Language boundaries in South America

Mineralogical, Chemical, and Isotopic (Sr, Pb) Composition of Atmospheric Mineral Dusts in an Ombrotrophic Peat Bog, Southern South America

The Indigenous Languages of the Americas: History and Classification is about the American Indian languages, all the Indigenous languages of the Americas. It takes stock of what is known about the history and classification of these languages and language families. It identifies the gaps in knowledge and puts them into perspective, and it assesses differences of opinion. It also resolves some issues and makes new contributions of its own. The book deals incisively with the major themes involving these languages, with the classification and history of the Indigenous languages of North America, Middle America (Mexico and Central America), and South America; with difficulties involving names of the languages; origins of the languages of the New World; unclassified, phantom, fake, and spurious languages in the Americas; recent hypotheses of remote linguistic relationships; the linguistic areas of the Americas; contact languages, including pidgins, lingua francas, and mixed languages; and loanwords and other new words in the native languages of the Americas.

In this report, we present a new 14C of 9627–9490 cal BC (8640 ± 30 BP) obtained at the Intihuasi Cave, San Luis, Argentina. The sample was obtained during fieldwork conducted as part of a new management plan for tourist use of the site. Intihuasi has played a central role in the history of archaeological investigations in South America. There, in 1951 González applied for the first time a systematic methodology for archaeological excavations in Argentina. Moreover, he complemented his field results with the obtainment of the first radiocarbon dates for the Southern Cone of South America. These achievements allowed him to build the first macroregional chronological sequence, which is still partially used. The new radiocarbon date presented in this article aims to reconsider the importance of the Intihuasi Cave for the discussion of the macroregional peopling of the Southern Cone of South America. We believe that the site ratifies the occurrence of an Andean population vector in the region.

Southern South America (SSA) covers the extratropical part of South America (20–60°S) and presents a wide variety of climates. To the west of the Andes mountain range, annual precipitation increases southward from very dry conditions along the Atacama Desert in northern Chile to more than 3000 mm in the south. Conversely, east of the Andes, it increases from the Argentinian Patagonia in the south towards southeastern South America (southern Brazil, northeastern Argentina and Uruguay) where severe thunderstorm environments are typical. Global climate models project that the observed negative (positive) trends in precipitation over the subtropical central Andes (Southeastern South America) are expected to be more intense causing concern about water availability, ecosystems and socio-economic activities. However, the regional-to-local information that can be obtained by downscaling over GCMs outputs and needed for adaptation and mitigation policies, is still scarce over SSA. Unlike other parts of the world, limited studies analyzing the statistical downscaling (ESD) potential to simulate daily precipitation are available over the region and deep learning-based models have not been tested for downscaling daily precipitation over the region up to now.In this context, this work presents a comprehensive assessment of Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) to downscale daily precipitation at a continental-scale, building on the validation framework of the European project VALUE. To this end, we conduct a sensitivity analysis to the domain size as well as to the selection of the loss function on the modeling of precipitation in both present and future climates. Overall, the CNNs show skilful performance in modeling daily precipitation characteristics, including the extremes, over the different climatic regions of SSA. Nevertheless, we find the selection of the loss function to be a source of uncertainty over the arid regions of northern Chile and northwestern Argentina for both present and future climates by projecting different climate change signals. Regarding the domain size, the CNNs show to be effective in selecting informative predictors and their area of influence demonstrating their self-learning skill and their efficiency to be applied on a continental scale. These results encourage the construction of ensembles of deep learning models based on different loss functions in SSA to account for this type of uncertainty in the modeling of precipitation, especially in future climates.

