Defining Ancient Cultures

This week's post is about, as my title illustrates, defining ancient cultures. Reading selections from David Crystal's Cambridge Encyclopedia of Languages and Levinson's Encyclopedia of Cultural Anthropology it has become apparent to me how important a language is to a culture. Of course some may say this is quite obvious, one's language is strongly intertwined with their identity. This is so because I believe language has two main uses to its speakers, the first being obvious: to be able to communicate, the second is to be able to tell the difference between people. This difference serves as protection so people not only know someone is not from where they are from but further (if they decipher) where they are from. This study of different languages also serves as a key to a window in time, it allows for those studying a culture to understand different aspects of the lives of those who spoke it. How their religious tradition bled into their culture from their designated places of worship and why. How they interacted with neighboring peoples, do they share many of the same words, if so, why, if not, why. Using language we are able to better distinguish between cultural traditions that otherwise seem quite similar and relate between cultural traditions we previously thought had little connection to one another. And of course, the most important of all, language can be used to map an area of land, both geographically (where one culture ended and another began) and create a time line that allows those who study it to understand how practices and beliefs were spread from one place to another.