Luisa Maffi

Terralingua

Never before has humanity placed its stamp on the planet in ways even remotely comparable to the situation now. A fifth into the twenty-first century, human ‘domination’ of the Earth is such that the term Anthropocene has become widespread as a label for the present time; a nomenclature which would, if widely adopted, make the Holocene (which began...

The concept of biocultural diversity expresses a holistic idea of the diversity of life in nature and culture. It sees biodiversity, cultural diversity, and linguistic diversity as interrelated and interdependent manifestations of the web of life. The concept has spurred an integrative field of research that, drawing from social, linguistic, and na...

Island and coastal areas worldwide have long been recognized as unique and fragile ecosystems, harboring an abundance of often endemic biodiversity. They are now increasingly recognized as unique and fragile biocultural systems, harboring a great diversity of human cultures that are highly adapted to the island/coastal ecosystems, through close int...

![Figure][1] CREDIT: ISTOCKPHOTO In the 30 November 2012 issue of Science , we were struck by the juxtaposition of two News & Analysis stories by R. A. Kerr. One article ("Experts agree global warming is melting the world rapidly," p. [1138][2]) summarizes the discussions among glaciologists

Anthropogenic stress on the earth’s ecosystems has resulted in widespread prevalence of ecosystem distress syndrome, a quantifiable set of signs of ecosystem degradation. At the same time, the planet is witnessing rapid declines in global cultural diversity and in the vitality of the world’s cultures, which closely mirror, and are interrelated with...

There is an emerging recognition that the diversity of life comprises both biological and cultural diversity. In the past, however, it has been common to make divisions between nature and culture, arising partly out of a desire to control nature. The range of interconnections between biological and cultural diversity are reflected in the growing va...

Various revisions of the Berlin and Kay (1969) model of the evolution of basic color term systems have been produced in the last thirty years, motivated by both empirical and theoretical considerations. On the empirical side, new facts about color naming systems have continually come to light, which have demanded adjustments in lhe descriptive mode...

The fourth report in the Global Environment Outlook (GEO) series from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) provides a comprehensive, scientifically credible, policy-relevant and up-to-date assessment of, and outlook for, the state of the global environment. GEO-4 is published 20 years after the landmark World Commission on Sustainable De...

Several international instruments and initiatives concerned with biodiversity conservation have begun to acknowledge the intrinsic link between biological and cultural diversity. For example, efforts are underway to enshrine the preservation and protection of traditional ecological knowledge in the documents now being drafted to implement the Conve...

Over the past decade, the field of biocultural diversity has arisen as an area of transdisciplinary research concerned with investigating the links between the world's linguistic, cultural, and biological diversity as manifestations of the diversity of life. The impetus for the emergence of this field came from the observation that all three divers...

During the 1990s, the issues of language endangerment and loss of linguistic diversity around the world came to the forefront, sparking a mounting interest within linguistics for the documentation and revitalisation of languages at risk of disappearing. It also became apparent that the crisis of linguistic diversity was part of a larger crisis of t...

Durant les annees quatre-vingt-dix, les questions liees aux langues menacees de disparition et a la perte de diversite linguistique dans le monde sont arrivees sur le devant de la scene, ce qui a suscite chez les linguistes un nouvel interet pour l’inventaire et la revitalisation de ces langues. Il est egalement apparu que la crise de la diversite...

In the late 1960s, Berlin and Kay argued that there are commonalities of basic colour term use that extend across languages and cultures, and probably express universal features of perception and cognition. In 1992, at the Asilomar Conference Centre, visual scientists and psychologists met with linguists and anthropologists for the first time to ex...

In the late 1960s, Berlin and Kay argued that there are commonalities of basic colour term use that extend across languages and cultures, and probably express universal features of perception and cognition. In 1992, at the Asilomar Conference Centre, visual scientists and psychologists met with linguists and anthropologists for the first time to ex...

this paper. (See Hardin 1993 and Stanlaw 1993 for careful appraisals of several points.) 8

This article discusses processes of semantic change in the context of a Mayan case study. It presents a diachronic analysis of the meaning of the Tzeltal and Tzotzil Maya word pox—synchronically used to refer to sugarcane liquor (aguardiente) in various dialects of these two languages of southern Mexico—as well as of its relationship with the deriv...

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, Berkeley, 1994. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 474-499). Photocopy.

In 1977 a group of Italian linguists set up a research program on the Somali language, in the context of the technical co-operation between Italy and Somalia. The program was sponsored by the Italian Ministry of External Affairs and the Somali Ministry of Higher Education. The scientific bodies involved were the University of Rome and the National...

Various revisions of the Berlin and Kay (1969) model of the evolution of basic color term systems have been produced in the last thirty years, motivated by both empirical and theoretical considerations. On the empirical side, new facts about color naming systems have continually come to light, which have demanded adjustments in the descriptive mode...