Quiz #3 Study Sheet

Writing systems: how many times was writing invented ex nihilo (completely from scratch) in the Western Hemisphere, and who did it?; how many other times did a Native American group or individual invent their own completely unique writing system, and who did it?; know difference: syllabary vs. alphabet; give examples of various Native American syllabaries, whether invented on their own or imported; what are some problems posed by Arapaho for producing a dictionary?; be able to explain briefly some of the tensions between a linguistic-designed writing system and its aims vs. locally-developed writing systems (hint: the Gros Ventre example in class of the two different systems); why are Mayan Hieroglyphics especially hard to read?; explain the role of missionaries and western religions in the development of writing systems; who used winter counts, and what were they?; who used pictographic writing?; plains sign language: how many signs were there? explain how it was "iconic"; know signs for: question, no, dog, house, hungry, eat, I, you; what were different circumstances in which it was used?; when and where did it start and how did it spread?; who used whistle speech?; what feature of the languages made them especially amenable to this?; what are some times when Western Apache use silence?

contact issues: what is a pidgin, lingua franca, and creole? what is one language family that has contributed many words to American English? how did words like coyote, tomato and chocolate get into English from indigenous languages, and how is this different from words like moose, skunk and oppossum?; what are the five different ways of coming up with new words in a language? what are some reasons why one mechanism mighte be preferred over another? explain what Chinook Jargon is, how it arose and why, and what the main contributing languages were; what are some other examples of Native American pidgins?; explain what rephonemicization is in the context of language borrowing, and explain what borrowing of whole new phonemes, vs. rephonemicizing them tells us about language borrowing (Lake Miwok and Mtn Pima examples); explain what is unique about Mitchif; list one way that Andean Spanish shows influence from local indigenous languages; explain how Mexican Spanish borrowing from indigenous languages differs from American English borrowing; explain the origin of Hawaiian Creole English; what is de-creolization?; what are some special grammatical features of HCE?; what are some of the languages which contributed words to HCE?; what is the social role of HCE in Hawaiian society?; give some examples of the way it is used in arts and media