This volume draws on an interdisciplinary team of authors to advance the study of the religious dimensions of communication and the linguistic aspects of religion. Contributions cover: poetry, iconicity, and iconoclasm in religious language; semiotic ideologies in traditional religions and in secularism; and the role of materiality and writing in religious communication. This volume will provoke new approaches to language and religion.

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Leading scholars report on current research that demonstrates the central role of cultural evolution in explaining human behavior. Over the past few decades, a growing body of research has emerged from a variety of disciplines to highlight the importance of cultural evolution in understanding human behavior. Wider application of these insights, however, has been hampered by traditional disciplinary boundaries. To remedy this, in this volume leading researchers from theoretical biology, developmental and cognitive psychology, linguistics, anthropology, sociology, religious studies, history, and economics come together to explore the central role of cultural evolution in different aspects of human endeavor. The contributors take as their guiding principle the idea that cultural evolution can provide an important integrating function across the various disciplines of the human sciences, as organic evolution does for biology. The benefits of adopting a cultural evolutionary perspective are demonstrated by contributions on social systems, technology, language, and religion. Topics covered include enforcement of norms in human groups, the neuroscience of technology, language diversity, and prosociality and religion. The contributors evaluate current research on cultural evolution and consider its broader theoretical and practical implications, synthesizing past and ongoing work and sketching a roadmap for future cross-disciplinary efforts. Contributors Quentin D. Atkinson, Andrea Baronchelli, Robert Boyd, Briggs Buchanan, Joseph Bulbulia, Morten H. Christiansen, Emma Cohen, William Croft, Michael Cysouw, Dan Dediu, Nicholas Evans, Emma Flynn, Pieter François, Simon Garrod, Armin W. Geertz, Herbert Gintis, Russell D. Gray, Simon J. Greenhill, Daniel B. M. Haun, Joseph Henrich, Daniel J. Hruschka, Marco A. Janssen, Fiona M. Jordan, Anne Kandler, James A. Kitts, Kevin N. Laland, Laurent Lehmann, Stephen C. Levinson, Elena Lieven, Sarah Mathew, Robert N. McCauley, Alex Mesoudi, Ara Norenzayan, Harriet Over, Jürgen Renn, Victoria Reyes-García, Peter J. Richerson, Stephen Shennan, Edward G. Slingerland, Dietrich Stout, Claudio Tennie, Peter Turchin, Carel van Schaik, Matthijs Van Veelen, Harvey Whitehouse, Thomas Widlok, Polly Wiessner, David Sloan Wilson

No detailed description available for "On language, culture and religion".

Language and Religion offers an innovative theory of religion as a class of cultural representations, dependent on language to unify diverse capacities of the human mind. It argues that religion is widespread because it is implicit in the way the mind processes the world, as it determines what we ought to do, practically and morally, to achieve our goals. Focusing on the world religions, the book relates modern cognitive theories of language and communication to culture and its dissemination. It explains basic features of religion such as the supernatural, the normative, abstract and ideal theological concepts such as 'God', and religious feeling. It develops a linguistic theory, based on how utterances are understood, of metaphysical and moral 'mysteries' and their key role in thought and action. It shows how such concepts gain strength in the light of their successful use and, when tempered by criticism, can also have genuine authority.

This is an eclectic collection of essays which successfully demonstrate how the Sociology of Language and Religion as a disciplinary paradigm responds to change, conflict and accommodation. The multiple religious coverage in the essays (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) as well as more or less global panorama.

Mohammad Ali Jazayery: Edgar C. Polome?A Biographical SketchHomer Thomas: Indo-European?From the Paleolithic to the NeolithicEmily Lyle: Markedness and Encompassment in Relation to Indo-European CosmogonyV. N. Toporov: Indo-European *eg?h-om (*He-g?h-om) ? *men-. 1 Sg. Pron. Pers. in the Light of GlossogeneticsHans Henrich Hock: On the Origin and Early Development of the Sacred Sanskrit Syllable OM*G.A. Klimov: The Kartvelian Analogue of Proto-Indo-European *sumb(h)o- 'spongy, porous?Vitaly Shevoroshkin: On Carian Language and WritingF. Villar: The Numeral 'Two? and Its Number MarkingOnofrio Carruba: Searching for Woman in Anatolian and Indo-European byH. Craig Melchert: Death and the Hittite KingJos Weitenberg: The Meaning of the Expression ?To Become a Wolf? in Hittite byPierre Swiggers: The Indo-European Origin of the Greek Meters?Antoine Meillet?s Views and their Reception by Emile Benveniste and Nikolai TrubetzkoyK.R. Norman: ?As Rare as Fig-Flowers?Guy Jucquois: Regles d?echange, voeux monastiques et tripartition fonctionnelleWolfgang Meid: Ethnos und Sprache.