ANT100Y1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Dowry, Political Correctness, Homo Sapiens

• School: UTSG
• Department: Anthropology
• Course: ANT100Y1
• Professor: Ivan Kalmar

Document Summary

Culture and language: communication, imagination, identity: culture: the structure of the society we are born into. Cultural universals and particulars: cultures are significantly different, but not infinitely different, human cultures have more in common than not, 100 years ago, anthropologists were concerned with incest, universally prohibited, definition of incest varies from culture to culture. Language and languages: like cultures, languages have more in common than not, nouns and verbs. Recap: universals and divisions: language and culture are human universals, but, specific languages and specific cultures are human particulars, universals (language, culture) are innate, transmitted via genes (through sex, particulars (languages, cultures) are learned. Adaptive value of social transmission: social transmission is much more flexible than genetic transmission, major changes can occur within a generation or two, we can adapt or also misadapt, major changes can occur without change of species. *language and culture are adaptive, allow us to adapt to new.