Anthropology books taught me that humanity is more fantastic than all the fantasy races.
The Mbuti sang and danced as they walked, to scare away snakes. They had no words for ‘good’, and ‘bad’, so Christian missionaries couldn’t translate their teachings.
The Azande believed in a predictable universe, and ascribed all misfortune (including death), to magical bad intentions (translated as ‘witchcraft’, but I’m not sure that’s a great translation)
The Piraha language needed you to say how you learnt something inside the verb, so rumours are grammatically impossible. Their language had four modes, including ‘whistling’.
I’m putting everything in the past tense as my info is about 50 years out of date.
Anthropology is definitely a window into novel cultural ideas! Any other neat ones to share?
Somewhat similar to Piraha, Korean also has a focusing on how you learned something and your degree of confidence baked into the verb. It sort of takes the place of conjugation in romance languages. So you can easily say if you know something through personal experience (doing it), seeing it, or because another person said so, ect. It is a neat shift in perspective.
Anthropology books taught me that humanity is more fantastic than all the fantasy races.
I’m putting everything in the past tense as my info is about 50 years out of date.
Anthropology is definitely a window into novel cultural ideas! Any other neat ones to share?
Somewhat similar to Piraha, Korean also has a focusing on how you learned something and your degree of confidence baked into the verb. It sort of takes the place of conjugation in romance languages. So you can easily say if you know something through personal experience (doing it), seeing it, or because another person said so, ect. It is a neat shift in perspective.