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Learning so far, I have a deeper understanding of the connection between language and culture. Firstly, language is part of the culture. Like other cultural phenomenon, language is also a social phenomenon, it occurred with the production of society, and develops with the development of society. Language has all the attributes of culture, so language is also a kind of culture. The language is with nationality, different nationalities often have different language. It is the most important spiritual wealth of human society.

Secondly, language is the main carrier of the culture. Although language is a part of culture, other cultural phenomena generally cannot exist independently of language. Only through language can culture be preserved, continued and spread, just like the inheritance of history and the spread of religion.

Also, language is a mirror of culture. Language reflects a nation’s culture and reveals the contents of the national culture. Through a national language, people can understand the nation’s customs, lifestyles, ways of thinking and other features.

To improve my language communication skills, I think I can try to communicate with my friends who can speak Korean. Although it may be difficult to express ideas accurately because of a small vocabulary, it is a valuable opportunity to practice and correct pronunciation.

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In one of my Korean classes in the past two weeks, my language partner brought in a surprisingly short newspaper article that I was surprised about. I thought that since I spoke Korean at home, I would be able to tackle much longer articles with ease. However, I quickly learned that speaking skills do not necessarily translate to reading/writing skills. While my limited vocabulary did not seem to affect my everyday conversations with my parents, it made a large impact when I tried to read that short newspaper article. In the narrow sphere of topics I talk about with my family (e.g. school, friends, health, etc) I essentially didn’t need anything past a middle school, or even elementary school level vocabulary. At first, when I skimmed the article I felt very disoriented and lost. I didn’t recognize almost a third of the words in the entire article and felt immediately frustrated. However, my language partner suggested we go through the article slowly, word-by-word. She also suggested that we stop at each word I did not recognize, and had me first try and figure out the definition by context clues and hints within the word itself (e.g. when a word had the root of another word that I knew). In this way, I found that I could figure out a surprising number of words and the initial feeling of dejection started to fade. My partner provided both the definition and context for the words that I could not figure out by deduction. She explained the context of the word within the article, along with its cultural context in Korean society. 

I not only learned the boundaries of my Korean through reading this article, but also learned a lot about the Korean government’s influence in deciding national holidays. The article discussed the Korean public’s discontent about a national holiday being cancelled. In Korea, there are certain policies that allow the government to add a couple days or subtract a couple days for a holiday. For example, if a holiday like Chuseok happened to land on a weekend, when it usually lands on a weekday, the government has the power to suggest additional days off for the time employees “lost”. I learned that these extra days are commonly called Red Days because they are marked by red ink in calendars. Being assigned this article acted as a kind of wake up call to show me just how much I still had to learn about both the Korean language and the Korean culture. 

While I am Korean-American, the American side of me is what dominates my idea of culture and society. While I do sometimes watch Korean dramas or variety tv shows, I still have a ways to go in order to understand what modern-day Korean society and culture are about. I will continue to read short, relatively simple articles as suggested by my language partner. I will also continue to use the method of slowly combing through the article and making sure not to skip over words I don’t recognize.

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In the recording, I said that I want to learn the basic conversation in Turkish and more cultural background about their food, music, and fashion. I also said that watching videos in Turkish is a good way to learn how to speak and think like a native speaker. So far, I learned the basic greeting, family tree and all kinds of food in Turkish. I also watched many videos about Turkish culture. For example, I saw a documentary about a transgender in Turkish, through which I have a more comprehensive understanding of how Turkish people, especially the people in small villages think of genders. I also watched some videos of American teen's reviews on Turkish music and food. I am really surprised how similar Turkish music is to American music, including their melody, lyrics and MVs. I think the discussion in class about the different dimensions of culture really helps me to understand Turkish culture.

Language and culture are intertwined. A particular language usually points out to a specific group of people. When you interact with another language, it means that you are also interacting with the culture that speaks the language. You cannot understand one's culture without accessing its language directly. Language and culture developed together and influenced each other as they evolved. In other words, If culture is a consequence of the interactions of humans, the acts of communication are their cultural manifestations within a specific community.

