Paul de Lacy Colloquium
Paul de Lacy
Rutgers University
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Other Ling Newsletters
04:28 (2006-11-02)
November 2, 2006
Undergrad Linguistics Club
The DARLings will meet on Tuesday, November 7, at 6:30 pm, in The Partee Room. Caroline Kelley will present some interesting facts about word order and case agreement from Chamorro. As always there will be food and beverages. Come one, come all!
[Thanks David!]
Report from Heather Walts
Heather Walts, UMass Amherst Linguistics BA, has been living and working in Pakistan for nearly a year now. The following continues her report on greetings.
"Ya Ali madad," say the children as they pass by me in the village streets. May Ali help you always. "Muala Ali madad." May Ali always help you too.
We are in Ismaili territory now, and the Sunni/Shia greeting of Salaam Alaikum (May the peace of Allah be upon you) along with it's response Wa alaikum asalaam (May the peace of Allah also be upon you) is no longer the standard.
Now I'm in real trouble with my greetings, because while I don't mind using the standard greeting Salaam Alaikum, I have a bit of trouble saying Ya Ali madad. Why is that? Well as a Christian myself I believe that God (Arabic = Allah, Urdu = Xuda) can bestow peace upon someone, but I personally don't believe that Ali is physically helping anyone. It would as if in America the greeting was not "Hello, how are you?" (or "Hey, what's up?") but it was something like "May Buddha be helping you", "May Jesus be helping you," or "May Krishna be helping you." It would certainly be odd to stick in the name of someone that you personally did not believe to have that power.
The Shia/Sunni split is based on a difference in opinion over how the leadership of the Muslim community should be decided. Basically, Shia believe that leadership should be hereditary and that Ali, Mohammad's son in law, should have been the first rightful Caliph (leader of the Muslim community). Prior to Ali, there were three other caliphs who the Shia regard as usurpers. Ali ended up being killed by some who didn't agree with his claim to leadership, as was his son Hussein. With the death of Hussein came the split of Sunni and Shia, Shia holding that the leadership should be chosen from Mohammad's family. Shia also consider their religious leader, the imam, to be infallible (unable to do wrong) and to have a direct connection with Allah, unlike other devout followers. Within Shi'ism there is a further breakdown of sects depending on how long they believe the true imamate lasted. Some Shia believe the 7 th imam was the last one and some Shia believe the 12th imam was the last one, these are referred to as the Seveners and the Twelvers respectively.
The Ismailis are those who believe the imamate has continued to the present day. Most Ismailis live in the Hunza region of Pakistan. Their current imam is Aga Khan, who I'm told is the third richest man living in France….or at least that's the rumor in Hunza. Third richest or tenth richest man in France, this man's picture is in every living room in Ismaili villages. His picture watches over you as you ride in a Suzuki down steep mountain roads. His smiling face is looking down on you as you enjoy a modest meal in the smallest hole-in-the-wall restaurant. No shop would be complete without Aga Khan's photo hanging above the merchandise.
Not only is his picture everywhere, but his investment is as well. The Aga Khan Development Foundation is the largest NGO active in the Northern Areas of Pakistan. Each village has an Aga Khan Diamond Jubilee School for primary education. Irrigation projects have been sponsored by Aga Khan. Clean drinking water, sanitation, transport roads, literacy programs, girls' hostels, girls' colleges, health centers, micro-loans, small business development, women's vocational training, you name it! It's all provided by Aga Khan's various organizations.
Technically, I would say that the Ismailis worship not only Ali, but also the Aga Khan. They have special worship songs written only for him. They celebrate his birthday, anniversary, and even his sons' marriages. One day when I was in the village everything was put on hold because the Aga Khan's son was getting married in India. People had to run off to worship at the jamaa khana.
