On language, dimensionality, and mapping

Authors

  • Mauro Tosco University of Turin

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.13135/1825-263X/8243

Abstract

This short article discusses dimensionality in language: while many languages may be easily conceptualized as bidimensional and covering a discrete portion of the Earth’s surface, additional dimensions are provided by verticality—either physical or, more often, metaphorical (in the form of bi- and multilingualism)—and time (when nomadic peoples carry their languages around). Other languages are unidimensional, involving to all practical extents a single point in space, while still others have no physical dimension at all, and are used by diffuse communities.

The article argues that dimensionality—a key property of the nation-state—is largely responsible for how we conceptualize languages and the tools (such as the language maps) we use to represent them mentally as well as in space.

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Author Biography

Mauro Tosco, University of Turin

Mauro Tosco is professor of African Linguistics at the University of Turin. His main area of research is the Horn of Africa. He has been working in Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia on the analysis and description of Cushitic languages in an areal and typological perspective. Among his books: A Grammatical Sketch of Dahalo (Hamburg, 1991), Af Tunni: Grammar, Texts and Vocabulary of a Southern Somali Dialect (Köln, 1997), The Dhaasanac Language (Köln, 2001); A grammar of Gawwada (Köln, 2021) and A Gawwada Dictionary (Köln, 2022). He is a native speaker of Piedmontese and the author with Emanuele Miola and Nicola Duberti of A Grammar of Piedmontese (Leiden, 2023). He further works on the expansion and revitalization of minority languages, language policy and ideology.

He can be reached at: mauro.tosco@unito.it

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Published

2023-09-13

Issue

Vol. 27 No. 2 (2023): Liber Amicorum Fabricio A. Pennacchietti Dicatus

Section

Linguae Mundi

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