As an art history minor, I am really interested in Turkish history and art objects, especially the Sasanian silver plate, which is famous for its delicate decorations and political manifestation in the world. The Sasanian Empire, also known as the Neo-Persian Empirewas the last kingdom of the Persian Empire before the rise of Islam. At its greatest extent, the Sasanian empire encompassed all of today’s Iran, Iraq, Eastern Arabia, Egypt, large parts of Turkey and much of central Asia. Most of the royal scenes on the silver vessels that have been preserved are in the form of hunts. Some of the silver plates with hunting scenes are clearly related in design, iconography detail, and style. For art historians, it is crucial to date those silver plates in order to study its historical and social context.  In the nineteen-thirties, a famous historian, Kurt Erdmann analyzed the scenes in considerable detail and divided the hunting plates into three main stages in an overall chronological. The first includes vessels of the third and fourth centuries. On these, there is a two-figure composition: the kind is hunting a lion (see the photos below). On all these plates in the first stage, the hunt is conceived of as an enlivened chase or dramatic combat. The sense of direct conflict is heightened by the eye to eye contact between the hunter, whose head is in pure profile, and the animal sought. In Erdmann’s sequence, the second stage begins in the fourth century and reaches a high point in the mid-fifth. The major change is from a representation of the hunt as a contest to what Erdmann described as “Treibjagd”, in which the animals no longer confront their attacker, but flee away from him. The animal at this stage increase in number while diminishing in size. There is no longer a dramatic hunt but a picturesque scene almost free from the flat surface of the plate. In this second stage, the gliding was applied to the figural design. In the third stage, on the Sasanian vessels o the sixth and seventh centuries, Erdmann noted an almost total absence of relief, likening the designs to drawings with strong contours. A variety of animal species are represented. The gilding is more carelessly applied, appearing in the background, not on the design. In addition to these Sasanian hunting plates, Erdmann listed a large number of pieces that he considered to be post-Sasanian. For the most part, these were, in his opinion, imitations of original vessels belonging to the first and earlier stage. He observed that in all instance the kinds wore crowns later in date than those of the early Sasanian period they were intended to imitate, and the designs included details such as the strong contours apparent only in his latest Sasanian group. Overall, so accurate are his observations and so convincing many of his arguments that It is almost impossible to consider the royal hunting vessels entirely afresh, free from the influence of Kurt Erdmann’s work. I attached several photos of the silver plates of hunting scenes below for people to better understand his theory.

Ge’ez and Amharic belong to the Semitic language family. Growing up I was told that Ge’ez is the parent of a couple of languages on the horn of Africa such as Tigre, Tigrigna, and Amharic. This is because it spoken much less now and the languages like Tigrigna and Amharic are said to come later. Ge’ez is also the sister of Aramic, Arabic, and Hebrew. According to the Semitic Language Family Tree from the American Heritage Dictionary, 4th edition, it shows Tigrigna, Ge’ez, and Amharic on the same plane along with Aramaic and Arabic. However, Hebrew is on the next plane (5th). By plane I mean number of generations from the proto language. I am tempted to think number of planes indicates time period, though I am not sure. 

Languages in this same family have similar phonetic inventories that are unique to this area like the throaty [k] sound. These are also languages that are deeply rooted in Abrahamic faith traditions and thus many similar cultural traditions. The Proto-Semitic family came from the Proto-Afro-Asiatic family. 

Linguists make language family trees and document the known languages. As of 2017, there were 7,099 documented languages and 145 language families according to Ethnologue. It is interesting that my perception based on oral tradition may be a little different than what is documented regarding the relationship between Tigrigna/Amharic and Ge’ez. However, maybe it is just that the period of time between Tigrigna/Amharic and Ge’ez is not significant enough, relatively, to be categorized on a different plane.

The Semitic Language Family Tree

(from the American Heritage Dictionary, 4th edition)

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In these past two weeks I have moved forward in both my conversational Korean and my cultural learning.  I have worked with my language partner on simple phrases such as “I want to eat Korean food” or “I have to study” that are very important, yet easy to learn and apply to daily conversation.  We also covered the different tenses of how to use those phrases and the negative version of each phrase.  For example, the particle ‘안’ is placed in front of the verb ‘want’ or ‘have’ to act as the “do not” in the sentence.  This activity was useful in practicing my verb conjugation for present and past tense.  In later sessions, I would like to extend each of these phrases to learn a more complicated grammatical structure. 