Serogroup B epidemiology in the southern cone of South America. A literature review

The South Atlantic Convergence Zone (SACZ)—a summertime band of convection extending from the Amazon southeastward into the southwest Atlantic Ocean—has generated considerable interest in the field of South American meteorology and climatology because of its substantial influence on summer rainfall in Southeast Brazil. It is responsible for the majority of rainfall in Brazil’s most agriculturally productive region, although an overly active SACZ can result in excessive precipitation with landslides in the mountainous regions and widespread flooding, causing major losses to society. The mean position of the SACZ seems to be controlled by the heat source of the Amazon basin, which induces a low-level trough that imports moisture from the Amazon, and, over the ocean, by convergence of moisture evaporated below the South Atlantic anticyclone into the SACZ, with additional influences from the local orography. It is, however, the less understood significant spatial and temporal variations that demand attention and are of potential concern. One important such fluctuation, known as the “South American Seesaw,” is a pronounced out-of-phase relationship between rainfall in the SACZ region and southern South America, which is most apparent on sub-seasonal timescales. Periods in which the SACZ is active tend to correspond to rainfall deficits in the south. The opposite phase, with a weakened SACZ but abundant precipitation over southern South America, is accompanied by a strong northerly low-level jet east of the Andes Cordillera that transports massive amounts of moisture from the Amazon basin southward. The mechanisms controlling the alternation and the activation of either phase are not fully understood but may be related to the phase of midlatitude synoptic wave trains as they impinge on South America. Some of these midlatitude waves that impact the SACZ undoubtedly form in the midlatitudes of the Southern Hemisphere, but others appear to emanate from the western Pacific tropics, arch southward along an approximate great circle route, and propagate into the vicinity of the SACZ. As such, they may be modulated by the Madden–Julian Oscillation (MJO), which shows some prediction skill and has been shown to be related to SACZ rainfall. The MJO influence on the SACZ may itself depend on the phase of El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) because a change in the longitude of maximum sea surface temperature (SST) alters both the background basic state and the location of maximum equatorial heating associated with an MJO event. In spite of the plausible ENSO modulation of the MJO impact on the SACZ, the direct influence of ENSO on the SACZ on interannual scales appears to be small. During an El Niño event, when large positive SST anomalies extend into the eastern Pacific and convective heating shifts eastward from its usual position in the western Pacific, there is a tendency for above-average precipitation in southern South America and a strong low-level jet. The concomitant weakening of the SACZ that occurs on short time scales, however, is not observed, resulting in a weak correlation between ENSO and the SACZ. One of the reasons for this lack of relationship may be that there is a tendency for the SACZ precipitation anomalies to change sign over the course of an El Niño summer. Although the representation of the South American Monsoon System in climate models is deficient in many regards, they are able to simulate a SACZ that extends south-eastward from the Amazon region, with a minimum just off shore. The Amazon maximum, however, is about 10º too far east in many models, so that the continental portion of the SACZ is significantly shorter than in nature. The misrepresentation of cloud physics contributes to this long-standing problem, although some improvement can be noted in the latest generation of CMIP models. The influence of Atlantic SSTs on the SACZ remains difficult to quantify. Most results suggest the ocean cools under an active SACZ because of reduced solar radiation, although vertical and horizontal advection in the ocean mixed layer may be of equal importance. The predictive skill of the SACZ in hindcast simulations is near zero on seasonal scales, which is thought to result partly from inaccurate representation of air–sea coupling processes. This notion is reinforced by a similar inability of AMIP models (atmospheric general circulation models forced with observed underlying SSTs) to reproduce precipitation variations in the SACZ region.

The interannual variability of the frontal activity over the western Southern Hemisphere and its linkage with the variability of the atmospheric circulation and precipitation over southern South America is studied. The analysis is focused on the austral winter and spring seasons. The frontal activity is represented by an index defined as the product between the horizontal gradient of temperature and the relative vorticity at 850 hPa (FI) and is computed from the ERA Interim and NCEP2 reanalysis. For the two seasons the main mode of variability of FI, as depicted by the first Empirical Orthogonal Function, presents centres of action located in the southern part of the western Southern Hemisphere. This pattern is present in the two reanalysis datasets. The correlation coefficients between the principal component of the leading mode of FI and the two main modes of the 500 hPa geopotential height indicate that both the ENSO-mode and the SAM modulate the leading pattern of FI in winter while during the spring season the ENSO-mode controls the FI variability. The variability of the FI has a robust influence on the interannual variability of precipitation over southern South America and adjacent oceans. Over the continent, it was found that the pattern of precipitation anomalies associated with the variability of the FI depicts significant signals over southeastern South America (SESA), centre and south of Chile for winter and over SESA and southeastern Brazil for spring and agrees with the pattern of the leading mode of precipitation variability over southern South America.

