| Professor: | Jonathan North Washington | |
| Office: | Pearson 105 | |
| Office phone: | x6134 | |
| Office hours: | W 13:30-15:00 & by appointment | |
| Email/messaging: | jwashin1@swarthno scrapers please...more.edu | |
| Meeting time: | MW 10:30-11:45 | |
| Physical classroom: | Science Center 246 | |
| Course website: | http://jnw.domains.swarthmore.edu/ling009 | |
| Course Moodle site: | F26 - LING009.01 | |
You can call me either Jonathan or Professor Washington, and refer to me using any pronoun. Please let me know how you'd like to be addressed and referred to in this space. Let's try to respect everyone's wishes in this regard—don't hesitate to correct me if I ever get any of it wrong!
In terms of goals for student learning, this course is designed for students to gain an introduction to the languages and societies of the regions traditionally referred to as the "Silk Road", learn about how we study these languages and societies, and acquire some of the general skills involved. Here's the official description:
This course leads students to survey the languages and societies of the diverse peoples who have called the “Silk Road” region home up through the middle ages as understood from different perspectives within those societies. Rather than view cultures of this region as peripheral or the Silk Road as a mere transit corridor between empires, students will understand the region as a diverse cultural, economic, and scientific center in its own right that has had an enduring impact on world history.
Supported by dictionaries, grammar descriptions, and English translations, we will learn about these societies in part by conducting close readings of authentic texts written by people who lived in this region, including love songs, bragging about archery skills, alimony letters, shopping lists, complaints to superiors, etc., in languages including Imperial Aramaic, Sogdian, Khotanese Saka, Tokharian, Classical Tibetan, Old Turkic, and Middle Mongol. Interactions with adjacent societies, such as Persia, India, and China, will also be featured prominently.
The study of language change, dispersion, and exchange will be introduced by applying analytical tools to these languages, including reconstruction through systematic correspondences, isogloss maps, decipherment of unknown languages, palaeographic analysis of writing systems, morphological and phonological analysis, and comparison to currently spoken relatives. Topics such as vowel harmony, tonogenesis, and templatic and agglutinative morphology will be introduced.
By interacting with texts and building these analytical skills, students will be able to appreciate and explore the interconnectivity of this region throughout history.
Additionally, students will:
No textbook is required, but you will need to have access to the following resources:
You'll need to be able to access Moodle (moodle.swarthmore.edu). We'll be using it for assignments, readings, and your grades will be available there, so make sure you can access it as soon as possible. If you have any trouble with it, notify me as soon as you can. BiCo students may not have access to Moodle immediately at the beginning of the semester—let me know if this is the case for you, and I will make sure you have access to resources in some other way.
The course website (listed above, and linked to from the Moodle course) contains the schedule for the semester, which may be updated periodically to reflect changes in the schedule. It's recommended to check the website periodically. I will make announcements about any major changes.
We will have a shared Google Drive folder where we will sometimes work on collaborative activities and where you will share your presentations with the class. I will attempt to give everyone access in the first week of class; let me know if you don't have access by the second week!
We will occasionally use Figma (figma.com) to collaboratively edit maps and diagrams. You may log in with your Swarthmore Google credentials, but you should be able to access course materials without logging in (there will be a password listed on Moodle for accessing them). It's recommended you bring a device to class every day that you can use to do this kind of work—a device with a large touch screen is ideal (such as a tablet or touch-screen laptop), but anything that can access the site should be fine.
I hold regular office hours (listed above), and can be available at other times by appointment—just send me a message letting me know when you might prefer to meet.
If you are having any trouble with class, such as with understanding a concept or completing an assignment, please don't hesitate to ask me for help. I'm here to help you learn, so I encourage you to take advantage of my availability.
But even if you're not having trouble, it never hurts to come to office hours from time to time. We can discuss course content, ideas for the final project, or whatever's on your mind in a more relaxed atmosphere.
I'm also happy to meet online instead of in person.
Show up on time and silence electronic devices. Be courteous and cautious with food and drink. If you need to step out of the class for any reason (bathroom, emergency phone call, etc.), please do so with minimum disruption (i.e., don't ask for permission).