In my lessons with Kim Sumi, we have focused on vocabulary and cultural topics.  I have been able to work with two other people in the class, so it is interesting to learn about what they are wanting to learn as well.  Every class begins with each of us talking to the professor and telling her how we are doing and what we did over the past week.  Through this exercise, we can solidify some key conversational phrases and learn some determiners such as ‘many’ or ‘only’.  Then we talk about each of our cultural topics for our presentation.  This week, our professor gave us a vocabulary list that correlates with our topics.  We go around saying the words to practice reading and pronunciation and write the definition next to each term.  This is our new list to study for the next class in which we will have a quiz.  It is very helpful having the vocabulary to study, not only to increase the number of words we can understand, but also to give us terms to incorporate into our presentation. 

Something that I have failed to do on my part is the consistency of reviewing the material.  I feel like I have little time to dedicate to actually internalizing the words, grammar, and phrases instead of just memorizing them.  I will make an extra effort to study the terms every day and practice incorporating the new sentence structures I’m learning into normal, daily activities.  I have noticed my frustration in classes because there is still so much that I do not understand that is being presented to me.  Sometimes this makes me feel overwhelmed and I need to take a step back.  It is more helpful for me to learn vocabulary and grammar in small chunks and build off of it instead of learning one example of one concept and another example of a completely different concept.  I think this is why I have been having a hard time dedicating part of my day to studying the material because it seems like too much.  Moving forward, I will try my best to learn smaller bits of information more frequently than a lot of information at a time. 

We only one class for this half month due to the fall break, but the quality and content of our last class are really high and interesting. The teacher introduced us to many delicious foods in Turkey and used those foods to make conversation with us in Turkish to help us revise all the words and grammar we learned before.

Turkey sits at the crossroads of east and west and Turkish food is a mixture of cuisines that has resulted in some of the finest dishes in the world. Traditional Turkish food is among the richest cuisines in the world. The variety of Turkish cuisine comes from a rich culinary history and culture due to its prime location on the cusp of both western and eastern worlds. Turkish food is considered one of the world’s three main cuisines and it sits aside the Chinese and French traditions.

I also did some research after class about the historical development of Turkish food, which I found is interesting. The journey of Turkish has been in continuous development from the past beginning from Central Asia, Seljuk, Ottoman Empire to Republican eras and has excelled. The culinary culture of the Ottoman Empire was divided into palace kitchens and public kitchens. Beginning with reform in the Republican period, the impact of foreign cuisine has been observed in Turkish cuisine. The food culture differs from region to region as well. Such diversification and variety create today’s famous Turkish food which, according to what my teacher said in class, never lets anyone disappointed.

Menemen 

This traditional Turkish breakfast item is scrambled eggs cooked in sautéed vegetables and served hot with bread. Dip it, spread it, or spoon it up.

Köfte

A Turkish staple, köfte is balls or patties of ground beef or lamb, and can be served stewed, in sandwiches, over salads, or plain with yogurt.

Mantı

Mantı might remind you of ravioli at first sight, but the traditional Turkish dish is completely unique in taste and texture. Small beef or lamb dumplings are boiled or fried and served with yogurt or butter, and often accompanied with a range of spices.

Kuzu Tandır

The meat for this popular lamb dish is traditionally hung and slow-roasted whole, and it often served with rice or potatoes, and yogurt.

Lahmacun

This flat and crispy bread is traditionally topped with minced meat, salad, and lemon juice (though the above is a beetroot vegan option!), and can be wrapped, folded in half, or pulled apart to eat. Cheap and available on any street corner, it's the perfect light lunch or snack while touring.

Börek

Turkish savory pastry comes in many varieties, most popularly filled with minced meat or spinach and cheese. Börek can be rolled, served as puffs, or layered like lasagna, and served for breakfast, lunch, dinner, or snack. Any way you have it, börek is always flaky and delicious.

Baklava

Nutty, syrupy, pastry dessert is never better than when served in Turkey. Often topped in ground pistachios, baklava is sweet and unique, and should be eaten fresh!

Lokum

Lokum, or Turkish Delight, is a nougaty dessert served with a variety of flavors and fillings and often topped with powdered sugar. It's always best fresh, as pre-packaged versions tend to go too light on the fillings and too heavy on the sugar, drying it out.

