Olfaction in Aslian ideology and language
Författare
Summary, in English
The cognitive- and neuro-sciences have supposed that the perceptual world of the individual is dominated by vision, followed closely by audition, but that olfaction is merely vestigial. Aslian-speaking communities (Austroasiatic, Malay Peninsula) challenge this view. For the Jahai — a small group of rainforest foragers — odor plays a central role in both culture and language. Jahai ideology revolves around a complex set of beliefs which structures the human relationship with the supernatural. Central to this relationship are hearing, vision and olfaction. In Jahai language, olfaction also receives special attention. There are at least a dozen or so abstract descriptive odor categories that are basic, everyday terms. This lexical elaboration of odor is not unique to the Jahai but can seen across many contemporary Austroasiatic languages and transcends major cultural and environmental boundaries. These terms appear to be inherited from ancestral language states, suggesting a long-standing preoccupation with odor in this part of the world. Contrary to the prevailing assumption in the cognitive sciences, these languages and cultures demonstrate that odor is far from vestigial in humans.
Avdelning/ar
Publiceringsår
2011
Språk
Engelska
Sidor
19-29
Publikation/Tidskrift/Serie
The Senses & Society
Volym
6
Issue
1
Länkar
Dokumenttyp
Artikel i tidskrift
Förlag
Bloomsbury Publishing
Ämne
- General Language Studies and Linguistics
Nyckelord
- Jahai
- language of perception
- Aslian
- Austroasiatic
- olfaction
Status
Published
ISBN/ISSN/Övrigt
- ISSN: 1745-8935