Please use devices with screens only for relevant classroom activities. In other words, please refrain from any sort of non-class-related activities, including messaging (e-mail, social media, etc.), homework for other courses, or even catching up on course reading. Even the best multitaskers are still not participating fully when they're engaging in unrelated endeavours. If it's too difficult to avoid the temptation of these other distractions, you may try strategies like disabling the computer's internet connection, using a filter for web usage, or similar.
All material covered during course-related activities—including assignments, discussions, and classmates' presentations—should be assumed to be required course content, and will be assumed background for later activities. It is each student's responsibility to attend all classes to learn the material covered.
That said, please don't come if you are feeling sick. If you must miss a class, it is courteous to notify your professor ahead of time if at all possible. If you are feeling well enough to pay attention but not to attend in person, you are encouraged to contact me at least 15 minutes before class starts, as I may be able to set up a Zoom link for you to join class that way.
Assignments will generally be due on Moodle before class time. Completion of the assignment is necessary for engaging with the day's topic, so it is essential that assignments be submitted on time.
Any assignments submitted late will be evaluated and feedback will be provided, but only up to half credit will be recorded.
If you need to miss class for a medical or personal reason, I'd appreciate you letting me know as soon as you can. I don't need a note from a doctor, and I don't need details about why, just when. Please see the College Medical Note Policy (http://www.swarthmore.edu/student-health/medical-excuse-policy) for additional details.
Using words or ideas from another source without attribution constitutes plagiarism, and misrepresenting another student's work as your own (or allowing another student to misrepresent your work as their own) is cheating. Please see the student handbook for the College's policies on academic misconduct (http://www.swarthmore.edu/student-handbook/academic-policies#academic_misconduct). Suspected cases of academic misconduct will be pursued to the full extent of College policy, including referral to the deans, after which it may go to the College Judicial Committee. Any assignment where academic misconduct is found by these bodies to have occurred will receive a grade of 0 or F, and these bodies may impose additional sanctions.
You are always expected to write up your own assignments. However, you may (and are encouraged to) discuss assignments with one another, unless otherwise specified. Just be sure to cite others' ideas when you use them, and always write the name of anyone you worked with. You are also permitted to use the internet as a resource, unless otherwise specified—as long as you avoid resources that present answers or solutions outright, such as large language models (see LLM policy).
In sum, please always cite any sources you use or other students you worked with on both homeworks and presentations. In the end, you must always do your own work—this means that you must state things in your own words and show that you understand any ideas that you got from another source (while acknowledging the other source).
In short, submitting work that is not your own or providing a classmate with a solution outright will be considered academic misconduct and will be addressed as such (see above-mentioned policies). If you have any questions about what's considered acceptable, ask me first.
It is up to you how you brainstorm and draft your responses on assignments. That said, I advise caution in the use of generative AI and Large Language Models (LLMs). For one, they often give factually wrong or logically flawed answers, which will be graded as incorrect just as if you’d come up with them yourself. Second, copy-pasting output from an LLM and claiming it as your own work is the same as copy-pasting any other material you didn’t write: it is plagiarism and will be treated as such. Lastly, you’ll learn far more in this course if you do your own thinking and leave the automated mansplainer out of it. (I’m also happy to talk more about the ethical issues involved in generative AI, including its environmental impact — let me know if you want resources!)
That said, for this class, on assignments where it is not explicitly forbidden, you may decide to use generative AI or LLMs to suggest sources or ways of approaching an issue you're having trouble with. But you must (1) invest your own energy into vetting the sources or suggested approaches yourself, (2) cite which tool you used to do what, and (3) present all your work in your own words.
Any work submitted for this class where use of generative AI or an LLM is suspected but not cited will be treated as suspected academic misconduct, as will any work submitted where the majority of the submission appears to have come from one of these tools.
There's a form accessible via Moodle for anonymous feedback on the course. I encourage everyone to periodically consider what's going well and what they would like to see changed about the course and let me know via the form.
There's also a link to a feedback form for anonymous comments to the department. These comments go straight to the TriCo Linguistics department chairs.
We may also have a midterm evaluation, which would give you an opportunity to share feedback about the course that could affect how I teach the second half of the semester.
