Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Viking roots of their language.
These word changes and similarities were first set down by nineteenth-century philo-
logists, including Jacob Grimm (yes, one of the two German brothers who compiled their
now-famous book of fairy tales). These philologists were inspired by the work of an Eng-
lish magistrate in far-off India. In 1786 Sir William Jones, in his address to the Bengal
Asiatic Society, argued that Sanskrit was the common source for ancient Greek and Lat-
in. Following Jones's lead, other philologists began tracing modern European languages
to the forerunner of ancient Sanskrit, a hypothetical founding language called Proto-Indo-
European. From these origins, sometime around 7000 BCE and somewhere around the
Caspian Sea, the ancestors of modern languages were carried to India, Europe, and the Near
East.
The details of other language journeys differ, but each language family is assumed to
have been carried outward from a linguistic cradle. Thus, Proto-Malay speakers sailed west
to Madagascar and east to the Philippines and Polynesia. Proto-Chinese speakers moved
into Southeast Asia and northwest to Korea and Japan. Also, 20,000 to 30,000 years ago,
during the last interglacial period when the Arctic seas gave way to a land bridge between
Siberia and Alaska, migrants from Asia carried to the Americas the Proto-Amerind lan-
guage. And from somewhere in Africa, possibly from the Great Rift Valley, proto lan-
guages began their journeys to all of equatorial Africa.
OTHER CULTURAL MARKERS
Language is one level of knowledge, but curious eyes and ears find other cultural clues.
Traditional and tribal dress in large cities indicates the presence of migrants from the hin-
terlands. Or, if traditional dress is widely worn, it may in fact mirror resistance to cultural
globalization. In parallel fashion, the presence and number of veiled women in Europe say
much about religious tensions and the extent to which Muslims have chosen not to integ-
rate into the general European culture. And the response of some national governments,
such as in France, in turn suggests recognition that such behavior is an attack on a country's
national identity and even on its sovereignty.
Still other clues can be found. How are people dressed on the streets, in shops, and in
places to eat? Are they in well-made, stylish clothes or in baseball caps, T-shirts, and jeans?
Clothes are indicators of poverty and affluence. Of course, young people who wear base-
ball caps and jeans may or may not be poor, but their clothes suggest in this instance that
they are significantly influenced by western lifestyles.
How people move about (cars, buses, trams, on foot) are rough guides to wealth and
poverty. The same holds true for the condition (new or old) of motorized transport. How
goods are bought and sold is another rough guide to wealth and poverty. The kind of goods
on sale is also a window on the local culture, as is the nature of face-to-face business trans-
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