Book Reviews

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presenting Hrozngs wild decipherments of the Aegean and Indic inscriptions. To select occasional new and correct observations would be misleading-they are far too rare. To illustrate our sweepingly adverse judgment by examples would be waste of space. Hroznf is most helpful in dealing with the contents of the Hittite cuneiform and hieroglyphic texts, safest when he lists Babylonian dynasties, and reasonably cautious, but wholly out of date, in describing the results of modern stratigraphic study of cultures without known writing. This is certainly the last book to be recommended as collateral reading for American students. W. F. ALBRIGHT,The Johns Hopkins University
LINGUISTICS

Languages in Contact: Findings and Problems. URIELWEINREICR. (Publications of the Linguistic Circle of New York, 1.) New York, 1953. 148 pp.
Of late there has been a noticeable quickening of interest in the problems of bilingualism. We now have a number of studies of immigrant speech in the United States, particularly the exhaustive investigation of American Norwegian by Einar Haugen. The present volume makes its contribution to this trend by setting up a theoretical framework within which the manifold and largely interdisciplinary problems of bilingualism can be discussed and investigated. This interest, not totally new in linguistics-consider, for example, the work of Schuchardt-seems to parallel in somewhat belated fashion the anthropological interest in acculturation in so far as it stresses the importance of studying not merely the results of contact but the ongoing process itself as an object of scientific investigation. It is realized more and more that much which was attributed, under the somewhat mysterious concept of substratum, to the long-term effects of former linguistic habits of an extinct community, can be explained more realistically and, incidentally, more in consonance with general culture theory, by the activity of bilingual speakers. Variations from the norm of the adopted language, once standardized in a bilingual community, may ultimately be accepted by the second speech community as a whole. The first language of the bilinguals may disappear or it may continue. Mass bilingualism may even be relatively stabilized over an extended period with significant results for both language systems. It is evident, then, that bilingualism is simply the linguistic aspect of acculturation. Indeed the bilingual group plays a significant role as mediator of culture contacts in general. There are clearly both linguistic and nonlinguistic aspects to this situation. I n one of his chapters the author has studied the possible effects of one language on another in the phonetic, grammatical, and semantic realms, through a comparative study of each system qua system and in abstraction from psychological and sociocultural factors. With the help of precise formulations attainable by present linguistic methods, such an approach can yield fruitful, if limited, results. The writer of the present study has in a clear and well-documented chapter shown what possibilities of overdifferentiation, underdifferentiation, and reinterpretation are furnished by two disparate linguistic systems. By overdifferentiation is meant the establishing of significant contrasts where they did not exist in the second language. Underdifferentiation is the opposite process, by which significant differences in the second language are ignored. The structural aspects of cultural contact, so conspicuous in the case of language, tend to be overlooked in the general considerations of culture contact. .In dealing with the linguistic aspects of acculturation, the writer operates in terms of

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Americalz Anthropologist

[57, 19551

the traditional, and useful, distinction of langue, the linguistic system, and @role, the actuality of speech. His observations are in terms of parole, incorporating many results of his own observations of language contact in Switzerland. It should be borne in mind that between the type of observations on parole of Weinreich and the observers he cites, and the actual adoption of a momentary variation from the norm of the secondlanguage community lies many an obstacle. Unless such a variation is fairly frequent, tends to be repeated by bilinguals and ultimately by the monolinguals of the second language community, it will not, in the long run, affect langue, as opposed to parole. What will happen involves a host of psychological, social-psychological,and sociocultural factors of which the author is well aware, as evidenced by other portions of his work. I n the context of the present chapter the presentation is, however, somewhat misleading in that the overwhelming evidence from the historical records of accomplished contact show that, contrary to some loose and confusing talk of language mixture, there is, as Sapir and Maillet among others saw, a relatively impenetrable core of basic vocabulary and morphology. I f this contention is correct, as I believe i t to be, it shows also that there is a use both for the direct study processes and for the more traditional history based on sequences of accomplished facts which helps to give a wider perspective on the long-term outcome of observed change. The author, although primarily a linguist, has excellent chapters on the psychological problems of the bilingual individual and on the social and cultural setting in which bilingual contact takes place. In its attention to both linguistic and nonlinguistic aspects of language contact, the present volume is the most well-rounded study of bilingualism with which the reviewer is acquainted. I n addition to the sections already mentioned, there is a brief section on research problems and an appendix summarizing the studies of the effectsof bilingualism on learning ability and personality adjustment which have played such a prominent role in the discussions of psychologists and educationists. As with the related problem of half-breed in physical anthropology, many studies have ignored the marginal social position and cultural conflicts extraneous to bilingualism as such which affect learning ability and character structure. The work concludes with an extensive and valuable bibliography of 658 items drawn from all aspects of bilingualism. JOSEPH K.GREENBERG, Columbia University
PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY

The Postural Develojment of Injatzt Chimpansees. A. H. RIESENand E. F. KINDER. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1952. xii, 204 pp, $5.00. This book stems from work in two related fields of behavioral study-ontogenetic and phylogenetic. Thus, two Old World primate species, man and chimpanzee, are compared respecting postural development during the first year of life. Tests were made every four weeks, using the Gesell and Thompson Behavior Examination. Although this examination was designed for man, the present authors believe that it is in general also applicable to the chimpanzee (although recognizing that some items are wholIy inapplicable to the latter species). It is impossible even to list all of the items covered by this valuable pioneer study of primate behavioral development. Some of the general results, however, may be noted. Of the 202 items of postural behavior studied, 50% exhibited developmental trends in the chimpanzee, and 64% in man. The species trends were unlike in 61 items (30%). Chimpanzee and human postural behavior already differs at birth respecting