Base on my knowledge about Turkish, I know that Turkish is widely used in Southeast Europe and Western Asia. Outside Turkey, with the immigration, Turkish expanded to Germany, Bulgaria, Greece, and etc.
Therefore, it is a widely used language over the whole world. Also, Turkish belongs to the Turkic family, which includes some 30 living languages spoken across Eastern Europe, Central Aisa and Siberia. All languages in the Turkic family share some common characteristics. Specifically, The basic word order of Turkish is subject-object-verbs. Turkish has no noun-classes or grammatical gender. The language has a strong t-v distinction and usage of honorifics. Turkish uses second-person pronouns that distinguish varying levels of politeness, social distance, age, courtesy or familiarity toward the addressee. Despite the fact that there is no historical connection or valid interrelationship between Japanese and Turkish, I still found that those two languages share a lot of similarities. First of all, their grammar structures are pretty similar. Both are subject-object-verb structure. This feature is really different from English grammar, which is usually subject-verb-object. Also, both Turkish and Japanese are agglutinative, which means that complex words are formed by combining multiple morphemes. For example, "Çekoslovakyalılaştıramadıklarımızdanmışçasına" is treated as one word in Turkish, which means that as if you were one of those whom we could not make resemble the Czechoslovakian people. Since I have learned basic Japanese before, it is not difficult for me to absorb those rules and I can really take advantage of my Japanese learning experience, which gives me a good start and solid foundation.

I always love to know the history of one language and how it relates to other languages. I know Turkish belongs to the Altaic language family, and Mongolian does too because they share noteworthy similarities in vocabulary, morphological and syntactic structure, and certain phonological features. But I found it a little shocking because I have Mongolian friends, and what they write and speak is really different from Turkish. Mongolian has much more complicated letters. But I think it was more challenging to understand maybe because I studied English as my second language and letters like these look more “normal” to me. In the beginning, I felt Turkish sounds like Japanese, but after doing some research, I found they are totally different from each other, and the most similar language to Turkish is Azerbaijani. After learning some basic Turkish, I found that French and Turkish shared a lot in common. For example, they both have six subjects, and suffix in the verb would change with the subjects. Also, the letter “j” in Turkish pronounces precisely the same as French and Turkish uses “Merci” as thank you. So based on my previous experience in studying French, Turkish is becoming easier to learn for me. However, I am not sure whether they are from the same location or language at the very beginning of history because I think it is more like Turkish borrowed these from French, and my language partner also said so. And the other day Chet and I found the way to say “hello” in Turkish and Arabian is very similar because, in Turkish, it is “Merhaba” while in Arabian, it is “Marhaban”. It is also very similar to the phenomenon mentioned in the article that different languages shared similar ways to say “mother” because those cognates are derived from the proto-Indo-European word “mehter.”

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While Fall Break meant that I missed some of my one-on-one meetings with my language partner, I worked on and learned some interesting topics nonetheless. One thing I am happy to say that I've made progress in is writing - I have been able to write short yet cohesive paragraphs and dialogues for homework, which has allowed me to piece together disparate aspects of my language learning thus far and strengthen my linguistic foundation and understanding of Malay. To this end, learning how to denote tense/condition of verbs has been incredibly beneficial. Rather than having to conjugate it as in other languages, verb tense can be implied through adverbial indicators and context. This has not been too difficult for me to grasp, likely because of the fact that Chinese has the same characteristic and sentence structure (S-V-O). The word "telah" means "already" and indicates past tense, whereas the word "akan" means "will" and indicates future tense; simply affixing these in front of a verb will denote tense, however other indicators (i.e. time) should be included to make sense of the sentence. There is also the prefixes "me" and "mem" that can be affixed to the front of verbs to indicate present tense and what is happening now rather than a declarative statement. Melissa has been very helpful with explaining to me some of the ways in which Malay does or does not reflect English grammar, which makes forming new sentences and retaining this information much easier for me. 

It was particularly interesting to learn how Malay describes seasons. The word "musim" means season and is, like Chinese, attached to each of the words for the specific season (unlike the one-word "spring" or "summer" in English). The descriptor for the season comes, as adjectives do in Malay, after the "musim" noun. The word for fall/autumn is "musim luruh" ("luruh" meaning "shed," as in trees shedding their leaves), winter is ""musim sejuk" ("sejuk" meaning "cold"), spring is "Musim burga" ("burga" meaning "flower"), and summer is "musim pasas" ("pasas" meaning "hot"). The conceptualization behind the descriptors for these seasons is fascinating because it mirrors many of American culture's own associations (e.g. flowers blooming with spring), yet goes the extra step of incorporating them into the official name. This topic came up as I described what I did for fall break ("cuti" meaning holiday would be added to "musim luruh" meaning fall to create "cuti musim luruh"). 

