति, Prajāpati, lord and protector of creation) is a Vedic deity of Hinduism. In later literature, Prajapati is identified with the creator god Brahma, but the term also connotes many different gods, depending on the Hindu text, ranging from being the creator god to being same as one of the following: Viswakarma, Agni, Indra, Daksha, and many others, reflecting the diverse Hindu cosmology. In classical and medieval era literature, Prajapati is equated to the metaphysical concept called Brahman as Prajapati-Brahman (Svayambhu Brahman), or alternatively Brahman is described as one who existed before Prajapati. Etymology Prajapati (Sanskrit: ) is a compound of "praja" (creation, procreative powers) and "pati" (lord, master). The term means "lord of creatures", or "lord of all born beings". In the later Vedic texts, Prajapati is a distinct Vedic deity, but whose significance diminishes. Later, the term is synonymous with other gods, particular ...
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Yuki Tribe
The Yuki (also known as Yukiah) are an indigenous people of California, whose traditional territory is around Round Valley, Mendocino County. Today they are enrolled members of the Round Valley Indian Tribes of the Round Valley Reservation. Before the arrival of Europeans, the Yuki called themselves "Ukomno'om," meaning "valley people." The exonym "Yuki" may derive from the Wintu word meaning "foreigner" or "enemy." Yuki tribes are thought to have settled as far south as Hood Mountain in present-day Sonoma County. History In 1856, the US government established the Indian reservation of Nome Cult Farm (later to become Round Valley Indian Reservation) at Round Valley. Language The Yuki language is not spoken as much but they are still teaching them in certain schools. It is distantly related to the Wappo language, forming the Yukian family with it. The Yuki people had a quaternary (4-based) counting system, based on counting the spaces between the fingers, rather than the fing ...
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Salishan
The Salishan (also Salish) languages are a family of languages of the Pacific Northwest in North America (the Canadian province of British Columbia and the American states of Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana). They are characterised by agglutinativity and syllabic consonants. For instance the Nuxalk word ''clhp’xwlhtlhplhhskwts’'' (), meaning "he had had n his possessiona bunchberry plant", has thirteen obstruent consonants in a row with no phonetic or phonemic vowels. The Salishan languages are a geographically contiguous block, with the exception of the Nuxalk (Bella Coola), in the Central Coast of British Columbia, and the extinct Tillamook language, to the south on the central coast of Oregon. The terms ''Salish'' and ''Salishan'' are used interchangeably by linguists and anthropologists studying Salishan, but this is confusing in regular English usage. The name ''Salish'' or ''Selisch'' is the endonym of the Flathead Nation. Linguists later applied the name ...
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Taryenyawagon
Taryenyawagon (Onondaga ''Taiñhiawa'geh'') or "Holder of the Heavens" is the creator deity in Iroquois mythology Mythology of the Iroquois includes the creation stories and folktales of the Native Americans who formed the confederacy of the Five Nations, later the Six Nations. Historically, these stories were recorded in wampum and recited, only being w .... References Iroquois mythology Gods of the indigenous peoples of North America Creator gods {{NorthAm-myth-stub ...
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Iroquois
The Iroquois ( or ), officially the Haudenosaunee ( meaning "people of the longhouse"), are an Iroquoian-speaking confederacy of First Nations peoples in northeast North America/ Turtle Island. They were known during the colonial years to the French as the Iroquois League, and later as the Iroquois Confederacy. The English called them the Five Nations, comprising the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca (listed geographically from east to west). After 1722, the Iroquoian-speaking Tuscarora people from the southeast were accepted into the confederacy, which became known as the Six Nations. The Confederacy came about as a result of the Great Law of Peace, said to have been composed by Deganawidah the Great Peacemaker, Hiawatha, and Jigonsaseh the Mother of Nations. For nearly 200 years, the Six Nations/Haudenosaunee Confederacy were a powerful factor in North American colonial policy, with some scholars arguing for the concept of the Middle Ground, in that Europe ...
