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Katie Lowery

02/14/2012

Anthropology 1150

Brief Assignment #1

1. After reading the article I believe Harrison wanted to study the Tuva people for

several reasons. He decided to study the Tuva culture because it captivated him.

Mainly because the culture was made up of nomads even though it was the 20th

century. The Tuvans did not rely on ready made objects with the ease of modern

technology. According to Harrison the Tuvan people made their own ropes, saddles,

cheese and wool (32). The Tuvan people were also a mystery because a linguistics

expert had never taken the time before to document and record their language.

Even if someone had wanted to document their language before Harrison it would

have been problematic because the Soviet Union had denied travel by foreigners

(34). In doing so Tuva was even more isolated and mysterious.

Harrison also wanted the experience of in-depth field, not the armchair

linguistic route. His Tuvan experience was considered a unique dissertation topic

because it was so poorly documented and also because there had not been a

student who want to do their dissertation,"based on actual fieldwork. or attempt

to describe a previously undescribed or unrecorded language" (37). Harrison goes

on to say that there are so many languages that, "remain virtually undocumented

and fieldwork can be such an enriching experience" (37). I think Harrison saw a

challenge and went after it. Siberia is a long way from the armchair linguistics that

he learned from.

Harrison faced an array of challenges while researching the Tuvans beginning

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with him being believed to be a CIA spy! He also did not have the use of modern

restrooms but instead a somewhat private spot away from the nomadic home in the

freezing cold (40). Harrison had less than glamorous chores such as "collecting

frozen yak manure patties" and goat herding that was successful by strategic stone

throwing (41). These challenges are of course separate from the mere challenge of

trying to interpret the Tuva language.

2. When Harrison says that, "Extracting the grammar of a language is like solving a

multidimensional jigsaw puzzle" he means that our native language shapes our

culture. Our culture is so intertwined with our language that they are basically

inseparable. Harrison goes on to say that speakers of a native language can almost

never explain why something sounds the way it does or is said the way it is (46).

This is because if you grow up from infancy hearing and repeating a language that

language is going to be paramount in your language skills. It is almost like deja vu

because you know you have seen or heard something before but you do not know

where or how. You are just familiar with it on a different level. Trying to solve a

multidimensional puzzle would involve putting many different combinations of

pieces together and taking them apart. You would also look at the puzzle from

different angles. That is what Harrison does when he goes to study the Tuvan

nomads. He tries to dissect the nouns and verbs of the language and put them

back together again until he gets a better understanding of the language. Harrison

also has to look at their language in the context of there culture and geographic

area. Humans are prisoners to their language and the Tuvans are not an exception.

3. In the English language "go" basically means to travel from one place to another

or an attempt at something. As Americans we usually say "go" to mean traveling

but not in the same context as the Tuvans. To the Tuvans the word go, " requires

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not only an internal compass but also an acute awareness of the local landscape,

even parts of it that may not be visible" (49). Their nomadic landscape is so

different from our own that they need complete words that already have "go" inside

there meaning such as their work for upstream or downstream. In America our

language is not based on a geographical area like the Tuvan's rivers in their culture.

But if on a daily basis I had to speak to someone in reference to our surrounding

which was a collection of huge lakes, the language would have words specific to

that area because it makes communication easier and more precise. Harrison goes

on to say that, " nothing more was pertinent to their survival than the local

landscape" (51). If their landscape is so important to the Tuvan culture then their

language would be based around it. Where as in America, our survival usually has

to do with our job or relationships not the landscape.

4.