Peter Unseth
Biographic Data
| ID | 293096 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Peter Unseth |
| GIVEN NAMES | Peter |
| FAMILY NAME | Unseth |
| SIGNATURE | UNSETH P |
| AFFILIATIONS | Graduate Institute of Applied Linguistics |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-0018-7621 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 12 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 28 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 12 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1987 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2023 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Amharic Folkloric Oral Traditions: Collections for Insiders and for Outsiders
The two books of Amharic proverbs and the book of Amharic riddles under review document Amharic oral traditions far beyond what others have done previously. They all build on previous scholarship. In addition, each one adds new examples to what has been published before. But it is also important to note that each book has added significant new methodological contributions to their field. They will be valued by those who use and enjoy Amharic oral…
The World’s Oldest Living Proverb Discovered Thriving in Ethiopia
The world’s oldest living proverb, from around 3,800 years ago, is found on a tablet from the Assyrian empire. The proverb has been documented from later eras, northwest from the Middle East up into Europe, as far northwestas Britain. Evidence is given here now demonstrating that the proverb is also found to the south of the Middle East, in Ethiopia. In some places, a cat is substituted for the dog, but the Ethiopian evidence indicates that the d…
Hemingway’s Somali Proverb Confirmed
Authenticates the saying of the brave man and the lion in “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber” as a true Somali proverb
The international impact of Sequoyah’s Cherokee syllabary
Many are familiar with Sequoyah’s creation of the Cherokee syllabary. But few are aware of the international impact of his script. Specialists have noted that his work led to the creation of additional scripts on three continents, but none have calculated the overall impact of Sequoyah’s influence. This article is the first to calculate the breadth of Sequoyah’s influence around the world, documenting his influence in the creation of 21 scripts f…
The syllabary used by the Kickapoo in Mexico
Kickapoo who moved from the USA into northern Mexico since 1839 have written in a syllabary they identified as created by Sequoyah for the Cherokee. Possible scenarios for how the Kickapoo may have learned the Cherokee syllabary are examined. However, some authors have reported that the Kickapoo in Mexico used the less famous Great Lakes Algonquian Syllabary (GLAS), not the Cherokee syllabary. A new line of evidence is presented concerning the la…
The Source of Melville’s Iroquois Proverb
Melville’s use of proverbs in his writing has been widely noted (e.g., Babcock on nautical proverbs and other sayings, Hayes on proverbs generally, Laufer on a specific proverb). However, previous
Bi-Consonantal Reduplication in Amharic and Ethio-Semitic
Dissertation Abstract
An introduction to language use in Melanesia
https://www.sil.org/resources/archives/48060
The sociolinguistics of script choice: An Introduction
https://www.sil.org/resources/archives/6186
Sociolinguistic parallels between choosing scripts and languages
This article demonstrates that many of the same concepts and tools developed for the sociolinguistic study of how language communities choose spoken languages can also be profitably applied to the study of how they choose scripts. These similarities include the choice of a language or script to either identify with or create distance from another group, borrowing elements from other languages and scripts, the death of languages and scripts, conta…
Majang nominal plurals with comparative notes
This paper describes the complex Majang system of noun plural formation. Majang uses singulative suffixes, plural suffixes, and suppletive plural stems to mark number on nouns. Majang is seen to exemplify in many ways the *N/*K pattern of singular and plural marking as described by Bryan [1968] for many Nilo-Saharan languages. Tiersma's [1982] theory of "Local Markedness" is shown to provide an explanation for singulative marking on some nouns in…
A typological anomaly in some Surma languages
This paper presents evidence that at least three languages in the Surma group (and possibly also Proto-Surma) are exceptions to the proposed typological "universal" that languages with basic VSO word order do not have post-positions [Greenberg 1963:78]. There is no attempt made here to hypothesize how this came about, only to call attention to the fact that these three languages are typologically anomalous
Sociolinguistic parallels between choosing scripts and languages