So back to my problem of the greetings: What do I say when I greet Ismailis? Well the good thing is that most of the Ismailis I know are Burushaski speakers and they do not use the ya Ali madad greeting. They generally stick with the traditional "Behal bila"and the response "Thik bila." I haven't learned so much about Burushaski (language isolate, heavy borrowing from Urdu) but there's not any reference to Ali or the Aga Khan in there so I'm safe. Bila = form of "be", thik = ok/good, borrowed from Urdu.
My friends from the Hunza region tend to only use ya Ali madad as an exclamative and not as a greeting. When 75 year-old grandpa is trying to stand up, he says, "Ya Ali madad." When they find out someone in the village has become pregnant, "Ya Ali madad." It can be used in either a positive or negative exclamation.
It would be interesting to do a survey on the Ismaili villages in the Northern Areas and to see under what circumstances they use the expression ya Ali madad and how its use differs from place to place, but as for now my greeting crisis is temporarily solved. I'm back in Lahore where most people I meet are Sunni or Shia Muslims, so it's safe for me to use Salaam alaikum once more.
Michael Becker Talk at Yale
Michael Becker is giving a talk at the Turkish Linguistics Workshop, Yale, November 11. He is presenting joint work with Nihan Ketrez and Andrew Nevins.
Dr. Gaja Jarosz
Visiting Professor Gaja Jarosz has filed her Johns Hopkins dissertation. It's called Rich Lexicons and Restrictive Grammars --- Maximum Likelihood Learning in Optimality Theory. Congratulations, Gaja!
Acquisition Group Post-BU Dinner
Readers attending the BU Conference on Language Development this weekend, at Boston University, are invited to go out for dinner on Saturday night. The group will gather at the registration desk at 7:30 pm (well, after the poster session finishes at around 7:45 pm). The restaurant hasn't been picked yet, but there is a Thai place down the street from the conference site ...
[Thanks Tanja!]
Acquisition Lab
The Acquisition Lab met on Halloween. Tanja Heizmann presented her work on clefts and exhaustivity.
[Thanks Youri!]
Partee--Borschev Grant Meeting
The third open NSF-grant meeting of the semester will be held Wednesday November 8th, 5:30-7:30 pm, with pizza provided, in the Partee room. Everyone is welcome!
There will be two presentations:
- Amy Rose Deal: Antipassive, case-marking, and object interpretation in Nez Perce [abstract; paper]
- Barbara Partee and Vladimir Borschev: Pros and cons of a type-shifting approach to Russian genitive of negation [abstract; paper]
More details, as well as abstracts and handouts from past meetings, can be found in the events section of the grant website.
[Thanks Florian!]
Phonology Group
PhG met this past Tuesday to discuss papers by de Lacy and Blevins --- prep for the colloq this Friday. Here's a quick look at what's coming up:
- November 7: John Kingston
- November 14: Nathan Sanders will present some of his work on opacity and strong lexicon optimization
- November 14: Michael Becker will present some of his work on Turkish
[Thanks Kathryn P.]
Semantics Reading Group
SRG will be meeting again this Thursday, 8:00 pm, at Jan and Aynat's house. The group will continue the discussion of Philippe Schlenker's 'Be Articulate'. Last time, they made it through section 3. This week, they'll look at the rest of the paper. Jan and Florian are willing to lead the discussion, but they would welcome further helpers --- let them know if you're interested!
[Thanks Florian!]
Upcoming Special Lectures in Math Methods
Barbara Partee's Mathematical Linguistics has a series of guest lectures coming up:
- November 14, 1:00-2:15 pm: Chris Potts on computational methods for theoretical linguistics
- November 16, 1:00-2:15 pm: Chris Potts on the basics of game theory
- November 21, 1:00-2:15 pm: Chris Potts on game theory and its applications in linguistics
- December 4, 10:00-11:15 am: Rajesh Bhatt on Optimality Theory, Part 1
- December 11, 10:00-11:15 am: Rajesh Bhatt on OT, Part 2
Post-Halloween Candy Bonanza
When it rains, it pours, and it sure it sweet: The usually near-empty candy jar is now overflowing with post-Halloween candy. Get it while you can!
[Thanks Andrew!]