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Books > Language & Literature > Language & linguistics > Palaeography
Diese Studien behandeln anhand reprasentativer Texte der alt- und
mittelhochdeutschen Literatur zentrale Themen im Bereich von
Sprache und Stil. Dazu gehoeren Parataxe und Hypotaxe in
althochdeutscher Prosa und im Nibelungenlied, Parenthese sowie
Sprachstil in der fruhmittelhochdeutschen Epik, vor allem im
Rolandslied und in der Kaiserchronik. Ausserdem zahlen dazu
Stilmittel (insbesondere Metaphorik) bei Walther und Hartmann -
hier im Vergleich mit dem Rolandslied sowie mit dem
spatmittelhochdeutschen Helmbrecht, dazu die Sprachreflexion
Hartmanns in seinem Werk und, als Anhang, Sprachwandel der
Gegenwart in diachroner Sicht. Die Studien verstehen sich als
Beitrag zur deutschen Sprachgeschichte (dazu u.a.: komplexe
Hypotaxe der hoefischen Passagen im Nibelungenlied, Relevanz der
Parenthese im Fruhmittelhochdeutschen, zum Teil zyklischer
Charakter beim Sprachwandel); sie sind aber auch Anregung fur
Kritik und weitere Untersuchungen zur Thematik.
The Last Language on Earth is an ethnographic history of the
disputed Eskayan language, spoken today by an isolated upland
community living on the island of Bohol in the southern
Philippines. After Eskaya people were first 'discovered' in 1980,
visitors described the group as a lost tribe preserving a unique
language and writing system. Others argued that the Eskaya were
merely members of a utopian rural cult who had invented their own
language and script. Rather than adjudicating outsider polemics,
this book engages directly with the language itself as well as the
direct perspectives of those who use it today. Through written and
oral accounts, Eskaya people have represented their language as an
ancestral creation derived from a human body. Reinforcing this
traditional view, Piers Kelly's linguistic analysis shows how a
complex new register was brought into being by fusing new
vocabulary onto a modified local grammar. In a synthesis of
linguistic, ethnographic, and historical evidence, a picture
emerges of a coastal community that fled the ravages of the U.S.
invasion of the island in 1901 in order to build a utopian society
in the hills. Here they predicted that the world's languages would
decline leaving Eskayan as the last language on earth. Marshalling
anthropological theories of nationalism, authenticity, and language
ideology, along with comparisons to similar events across highland
Southeast Asia, Kelly offers a convincing account of this
linguistic mystery and also shows its broader relevance to
linguistic anthropology. Although the Eskayan situation is unusual,
it has the power to illuminate the pivotal role that language plays
in the pursuit of identity-building and political resistance.
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