14 CHAPTER 1 | The Essence of Anthropology
distributions, linguistic anthropologists may estimate
how long the speakers of those languages have lived where
they do. By identifying those words in related languages
that have survived from an ancient ancestral tongue,
these linguistic anthropologists can also suggest not only
where, but how, the speakers of the ancestral language
lived. Such work has shown, for example, linguistic ties
between geographically distant groups such as the people
of Finland and Turkey.
Linguistic anthropology is practiced in a number of
applied settings. For example, linguistic anthropologists
have collaborated with ethnic minorities in the revival of
languages suppressed or lost during periods of oppression
by another ethnic group. This work has included helping
to create written forms of languages that previously ex-
isted only orally. This sort of applied linguistic anthropol-
ogy represents the true collaboration that is characteristic
of anthropological research today.Archaeology
Archaeology is the branch of anthropology that studies hu-
man cultures through the recovery and analysis of material
remains and environmental data. Such material products
include tools, pottery, hearths, and enclosures that remain
as traces of cultural practices in the past, as well as hu-
man, plant, and marine remains, some of which date back
2.5 million years. The arrangement of these traces when
recovered reflects specific human ideas and behavior. For
example, shallow, restricted concentrations of charcoal that
include oxidized earth, bone fragments, and charred plant
remains, located near pieces of fire-cracked rock, pottery,
and tools suitable for food preparation, indicate cooking
and food processing. Such remains can reveal much about(^5) Pinker, S. (1994). The language instinct: How the mind creates language.
New York: Morrow.
(^6) Hymes, D. (1974). Foundations in sociolinguistics: An ethnographic ap-
proach. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
level, thought is nonverbal.^5 A holistic anthropological
approach considers language to have both a universal
biological basis and specific cultural patterning.
Researching questions about human relations through
language can involve focusing on specific speech events.^6
Such events form a discourse or an extended communi-
cation on a particular subject. These speech events reveal
how social factors such as financial status, age, or gender
affect the way an individual uses its culture’s language. The
linguistic anthropologist might examine whether the ten-
dency for females in the United States to end statements
with an upward inflection, as though the statement were a
question, reflects a pattern of male dominance in this so-
ciety. Because members of any culture may use a variety of
different registers and inflections, the ones they choose to
use at a specific instance convey particular meanings.
As with the anthropological perspective on culture,
language is similarly regarded as alive, malleable, and
changing. Online tools such as Urban Dictionary track
the changes in North American slang, and traditional
dictionaries include new words and usages each year. The
implications of these language changes help increase our
understanding of the human past. By working out rela-
tionships among languages and examining their spatial
Linguistic anthropologist
Gregory Anderson has de-
voted his career to saving
indigenous languages. He
founded and heads the
Living Tongues Institute of
Endangered Languages and
works throughout the globe to
preserve languages that are
dying out at a shocking rate
of about one every two weeks.
Here he is working with Don
Francisco Ninacondis and
Ariel Ninacondis in Charazani,
Bolivia, to preserve their
language Kallawaya.
© Living Tongues Institute
discourse An extended communication on a particular subject.
archaeology The study of human cultures through the recov-
ery and analysis of material remains and environmental data.