In response to the limitations of the nation-state as a conceptual frame for the study of linguistic landscapes (LL), this article argues for a transnational approach that accounts for the material reconfigurations and symbolic reimaginations of space in the context of global flows and migrations (Appadurai, 1996). This approach enables one to recognize the fluidity of language practice that transgresses the metadiscursive regimes of language (Bauman & Briggs, 2003) upon which the ideological maintenance of native speaker idealization (Kachru, 2005) hinges. Drawing primarily on theories of language practice (Pennycook, 2010), language disinvention (Makoni & Pennycook, 2005, 2007), and language transgression (Pennycook, 2007), this article analyzes a variety of linguistic tactics in the transnational Korean LL, including those of the South Korean nation-state, and of ethnic Korean enclaves in the United States, including the Koreatowns of Los Angeles and New York. Language practice in the transnational Korean LL challenges the very boundaries of language that precede linguistic hierarchization (e.g., Inner Circle variety as superior to Outer and Expanding Circle varieties) and challenge the ideological commitment to native speaker idealization.

The House Subcommittee on Post-Secondary Education is considering S. 1781, the Native American Language Act. Introduced in the Senate by Senator Daniel Inouye of Hawaii, the legislation would establish a policy for the United States to preserve, protect and promote the rights of Native Americans to use, practice, and develop Native American languages. The legislation was developed from a resolution adopted by the Native American Languages Issues Institute and builds on the principle that initiative for developing and implementing native language come from the people who speak their native language.

Previous hypotheses of phylogenetic relationships among Neotropical parrots were based on limited taxon sampling and lacked support for most internal nodes. In this study we increased the number of taxa (29 species belonging to 25 of the 30 genera) and gene sequences (6388 base pairs of RAG-1, cyt b, NADH2, ATPase 6, ATPase 8, COIII, 12S rDNA, and 16S rDNA) to obtain a stronger molecular phylogenetic hypothesis for this group of birds. Analyses of the combined gene sequences using maximum likelihood and Bayesian methods resulted in a well-supported phylogeny and indicated that amazons and allies are a sister clade to macaws, conures, and relatives, and these two clades are in turn a sister group to parrotlets. Key morphological and behavioral characters used in previous classifications were mapped on the molecular tree and were phylogenetically uninformative. We estimated divergence times of taxa using the molecular tree and Bayesian and penalized likelihood methods that allow for rate variation in DNA substitutions among sites and taxa. Our estimates suggest that the Neotropical parrots shared a common ancestor with Australian parrots 59 Mya (million of years ago; 95% credibility interval (CrI) 66, 51 Mya), well before Australia separated from Antarctica and South America, implying that ancestral parrots were widespread in Gondwanaland. Thus, the divergence of Australian and Neotropical parrots could be attributed to vicariance. The three major clades of Neotropical parrots originated about 50 Mya (95% CrI 57, 41 Mya), coinciding with periods of higher sea level when both Antarctica and South America were fragmented with transcontinental seaways, and likely isolated the ancestors of modern Neotropical parrots in different regions in these continents. The correspondence between major paleoenvironmental changes in South America and the diversification of genera in the clade of amazons and allies between 46 and 16 Mya suggests they diversified exclusively in South America. Conversely, ancestors of parrotlets and of macaws, conures, and allies may have been isolated in Antarctica and/or the southern cone of South America, and only dispersed out of these southern regions when climate cooled and Antarctica became ice-encrusted about 35 Mya. The subsequent radiation of macaws and their allies in South America beginning about 28 Mya (95% CrI 22, 35 Mya) coincides with the uplift of the Andes and the subsequent formation of dry, open grassland habitats that would have facilitated ecological speciation via niche expansion from forested habitats.

