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Growth and development of folk botanical life forms in the Mayan language family
Author(s) -
BROWN CECIL H.
Publication year - 1979
Publication title -
american ethnologist
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.875
H-Index - 78
eISSN - 1548-1425
pISSN - 0094-0496
DOI - 10.1525/ae.1979.6.2.02a00080
Subject(s) - mesoamerica , tree of life (biology) , history , family tree , life history , genealogy , literature , anthropology , art , sociology , biology , ancient history , ecology , phylogenetic tree , biochemistry , gene
This paper examines the growth of folk botanical life‐form categories I for example, “tree,” “vine”) in the Mayan language family of Mesoamerica. Reconstruction of life‐form systems for protostages in Mayan language history indicates that the addition of life‐form terms to Mayan vocabularies has conformed to an earlier proposal of a botanical life‐form encoding sequence (Brown 1977a). In addition, the vast majority of Mayan botanical life forms have been added in very recent times. Apparently, global life‐form growth has taken place primarily during the last few thousand years of human history. An explanation of this phenomenon is proposed. Principles underlying botanical nomenclatural development are also formulated and discussed.