An incidental typewritten notation: Instead of ‘Stateless societies’ …

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

An incidental typewritten note: MAUSS AND PROUDHON

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Celebrating 1000+ subscribers … sankyou

 

 

When I started this blog, back in 2009, I was very much talking to myself. Thank you to everyone who has made the process of writing a PhD dissertation a great deal less lonely and a great deal more rewarding – to all my online peers, friends, colleagues and comrades. Thank you also to the ever-inspiring and supportive Twitter community of which I am a part. (I am sure I would have gone batty without you.)

 

Many, many thanks and incendiary wishes – here’s to a future where all information is free, all knowledge is shared and discussion [is] open and dynamic.

 

xoxo

 

 

 

 

 

Breaching the bridges or gulfs and or beaches

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Is djuḏum an ideophone?

 

The Shower 1984, Brett Whiteley

 

Expressive phonology. Is cool. I am trying to understand a little bit more about ideophones today. I’m not completely sure how far this understanding has progressed, but I am certainly charmed.

 

Ideophones

Ideophones are words that ‘evoke a vivid impression of certain sensations or sensory perceptions, e.g. sound, movement, color, shape, or action.’ They can be nouns, adjectives, adverbs or verbs. They are kind of mimetic. Of a sensory experience. Or something.

Onomatopoeic words are ideophones, for example, because ‘they imitate the sound of the event that they refer to.’ Then there are ideophones that (kind of) seem onomatopoeic but are not, like the English verb ‘[to] tinkle,’ which is associated with a metallic sound, or the word ‘gong’ which refers to an instrument that (kind of) makes that sound when you strike it.

Examples, speculative examples and thoughts . . . or questions, rather.

‘Badonkadonk’ is a large, voluptuous female buttocks in English, apparently. In Portuguese, a person’s buttocks is bum-bum. The Yolŋu-matha word for bottom or buttocks is dhuḏi. These are all ideophones I think, though how or why is hard to say. Do they sound like the experience of watching a person’s bottom? One of the wiki-examples given is ‘hippetyhop’ as in ‘the rabbit goes hippetyhop.’ How might one describe the relationship between the sound of this word and the event it refers to, though? Our house-guest offered rangichangi as an example – the Nepali word for ‘colourful.’ Also mentioned was farfalla, which is the Italian word for butterfly.

Some speculative examples from Yolŋu-matha include things like ḏukṯuk (‘[to] love, want, desire’), which sounds like a heartbeat – or gitkit (‘laughter’) and gitkitthun (‘[to] laugh’). Then there are words like djuḏum (‘mud’), which evokes the sensation or experience of pulling one’s feet out of mud as one walks . . . but is this an ideophone? I’m not sure. It would seem to be quite subjective. What if, for example, djuḏum evokes the sensation or experience of pulling one’s feet out of the mud for me but not for others? Similarly, the verb gakthun (‘[to] vomit, spew, puke’) seems like an ideophone to me, but is it? Can we say definitively? Perhaps one need hear these words uttered to experience the relationship between the sound of the word and (one’s own experience of) whatever it is that they are referring to. I’m not sure. And what about languages that are ‘more phonetic’ than others, are they likely to have more ideophones? I don’t know. So many questions (she says as she falls further down the rabbit-hole of I don’t nose). Maybe I should download a linguistics paper or something.

 

 

 

 

Thanks to Peter Vanessen for introducing me to the world of ideophones and to Stan Carey for the useful links.

an incidental typewritten notation

 

Hey look, it’s the new AAA!†

 

 

 

 

 

 

†AAA is usually a reference to the American Anthropological Association.

Calamity is not an honorific APPARENTLY

 

Simone-Ernestine-Lucie-Marie Bertrand de Beauvoir

 

I went to the radiologist for a cortisone injection yesterday. I have a sore foot. T’was administered under the guidance of an ultrasound, though that is to the side of the point of this notation.

Upon arrival [at the radiologist], I was asked to fill out a fairly standard form. Name. Date Of Birth. Etcetera. Etcetera. I filled out the details I thought necessary, and underwent my procedure. Before leaving the rooms, however, I was summoned back to the front desk.

 

“You didn’t specify a title. We need a title.”

 

“Oh? Oh yes, no, I noted ‘N/A’ in that section . . . I didn’t think it was necessary to -”

 

[Silence overshadowed by a disapproving you-are-wasting-my-time glare.]

 

“I suppose I can’t really be ‘non-applicable’ can I, ha . . . ”

 

[Silence overshadowed by increasingly impatient glare.]

 

“Sorry, but I don’t suppose I can choose ‘Mister’ can I?”

 

“No.”

 

If I were a Sulphur Crested Cockatoo my crest would have fallen.

 

“Mzz?”

 

“Yes, thank you. Sorry.”

 

 

MR: I AM A MAN. (AS AN HONORIFIC MR DOES NOT DEFINE ME IN RELATION TO ANY SIGNIFICANT OTHER, MALE OR FEMALE.)

MRS:  I AM A WOMAN WHO IS LEGALLY MARRIED TO A MAN.

MISS: I AM A WOMAN WHO IS NOT LEGALLY MARRIED TO A MAN.

MS: I AM A WOMAN WHO IS NOT MARRIED TO A MAN. (YOU MAY NOW SPECULATE ABOUT WHY THIS IS SO.)

IS THERE NOT YET, IN THIS DAY AND AGE, AN HONORIFIC THAT DENOTES: ‘I AM A PERSON. SURELY THAT IS ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW.’?

 

 

 

 

I am not a Sulphur Crested Cockatoo.

Anarchy and the horizons of possibility: an incidental notation

 

 

 

 

typewritten notation

 

 

 

An intermediary authorial note: illness, remedial weights and Mamie Minch

 

This is an intermediary authorial note to say that Bree ‘as bin somewhat laid low this past week.

 

I spent the last six days lying in bed, horribly ill, and have thus been rather inactive. Apparently it is possible to build up a little tooo much momentum on the final downhill dissertation slope . . . and forget to sleep, etcetera. I am feeling a great deal better now, anyhow (on this, my second round of forte antibiotics).

Any’anyhow, I started light weights again today while listening to a ‘new’ mixed-tape, gifted by a friend. The song in this clip is, Cake when I’m hungry, by Mamie Minch. It is the third track from her album, Razorburn Blues. You can find more about Mamie, here.

 

 

 

 

 

Yo, liŋgunha.