1. Anthropology Essential Ideas/Terms

2. 1. Essential function of language is communication. 2. Spoken language is the primary vehicle through which culture is shared/transmitted 3. System of communication not unique to humans 4. Animals communicate by sound, odor, body movement… 5. Symbolic language not exclusive to humans (ex. Gorillas/chimps learning sign language)

3. 6. Human language is unique-it spoken and symbolic nature provides for infinite combinations 7. Structural Linguists attempt to discover rules of phonology (patterning of sounds), morphology (patterning of sound sequences and words) and syntax (patterning of phrases and sentences) 8.Historical linguists focus on discovering “protolanguage” (common ancestral language)

4. 9. When two groups speaking same language separate they will develop small changes in phonology, morphology and syntax 10. If separation endures-they will develop separate languages. 11. Contact between groups leads to language resemblance.

5. Anthropology, Archaeology, Culture, Ethnology, Human Variation, Paleoanthropology, Linguistics, Prehistory, Cultural Anthropology, Physical Anthropology

6. Using more than one language in the course of conversing

7. Words or morphs that belong to different languages but have similar sounds and meanings Night and Nacht

8. Highly functional, meaningful, high- frequency words and phrases The small number of words that are used for the majority of communication..

9. the usage or vocabulary that is characteristic of a specific group of people

10. The study of how languages change over time

11. dictionary: a reference book containing an alphabetical list of words with information about them

12. A hypothesized ancestral language from which two or more languages seem to have derived.

13. The study of how languages are constructed. Phonology=sounds Morphology=words Syntax=sentences