Antiquity of mtDNA lineage D1g from the southern cone of South America supports pre-Clovis migration

Plastid trnT–F and atpB–rbcL spacer sequences as well as AFLP fingerprints are utilised to infer phylogenetic relationships of Dendroligotrichum and Polytrichadelphus taxa (Polytrichaceae) in the palaeoaustral region. Phylogenies based on DNA sequence data support the monophyly of each genus. Relationships within Dendroligotrichum remain ambiguous owing to low sequence divergence. AFLP fingerprinting, however, allows a clear distinction of all included Dendroligotrichum and Polytrichadelphus taxa at the species level. The morphological, distributional, ecological and molecular differences justify the recognition of the following three species in Dendroligotrichum: D. dendroides (Brid. ex Hedw.) Broth. and D. squamosum (Hook.f. & Wilson) Cardot in southern South America, as well as D. microdendron (Müll. Hal.) G.L.Sm. in New Zealand; and the following two species in Polytrichadelphus: P. magellanicus (Hedw.) Mitt. s.str. in southern South America and P. innovans (Müll. Hal.) A.Jäger in Australia and New Zealand. For Polytrichadelphus, the molecular topologies correspond with a vicariance scenario, with a basic split of taxa in the palaeoaustral region followed by migration of southern South American taxa northwards into the Neotropics. In Dendroligotrichum, substitutions and indels in the trnL intron and atpB–rbcL spacer are ambiguous in supporting either a basic split between the South American species and D. microdendron, similar to the one in Polytrichadelphus, or a trans-oceanic dispersal event between New Zealand and southern South America.

Episodes of heat stress constrain crop production and will be aggravated in the near future according to short and medium-term climate scenarios. Global increase in cloudiness has also been observed, decreasing the incident solar radiation. This work was aimed to quantify the probability of occurrence of heat stress and cloudiness, alone or combined, during the typical post-flowering period of wheat and canola in the Southern Cone of South America. Extended climate series (last 3–5 decades with daily register) of 33 conventional weather stations from Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Uruguay (23 to 40°S) were analysed considering the period from September to December. Two different daily events of heat stress were determined: (i) maximum daily temperature above 30 °C (T > 30 °C) and (ii) 5 °C above the historical average maximum temperature of that day (T + 5 °C). A cloudiness event was defined in our work as incident solar radiation 50% lower than the historical average radiation of that day (R50%). The T > 30 °C event increased its probability of occurrence throughout the post-flowering phase, from September to December. By contrast, the risk of T + 5 °C event decreased slightly, just like for R50%, and the higher the latitude, the lower the probability of R50%. The T > 30 °C plus R50% combined stresses reached greater cumulated probabilities during post-flowering, compared to T + 5 °C plus R50%, being 42% vs 15% in northernmost locations, 26% vs. 19% in central (between 31 and 35°S) and 28% vs. 1% in southernmost locations, respectively. A curvilinear relationship emerged between the monthly probability of combined stresses and the number of days with stress per month. In summary, T > 30 °C was the most frequent thermal stress during post-flowering in wheat and canola. Both combined stresses had a noticeable risk of occurrence, but T > 30 °C plus R50% was the highest. Evidence of the recent past and current occurrence of heat stress individually, and its combination with cloudiness events during post-flowering of temperate crops, serves as a baseline for future climate scenarios in main cropped areas in the Southern Cone of South America.

Linguistic landscape (LL), a concept which first emerged in the field of language planning, refers to ‘[t]he language of public road signs, advertising billboards, street names, place names, commercial shop signs, and public signs on government buildings' (Landry & Bourhis, 1997: 25). There are two functions attached to the linguistic landscape of a given territory: an informational function and a symbolic function. The informational function serves to inform people of ‘the linguistic characteristics, territorial limits and language boundaries' of a specific region; whereas the symbolic function serves as an indicator of the status, power relations, and cultural identity of the inhabitants, affecting how individuals feel about their community (Landry & Bourhis, 1997).

Chapter 9, Loanwords and Other New Words in the Indigenous Languages of the Americas, is about the many loanwords of various kinds have been identified in various Native American languages and about ways new words are created in these languages. Various themes involving loanwords in these languages are discussed. They include calques; Wanderwörter—loanwords that are found widely diffused in a number of languages but where the original donor language is usually unknown, loanwords from Indigenous languages into European languages, loanwords from European languages into Indigenous American languages, avoidance of tabu and multilingual obscenity, languages that are reticence toward borrowing, and linguistic acculturation and neologisms that rely on native resources.