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Speakers who have grown up in the American community unconsciously know its rules about taking turns in conversations-in the same way that they know the rules of grammar and the rules about appropriate speech in various situations.
Peter Farb
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Gestures and facial expressions do indeed communicate, as anyone can prove by turning off the sound on a television set and asking watchers to characterize the speakers from the picture alone.
Peter Farb
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Language does not stand still. Surprisingly, despite this knowledge, most speakers are fearful of change.
Peter Farb
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An invention or new combination can be successful only if all if the elements necessary for the recombination are present in the culture.
Peter Farb
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An inability to communicate has little to do with international friction-as is seen in the special ferocity of wars fought between people who speak the same language.
Peter Farb
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Marriage is simply an economic necessity, and so there are no elaborate courtship displays or marriage celebrations among the Eskimo.
Peter Farb
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At every moment of his life the Shoshone must be careful to observe the complicated folkways of his group, to do reverence to superhuman powers, to remember the courtesies and obligations of family, to pay homage to certain sacred plants, or to avoid particular places.
Peter Farb
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Men in all societies possess the biological equipment to remove their hats or shoes, but it is the birth within a particular culture that decides that a Jew will keep his hat and shoes on in his place of worship, a Mohammedan will take off his shoes, and a Christian will keep his shoes on but remove his hat.
Peter Farb
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No child is capable of speech until he has heard other human beings speak, and even two infants reared together cannot develop a language from scratch.
Peter Farb
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When today's remnants of Indian societies are examined closely, it is seen how well some have worked out a compromise with their White conquerors—acculturation without assimilation.
Peter Farb
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Native speakers of a language know intuitively whether a sentence is grammatical or not. They usually cannot specify exactly what is wrong, and very possibly they make the same mistakes in their own speech, but they know-unconsciously, not as a set of rules they learned in school-when a sentence is incorrect.
Peter Farb
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A complex society is not necessarily more advanced than a simple one; it has just adapted to conditions in a more complicated way.
Peter Farb
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Invariably the prophet emerges from his hallucinatory vision bearing a message from the supernatural that makes certain promises: the return of the bison herds, a happy hunting ground, or peace on earth and good will to men. Whatever the specific promises, the prophet offers a new power, a revitalization of the whole society.
Peter Farb
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The astonishing cluster of them [geniuses] that appeared in Athens during the fifth and fourth centuries B. C.... what changed was the culture, which allowed exceptional minds to flourish.
Peter Farb
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No sooner did the first Whites arrive in North America than a disproportionate number of them showed that they preferred Indian society to their own.... Throughout American history, thousands of Whites exchanged breeches for breechcloths.
Peter Farb
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Experiments... have shown that at least one aspect of human thought—memory—is strongly influenced by language.
Peter Farb
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Why did not Indians enter White society, particularly in view of the numerous attempts by Whites to "civilize" them? The answer is that White settlers possessed no traditions and institutions comparable to the Indians' hospitality and sharing, adoption, and complete social integration.... Whites who educated Indians did so with the idea that the Indians would return to their own people as missionaries to spread the gospel, not that they might become functioning parts of White society.
Peter Farb
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The Hopewell fused elements of the Adena, the Archaic, and other Woodland patterns of life. Thus, it cannot technically be identified as a culture.... Rather, the Hopewell people were an amalgam of many societies whose customs varied greatly, but who were bound together by... a cult of the dead and a trade bond... a network of trade linked widely separated areas of the continent.
Peter Farb
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An isolated human in a simple society is usually a dead human...
Peter Farb
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Thinking is language spoken to oneself. Until language has made sense of an experience, that experience is meaningless.
Peter Farb
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The Shoshone did not wage war, because it served no purpose.
Peter Farb
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The League [of the Hodenosaunee] favorably impressed the White settlers, and some historians believe it to have been one of the models on which the Constitution of the new United States of America was based.
Peter Farb
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Inspired by the teachings of Smohalla, Chief Joseph of the Nez Percé in Idaho rebelled in 1877. Before he was trapped only thirty miles short of refuge in Canada, he had consistently outwitted and outfought a superior United States Army... although he forbade his warriors to scalp or to torture, the Whites massacred his women and children.
Peter Farb
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Balanced reciprocity is as much a social compact as it is an economic advantage. It is particularly important in hunting-gathering societies, where no individual could possibly accumulate a surplus, live independently of other members of the band, or become so successful in the quest for food as never to need meat from someone else's kill.
Peter Farb
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Each language encourages its speakers to tell certain things and to ignore other things.
Peter Farb
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Quote of the day
Destiny is the invention of the cowardly, and the resigned.
Ignazio Silone
Peter Farb
Born:
1929
Died:
1980
(aged 51)
Bio:
Peter Farb was an American author, anthropologist, linguist, ecologist, biologist, and spokesman for conservation.
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