This article demonstrates that many of the same concepts and tools developed for the sociolinguistic study of how language communities choose spoken languages can also be profitably applied to the study of how they choose scripts. These similarities include the choice of a language or script to either identify with or create distance from another group, borrowing elements from other languages and scripts, the death of languages and scripts, conta…
The sociolinguistics of script choice: An Introduction
https://www.sil.org/resources/archives/6186
An introduction to language use in Melanesia
https://www.sil.org/resources/archives/48060
A typological anomaly in some Surma languages
This paper presents evidence that at least three languages in the Surma group (and possibly also Proto-Surma) are exceptions to the proposed typological "universal" that languages with basic VSO word order do not have post-positions [Greenberg 1963:78]. There is no attempt made here to hypothesize how this came about, only to call attention to the fact that these three languages are typologically anomalous
Majang nominal plurals with comparative notes
This paper describes the complex Majang system of noun plural formation. Majang uses singulative suffixes, plural suffixes, and suppletive plural stems to mark number on nouns. Majang is seen to exemplify in many ways the *N/*K pattern of singular and plural marking as described by Bryan [1968] for many Nilo-Saharan languages. Tiersma's [1982] theory of "Local Markedness" is shown to provide an explanation for singulative marking on some nouns in…
Sociolinguistic parallels between choosing scripts and languages
This article demonstrates that many of the same concepts and tools developed for the sociolinguistic study of how language communities choose spoken languages can also be profitably applied to the study of how they choose scripts. These similarities include the choice of a language or script to either identify with or create distance from another group, borrowing elements from other languages and scripts, the death of languages and scripts, conta…
The sociolinguistics of script choice: An Introduction
https://www.sil.org/resources/archives/6186
An introduction to language use in Melanesia
https://www.sil.org/resources/archives/48060
Bi-Consonantal Reduplication in Amharic and Ethio-Semitic
Dissertation Abstract
The Source of Melville’s Iroquois Proverb
Melville’s use of proverbs in his writing has been widely noted (e.g., Babcock on nautical proverbs and other sayings, Hayes on proverbs generally, Laufer on a specific proverb). However, previous
The international impact of Sequoyah’s Cherokee syllabary
Many are familiar with Sequoyah’s creation of the Cherokee syllabary. But few are aware of the international impact of his script. Specialists have noted that his work led to the creation of additional scripts on three continents, but none have calculated the overall impact of Sequoyah’s influence. This article is the first to calculate the breadth of Sequoyah’s influence around the world, documenting his influence in the creation of 21 scripts f…
The syllabary used by the Kickapoo in Mexico
Kickapoo who moved from the USA into northern Mexico since 1839 have written in a syllabary they identified as created by Sequoyah for the Cherokee. Possible scenarios for how the Kickapoo may have learned the Cherokee syllabary are examined. However, some authors have reported that the Kickapoo in Mexico used the less famous Great Lakes Algonquian Syllabary (GLAS), not the Cherokee syllabary. A new line of evidence is presented concerning the la…
Hemingway’s Somali Proverb Confirmed
Authenticates the saying of the brave man and the lion in “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber” as a true Somali proverb
The World’s Oldest Living Proverb Discovered Thriving in Ethiopia
The world’s oldest living proverb, from around 3,800 years ago, is found on a tablet from the Assyrian empire. The proverb has been documented from later eras, northwest from the Middle East up into Europe, as far northwestas Britain. Evidence is given here now demonstrating that the proverb is also found to the south of the Middle East, in Ethiopia. In some places, a cat is substituted for the dog, but the Ethiopian evidence indicates that the d…
Amharic Folkloric Oral Traditions: Collections for Insiders and for Outsiders
The two books of Amharic proverbs and the book of Amharic riddles under review document Amharic oral traditions far beyond what others have done previously. They all build on previous scholarship. In addition, each one adds new examples to what has been published before. But it is also important to note that each book has added significant new methodological contributions to their field. They will be valued by those who use and enjoy Amharic oral…
Linguistics (9 works) · Philosophy (9 works) · History (8 works) · Sociology (5 works) · Linguistic Variation and Morphology (4 works) · Philosophy (4 works) · Archaeology (3 works) · Art (3 works) · Computer Science (3 works) · History (3 works)