Landscape unbounded: space, place, and orientation in not equal Akhoe Hai//om and beyond
Item does not contain fulltext Even before it became a common place to assume that “the Eskimo have a hundred words for snow” the languages of hunting and gathering people have played an important role in debates about linguistic relativity concerning geographical ontologies. Evidence from languages...
| Published in: | Language Sciences |
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| Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
| Language: | unknown |
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2008
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/2066/73014 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.langsci.2006.12.002 |
| Summary: | Item does not contain fulltext Even before it became a common place to assume that “the Eskimo have a hundred words for snow” the languages of hunting and gathering people have played an important role in debates about linguistic relativity concerning geographical ontologies. Evidence from languages of hunter-gatherers has been used in radical relativist challenges to the overall notion of a comparative typology of generic natural forms and landscapes as terms of reference. It has been invoked to emphasize a personalized relationship between humans and the non-human world. It is against this background that this contribution discusses the landscape terminology of ≠Akhoe Hai//om, a Khoisan language spoken by “Bushmen” in Namibia. Landscape vocabulary is ubiquitous in ≠Akhoe Hai//om due to the fact that the landscape plays a critical role in directionals and other forms of “topographical gossip” and due to merges between landscape and group terminology. This system of landscape-cum-group terminology is outlined and related to the use of place names in the area. |
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