I am now in the process of learning to describe what I did in the past and will do in the future in terms of school (e.g. attended a class in the International Center yesterday), which will help Melissa and I to have real conversations describing my routine each time we meet that will not sound rehearsed or scripted and aid with commanding a more natural grip of the language for me. As I have noted in many of my previous posts, pronunciation remains an important milestone for me, and I will continue to incorporate what I have learned about the International Phonetic Alphabet and sounds in Bahasa Melayu into my study of the language. 

In the past two weeks, I’ve learned a lot of new things. To begin with, there were certain vowels whose sounds I simply couldn’t differentiate, so I sat down and properly understood how they are different. The vowels are: 와 워 왜 웨 외 위 의. Another thing that I learned that’s a part of Korean basics is the numbers in the native Korean number system. In class we played a game called 뽀성 in which you say every number except the ones that are multiples of three (multiples of three are replaced with the word 뽀성). Later on I practiced the numbers by myself by doing sudoku. I absolutely love sudoku so I picked up an easy sudoku puzzle and wrote it down in Korean and then solved it in Korean; then, I solved it in English and checked my solutions. This actually helped a lot more than I originally gave it credit for because while doing sudoku you can’t just go sequentially from 1-9, you need to look at every number randomly as it is and in relation to another based on the information you have. This helped me recognize numbers even when they’re out of order, on their own. Attached below is a picture of the first sudoku puzzle I solved in Korean.

I’ve even started watching K-dramas to get a better understanding of conversational Korean. This has given me more insight into the sentence structure of Korean, and how to distinguish between formal conversation and informal conversation. This has made me better listen to Korean and distinguish between the sounds. Infact, when I went back and listened to a couple of BTS songs that I listened to long before I started learning Korean, I realised how different the actual song is from what I used to hear it as. For example, a part in their song Boy In Luv actually has the rapper reciting the first 8 Hangul consonants, and another song Blood,Sweat, and Tears has the boys singing ‘원해 많이 많이’ which I always heard as ‘money’ instead of ‘많이 (mani)’ which means ‘a lot’.  K-dramas are turning out to be one of the most helpful things in my learning plan because I’m not only getting better at listening to Korean, reading Korean, and conversing in Korean, but I’m also getting an insight into Korean culture through these dramas, and I’ve been able to think in Korean because of them. For example, due to the huge amount of anime that I’ve watched, when someone is being cute I think ‘kawaii’, and now I’m able to think ‘귀여워 (gwiyeowo)’ instead. Not only this but when I want to say sorry I’m actually able to think of either ‘미안해’ (informal) or ‘죄송합니다’ (formal) depending on the situation. This makes me really happy because it’s a good foundation for me to learn Korean as itself instead of by mapping it onto English.

Moreover, I got the Korean keyboard for both my laptop and my phone which makes learning Korean on the go super fun and has helped me get used to Hangul well. The other day, I typed out an email to Professor Sumi 75% of which was in Korean! 

Now, I’d like to start working on forming good sentences in Korean by paying close attention to the grammar and learning sentences which are more relevant to my situation as a college student like ‘do you have homework’, or ‘do you want to get lunch together?’, and other such sentences. The grammar is going to take a lot of work but I’m looking forward to it!

In the past two weeks, we learned a lot about tourism (관광) in Korea. First of all, we learned some basic conversations that might happen when we visit Korea. For example, we learned how to ask people to take pictures for us. For instance, “Excuse me. Do you mind taking picture of us?” can be translated into Korean as “실례합니다, 사진 좀 찍어 주시것어요?”.

And then, if that person responds, “네”. That means he/she would like to take picture of you.

What’s more, if you want to ask him/her to take more pictures when you are not really satisfied with the pictures that he/she takes, you can say, “한 장 더 찍어 주세요”, which means please take  one more pictures. In this sentence, 주세요 means please and 한 장 means one picture. It is also really important to learn what Korean usually say when they are taking pictures. 찍숩니다 can be translated as “I am going to take the pictures. Are you ready?” And then, they will say “하나, 둘, 셋,  김치~” which is similar with “One, two, three, cheese~”. I found different countries said different words when they took pictures. However, those words sounded really similar. For example, cheese in English, Qiezi in Chinese and Kimchi in Korean.

