Re: basic vocab

On Sun, 17 Sep 2000, Ajin-Kwai wrote:

> On Thu, 14 Sep 2000, Mario Bonassin wrote:
>
> > Do any of you have a special list of words that you use to start
> > creating  root words or basic vocab for your various conlangs, or do you
> > use a text of something, or do you have another way of deciding what
> > words to create, aside from just going through a dictionary?
>
> In addition to the wordlists and websites, I'd suggest finding some good
> cultural anthropology and cross-cultural philosophy texts.  It's amazing
> how many basic assumptions about physical and metaphysical reality are
> encoded by a culture in its language and metaphors.  Just opening up new
> ways of seeing the world from the ground up will provide you with endless
> lexical ideas simply because they don't exist in your native language ...
...or languages.  :-)  The more languages, the better.

I once had a psychology major tell me that he learned nothing about
Japanese culture from high school Japanese, and that he didn't believe
learning language in general taught you anything about culture.  I was
just boggled.  Surely he learned something and didn't realize it?  Or did
he really not pay attention?

Philosophy gives me a headache, alas, but I've been meaning to find some
cultural anthropology texts.  The problem is, I don't know where to
start, and my one anthro major friend tells me that there aren't
"canonical" books where you know where to start.  Do you have any
suggestions for reading?

YHL