Most of your assignments will be graded with a fine-grained measure of completion and correctness based on normal letters grades and grade points (A = 4.0, B = 3.0, C = 2.0, D = 1.0, and F = 0.0), with the standard modifiers + (one-third of a grade point higher) and - (one-third of a grade point lower). In addition, intermediate grades using parentheses or a slash may be used, giving the following correspondence between letter grade and grade points:
| A+ | 4.33 |
| A(+) | 4.17 |
| A | 4.00 |
| A(-) | 3.83 |
| A- | 3.67 |
| A/B | 3.50 |
| B+ | 3.33 |
| B(+) | 3.17 |
| B | 3.00 |
| B(-) | 2.83 |
| B- | 2.67 |
| B/C | 2.50 |
| C+ | 2.33 |
| C(+) | 2.17 |
| C | 2.00 |
| C(-) | 1.83 |
| C- | 1.67 |
| C/D | 1.50 |
| D+ | 1.33 |
| D(+) | 1.17 |
| D | 1.00 |
| D(-) | 0.83 |
| D- | 0.67 |
| D/F | 0.50 |
The grade in this course is broken down into the following components. Each component is expounded upon following the table.
| Homeworks: | 60% |
| Presentations: | 15% |
| Final project: | 10% |
| Engagement: | 15% |
Once or twice a week an assignment will be due that may involve attepmting an analysis or responding to a reading. These are due submitted to Moodle at the beginning of the class they are assigned for. See above for late policy.
Each student will make three presentations over the course of the semester, each worth 5% of the final grade:
The presentations will generally be conducted during class time, and should last approximately 10 to 20 minutes (aim for 15). The point of the presentation will be to go over the main points (and any worthwhile details) from the reading for your classmates who mostly didn't read it, and to engage the class in discussion on some of these topics. One way to structure these presentations is to begin by summarising the main point or points of the read materials, and then go into the supporting details. You may also consult other sources to support your presentation, but don't forget to mention you got information that wasn't in the primary reading. You should use some visual aid for your presentation, such as slides, graphs, pictures, etc. Consider adding (relevant) pictures to otherwise textual materials to spruce them up, but cite where you get such materials (and no machine-generated images please unless there's a good reason and, like other images, their origin is made explicit).
One reading will be on a linguistic topic and two on cultural and historical context.
The final paper or project will offer an opportunity to explore an issue of linguistic, social, cultural, or historical relevance to the Silk Road region more deeply. Digital scholarship and creative projects are encouraged. There will be a presentation during finals period to share what you did with your classmates, and a write-up based on your presentation and the feedback you receive from the professor and your peers. The presentation and write-up will each be worth 5% of your grade. Further details, as well as support in selecting a topic, will be provided later in the semester.
I do not grade on attendance, but you will be graded on engagement in the class, and this requires attendance. Beyond simply showing up and participating, you're encouraged to contribute to discussions by asking questions, answering prompts, making relevant comments, working with classmates on in-class activities, etc. You will not be ridiculed for asking even simple questions—I want to make sure everyone grasps the concepts, and many are not as straightforward as they may first seem (or as I think they are).
You are also expected to come to class prepared for discussion; this includes having completed readings and assignments due by class.
Included in engagement is participation in any guest speaker presentations.
If you believe you need accommodations for a disability or a chronic medical condition, please visit the Student Disability Services website for details about the accommodations process. Since accommodations require early planning and are not retroactive, contact Student Disability Services as soon as possible. You are also welcome to contact me privately to discuss your academic needs. However, all disability-related accommodations must be arranged, in advance, through Student Disability Services.
Success in this course depends heavily on your personal health and wellbeing. Recognise that stress is an expected part of the college experience, and it often can be compounded by unexpected setbacks or life changes outside the classroom. Your other instructors and I strongly encourage you to reframe challenges as an unavoidable pathway to success. Reflect on your role in taking care of yourself throughout the term, before the demands of exams and projects reach their peak. Please feel free to reach out to me about any difficulty you may be having that may impact your performance in this course as soon as it occurs and before it becomes unmanageable. In addition to your academic advisor, I strongly encourage you to contact the many other support services on campus that stand ready to assist you.