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Kaska
The Kaska or Kaska Dena are a First Nations people of the Athabaskan-speaking ethnolinguistic group living mainly in northern British Columbia and the southeastern Yukon in Canada. The Kaska language, originally spoken by the Kaska, is an Athabaskan language. The Kaska Dena constituted five local bands: * Tu tcogotena (Tu’tcogotena) or Tu cho gha nugga dhal (″Big Water Dwellers″) are the Dena people that occupy the Tucho (Frances Lake) and the Tucho Tue (Frances River) area stretching to the Hyland and Smith rivers. They hunted also the Too-Ti (Liard) and Tucho Tue (Dease River) areas. Also known as McDame Post Kaska or Fort McDame Kaska because they traded at the McDame Post (Fort McDame) trading post (at the mouth of McDame Creek into the Dease River); also referred to as Frances Lake Kaska in some sources. * Ki stagotena (Ki’stagotena) or Tsetotena (Tsay tow tena) (″Mountain Dwellers″) dominated the south and south east of the Natitu a gotena Kaska. Their tradition ...
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Dove
Columbidae () is a bird family consisting of doves and pigeons. It is the only family in the order Columbiformes. These are stout-bodied birds with short necks and short slender bills that in some species feature fleshy ceres. They primarily feed on seeds, fruits, and plants. The family occurs worldwide, but the greatest variety is in the Indomalayan and Australasian realms. The family contains 344 species divided into 50 genera. Thirteen of the species are extinct. In English, the smaller species tend to be called "doves" and the larger ones "pigeons". However, the distinction is not consistent, and does not exist in most other languages. Historically, the common names for these birds involve a great deal of variation between the terms. The bird most commonly referred to as just "pigeon" is the domestic pigeon, which is common in many cities as the feral pigeon. Doves and pigeons build relatively flimsy nests, often using sticks and other debris, which may be placed on b ...
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Coxcox
In Aztec mythology, Coxcox was the only male survivor of a worldwide flood. The Aztecs believed that only Coxcox and his wife, Xochiquetzal, survived the flood. They took refuge in the hollow trunk of a cypress, which floated on top of the water and finally banked on a mountain in Culhuacan. They had many children, but all of them were mute. The great spirit took pity on them, and sent a dove, which attempted to teach the children how to speak. Fifteen of them succeeded, and from these, the Aztecs believed, the Toltecs and Aztecs were descended. Another account In another account, the Nahua god Tezcatlipoca spoke to a man named Nata and his wife Nana, saying: "Do not busy yourselves any longer making ''pulque'', but hollow out for yourselves a large boat of an ''ahuehuete'' (cypress) tree, and make your home in it when you see the waters rising to the sky." When flood waters came, the Earth disappeared and the highest mountain tops were covered in water. All other men perishe ...
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Aztecs
The Aztecs () were a Mesoamerican culture that flourished in central Mexico in the post-classic period from 1300 to 1521. The Aztec people included different Indigenous peoples of Mexico, ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those groups who spoke the Nahuatl, Nahuatl language and who dominated large parts of Mesoamerica from the 14th to the 16th centuries. Aztec culture was organized into city-states (''altepetl''), some of which joined to form alliances, political confederations, or empires. The Aztec Empire was a confederation of three city-states established in 1427: Tenochtitlan, city-state of the Mexica or Tenochca; Texcoco (altepetl), Texcoco; and Tlacopan, previously part of the Tepanec empire, whose dominant power was Azcapotzalco (altepetl), Azcapotzalco. Although the term Aztecs is often narrowly restricted to the Mexica of Tenochtitlan, it is also broadly used to refer to Nahuas, Nahua polities or peoples of central Pre-Columbian Mexico, Mexico in the preh ...
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Indigenous Peoples Of The Americas
The Indigenous peoples of the Americas are the inhabitants of the Americas before the arrival of the European settlers in the 15th century, and the ethnic groups who now identify themselves with those peoples. Many Indigenous peoples of the Americas were traditionally hunter-gatherers and many, especially in the Amazon basin, still are, but many groups practiced aquaculture and agriculture. While some societies depended heavily on agriculture, others practiced a mix of farming, hunting, and gathering. In some regions, the Indigenous peoples created monumental architecture, large-scale organized cities, city-states, chiefdoms, states, kingdoms, republics, confederacies, and empires. Some had varying degrees of knowledge of engineering, architecture, mathematics, astronomy, writing, physics, medicine, planting and irrigation, geology, mining, metallurgy, sculpture, and gold smithing. Many parts of the Americas are still populated by Indigenous peoples; some countries have ...
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