International Linguistics Research

Going to the Root

Evangelos C. Papakitsos, Ioannis K. Kenanidis — Wed, 09 May 2018 13:26:13 +0800

This paper presents an attempt to reconstruct the most basic features of the language of Homo Sapiens, following the principle of monogenesis, namely the viewpoint that since humans share a common biological ancestry, they also share a common linguistic one. Considering this issue, the basic methods of comparative linguistics are briefly presented first, along with the methodological approach utilized herein, named Qualitative Inquiry. The results of the reconstructing process are presented, classified in terms of phonological, morphological, lexical, grammatical and syntactic aspects. Only bordering to the scope of this paper, a brief comparison of this treatise to previous studies reveals both convergence and discrepancy concerning the features of the language.

Depiction of Victorian Era in the Novel Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

Farhana Haque — Tue, 31 Jul 2018 00:00:00 +0800

Charles Dickens’ Great Expectation actually did reflect the Victorian society and therefore the morality of that era’s people inside of the novel. Since we know that Victorian era basically present some features such as virtue, strength, thrift, manners, cleanliness, honesty and chastity. These are the morals that Victorian people used to hold with high esteem. In this novel Great Expectations, Dickens has created some Victorian characters whom we have seen both in good working way or not at all. But the protagonist named Pip was dynamic and he went through some several changes and dealt with different and significant moral issues. Somehow Pip left behind all the values he was raised with. Because Miss Havisham and Estella have corrupted Pip with rich life. Greed, beauty and arrogance were his ingredient of immoral life. The other characters like Joe and Biddy were static characters throughout the entire novel and became noticeable to be the manifestation of what we call as ideal Victorians. The main heroin of this novel was Estella with whom Pip thought he had some love connection. Hence, Estella has been presented as a good in the sense of potentiality and turned morally bad. Miss Havisham, who was basically a corrupt woman and she engraved the center of the novel. Great Expectations did disclose how was the situation of Victorian society through some important features such as higher class, corrupted judicial system between rural and urban England. Here in this novel, Dickens was concern about the education system in Victorian era where the lower class people get less opportunities of getting proper education. From the beginning to the end of this novel, Dickens explored some significant issues regarding higher and lower class system of Victorian society which did fluctuate from the greatest woeful criminal named Magwitch to the needy people of the swamp country, where Joe and Biddy were the symbol of that regime. After that we can proceed to the middle class family where Pumblechook was the person to represent that regime. Last but not the least Miss Havisham symbolized and bear flag of very rich and sophisticated Victorian woman who has represented the higher class society in the novel Great Expectations. Hence we can say Great Expectations has talked and displayed the class system of Victorian England and the characters of this novel therefore also did uphold the true reflection of Victorian era.

Seven Linear B Syllabograms of Conventionally Unknown Phonetic Value

Ioannis K. Kenanidis, Evangelos C. Papakitsos — Wed, 29 Aug 2018 19:43:53 +0800

This paper presents seven syllabograms (signs used for Consonant-Vowel [CV] syllables) of the Linear B syllabary that are conventionally considered of unknown phonetic value. This presentation is conducted following the theory of the Cretan Protolinear syllabary as the one that all the Aegean syllabaries evolved from, namely Linear A, Cretan Hieroglyphics, Linear B, cognate to Cypro-Minoan and the Linear Cypriot Greek. It is demonstrated that the phonetic value of each syllabogram corresponds to the Eteocretan name (in a conservative dialect of Sumerian) of the concrete object depicted by each syllabogram. Thus, more light is shed on the linguistic ancestry of the Minoan scripts and the practice followed for their creation.