The Writing Center (Old Science Hall 120) is available to you as an additional out-of-class resource for developing any aspect of your writing, in any discipline—from brainstorming a topic, organizing a draft, to polishing a final submission. Writing Associates hold conferences in-person or through Zoom and can offer you a thoughtful reading of your document and talk with you about next steps. Speaking Associates can also help you prepare to give a presentation or lead seminar discussion. The Center is open Sunday through Thursday evenings and Monday through Thursday afternoons, starting the third week of classes. To set up your WCOnline account and schedule an appointment, sign in here: bit.ly/swatwritingcenter. You can also drop in during open hours. Want to know who is working when? See the Writing Center Schedule. Questions? Check the Writing Center Policies or email writing@swarthmore.edu.
For Multilingual Writers: Students for whom English is an additional language can drop by multilingual office hours or schedule individual consultations with Multilingual Writing Specialist Professor Mera Ford (Old Science Hall 104, nford1). Students can also join monthly Multilingual Writers’ Forums to share experiences, discuss academic resources, and enjoy affirming community. For further information, see the Multilingual Writing Specialist webpage.
| week | date | language | linguistic topic | society/culture topic | assignment (due by class) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 31 Aug | Introduction to course and region | |||
| 2 Sep | Proto Indo-European | Morphological change | What is the Silk Road? Indo-European expansion | ||
| 2 | 7 Sep | No class — Labour Day! | |||
| 9 Sep | Indo-European languages | Phonological change | Elements of Indo-European culture | ||
| 3 | 14 Sep | Ancient Indic & Iranian languages: Sanskrit, Avestan, Median, Old Persian | Models of language relatedness Linguistic reconstruction | The Scythians Ancient Indo-European/Chinese interaction | |
| 16 Sep | Imperial Aramaic | Lingua Francas | Aramaic as a lingua franca | ||
| 4 | 21 Sep | Imperial Aramaic | Autosegmental models of templatic morphology | ||
| 23 Sep | Chang'an and the Tang dynasty 'frontier' | ||||
| 5 | 28 Sep | Eastern Middle Iranian Languages Sogdian | The Sogdian Letters "The Merchant's Tale" | HW5: Reading Sogdian |
|
| 30 Sep | The language behind the "unknown Kushan script" | Language decipherment | |||
| 6 | 5 Oct | Khotanese Saka | Writing system transmission | HW6: Reading Khotanese Saka |
|
| 7 Oct | Turkic languages | Isoglosses & isogloss maps/mapping | |||
| 12 Oct | No class — Fall break! | ||||
| 14 Oct | No class — Fall break! | ||||
| 7 | 19 Oct | Turkic languages | Vowel harmony | HW7: Turkic language relatedness |
|
| 21 Oct | Old Turkic | Writing system creation | Indigenous historical accounts | HW8: Reading Old Turkic | |
| 8 | 26 Oct | Old Turkic | Interlinear glossing | "The Princess's Tale" | HW9: Interlinear glossing of Old Turkic |
| 28 Oct | Old Uyghur | HW10: Irq Bitig reading | |||
| 9 | 2 Nov | Tokharian languges | Music and other cultural exchange | ||
| 4 Nov | Tokharian B | HW11: Reading Tokharian B | |||
| 10 | 9 Nov | Loanwords, wanderwords | "The Pilgrim's Tale" | ||
| 11 Nov | Tibetan | Tonogenesis | HW12: Reading Tibetan | ||
| 11 | 16 Nov | Syntactic change | "The Nun's Tale" Dunhuang caves | HW13: Syntactic change |
|
| 18 Nov | Middle Mongol | HW14: Reading Middle Mongol | |||
| 12 | 23 Nov | Middle Mongol | HW15: More Middle Mongol reading |
||
| 25 Nov | A new route through the grasslands | ||||
| 13 | 30 Nov | "Altaic" languages | Language contact & linguistic convergence | ||
| 2 Dec | Parts East: Nusantra to New Guinea | ||||
| 14 | 7 Dec | Legacies of the Silk Road Today | HW16: Response to Hansen's conclusion | ||
| TBA | final presentations! | ||||