We also learned how to find the place that we want to visit in Korean, such as where is the restroom in Korean is 화장실이 어디예 있어요. This kind of sentence can be used to ask various kinds of places. For instance, 박물관은 어디예 있어요 means where is the museum. Also, “이 근처에 공원 있어요?” Represents  “is there a park nearby?”. This can also be used to ask the direction of a place. If you want to ask whether you can get there on foot, you can say, “걸어서 갈 수 있을까요.” There are also other sentences that will be very useful during our trip in Korea.

정보 책자를 부탁합니다 --> I would like an information booklet.

영어 가이드가 있습니까 --> Is there an English speaking guide.

여기서 사진 찍어도 될까요 --> Can I take picture here.

We also learned some related vocabulary.

미술관  Art Museum 동물원  zoo 지도 map

티켓 ticket 입장료 Adimission fee 무료 free

남산골 한옥 마을 namsangol hanok village 서울 타워 Seoul Tower

반포 대교 Banpo Bridge 이준신 A famous general in Korea

세종대왕 King Sejong 광화 멘 Gwanghwa men

경복궁 gyeongboggung 양화 대교 yanghwa Bridge

On a Korean TV show, some hosts went to a popular tourist site and rented out old Korean school uniform. It’s called gyobok (교복) in Korea. It looked quite different from Korean school uniform nowadays, not to mention the uniform I wore in junior high or high school. Once in our class, Jenna also mentioned how Korean uniforms were influenced by other countries and changed over time. As a result, I’m really curious about this topic now and thus took a look at different kinds of Korean school uniforms.

A snap of "Camping Club ep.4" on YouTube

In the 80s, the school uniforms in South Korea were influenced by Japan. The set of sailor suits as a traditional and popular item from Japan was modified and used as uniforms for girls. For boys in the 80s, they have soldier hats with black traditional uniforms. The colors of the uniform are largely limited to black, white, and navy blue.

Pic from Google by searching “Korean school uniform 80s”

There are also many different kinds of uniforms between private and public schools. For example, for private schools such as Seoul School of Performing Arts (서공예 SOPA) and Seoul Arts High School (서울예술고등학교), they have more unusual colors such as yellow on their uniform. A large number of idols study in these art schools, and thus it’s easy for people to identify their high school by the uniforms they wear.

For public schools, the uniform for each school may vary, but they usually have less bright colors as the private schools. For girls, a lot of schools have white shirts and short skirts for them as uniforms. The skirts may be in blue, red, or black, and are mostly decorated with plaids. In winter, they have grey or white vests and a black jacket to put on top of the shirt. Boys usually have similar items, and instead of shorts, they have black long pants. Some schools require ties for boys to put on. For PE class, the students will change into another uniform with baggy jackets and pants. Also, some public high schools may have longer skirts for girls. These skirts are usually all black without any patterns on them.

Reference:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBmUsuVzO6k

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfCbAa4UmgI

https://www.mutzine.me/features/a-brief-history-korean-school-uniforms

http://officialkoreanfashion.blogspot.com/2016/11/korean-school-uniforms.html

 Hebrew is a Semitic language and belongs to the Canaanite group of languages, but its language family is the branch of Northwest Semitic languages. Its predecessors appear to be other Canaanite languages along with Amharic languages. On the language database Ethnologue it is also listed as being Afro-asiatic which would be its primary language family. The Kevin Morehouse article he talked about how the different families of languages tell you which may be similar and informs you of the relationships between them.  Additionally, understanding language family can help with mastery. It may make it easier to grasp certain language concepts if you understand where the language came from. For the article about origin of the family of languages being in Anatolia I thought it was interesting that a biologist was even entering the conversation. I thought it almost arrogant that the biologists thought that they had solved a long-standing problem when experts in the study of language had been working on a solution for years. I have recently been exposed to some of the statically methods they may have used but I do think that consideration needs to be made for the evidence that contradicts the biologists claims. I found the argument that the language had to be spread through fighting before the spread of agriculture from Anatolia. The evidence of words for wheeled vehicles makes the most sense for me because how would a language develop a word for something they don’t have. I also thought it was interesting that the words that are used to track language development and spread are the same words that are used for body parts, familial relations and pronouns because they then become cognates and you can track them to a parent language.