15 March, 2017

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“Unforgiven”the Movie

Thefilm titled Unforgiven was released in 1992 and stars Clint Eastwoodas the leading role with, Morgan Freeman, Richard Harris, and GeneHackman. The film set in the year 1880 is a story about a formerlyreformed gunslinger and cold-blooded killer called William Munny whoafter eleven years of quiet life without violence or alcohol, now astruggling widower tending to a failing farm and raising two childrenis pulled back into the world of killing again to help raise hischildren.

InWyoming, after two raunchy cowboys assault and cut up the face of oneof the girls in a brothel, the rest of the prostitutes decide toplace a $1000 head bounty on the two cowboys because they feeljustice was not done for their friend after the two cowboys are onlyasked, as their punishment, to pay the brothel owner compensation forthe girl they cut up. It is with the knowledge of this bounty moneythat a young man calling himself the Scofield Kid heads to Kansaslooking for William Munny to join him as a partner to collect thebounty.

Munnyinitially declines but after thinking about it, about the state ofhis farm he changes his mind and invites his former partner Ned Loganto come with them. The three head to Big Whiskey in Wyoming where therest of the story transpires. They meet the local sheriff Little Billwho was a former gunfighter himself who does not allow weapons in histown. The three bounty hunters encounter resistance from the sheriffand his deputies who end up torturing and killing Munnys partner andfriend Ned Logan an act that enrages Munny who momentarily revertsback to his murderous self and cold-bloodedly kills Little Bill andinjures his deputies then goes back to his children.

Atthe film’s beginning, a titled epilogue card tells of a womanmarried to William Munny who dies not from the hand of Munny as hermother had expected but from smallpox in 1878. This sneak of a pastthat is just before1878 enables the writer of the film to expresscertain sentiments about Munny no longer being violent and murderousand capable of love and caring a fact that is not revisited throughthe entire film until the end. The writer uses a fact from the pastto hint about the present.

Whenthe Scofield Kid talks to William Munny and invites him to be hispartner, Munny initially declines but the young man tells him he iswelcome to follow him if he changes his mind. The film depicts thelapse in time that Munny takes to realize that he needs the moneyfrom the bounty for his children by the chores he performs in his pigfarm, the gun aiming practice he indulges in and him shaving hisbeard depicts that at least a day has passed. The small activities heengages in at his home are used in the film to show passing of timeafter which he decides to catch up with the young man for the bounty.

Whenthe three are on their way to Wyoming on their horses, the lapse intime through their journey to Wyoming said to be about a week isshown by the night they spend around a fire and the early morninghorse ride through the morning fog are used to show the lapse of timeand the consequently the progress of their journey. Also after Munnyis badly attacked by Little Bill and his friends are nursing him backto health, the film shows that he takes a few months to recover bythe change of the season winter.


Kitses,Jim. Horizons West: Directing the Western from John Ford to ClintEastwood. British Film Institute 2 Rev 1stEd, 2008. Print.

Ebert,Roger. “Unforgiven Movie Review &amp Film Summary (1992).”Rogerebert.com. Ebert Digital LLC, 21 July 2002. Web. Mar. 2017.

Jardine,Gail. “Clint: Cultural Critic, Cowboy of Cathartic Change.” ArtJournal, Vol. 53, No. 3. An Issue to “C” (Autumn, 1994), pp.74-75. Print.

15 March 2017

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15March 2017

BalkanLinguistic Area

Alinguistic area is a specified geographical area of which severallanguages often share most of the common features and often speak ina similar manner with related intonations and lingual phonetics.These set of languages are structurally similar to each other to acertain level that we would not expect to their degree of theirgenealogical relativity.

Mytarget linguistic group, the Balkans, is a geographical area thatconsists of many linguistic communities. However, to understandbetter this linguistic area, we ought to understand the countriesthat make up this particular linguistic, geographical area. Thecountries in this region include Albania, Romania, Greece, Bulgaria,Macedonia, Bosnia and Yugoslavia. The European Turkey which is oftena small region located in Istanbul is also considered to be locatedin the Balkan geographical radius. In some of the researches, otherscholars consider Croatia to be a part of the Balkans (Friedman, pp190). Figure1. Map showing the Balkan Linguistic Area.

TheBalkans have majorly six language families in that particular area.They often have a slight variation from the other languages in thearea. To begin with, Albania is an Indo-European language which isnot so much related it the other European Languages. This languagefamily is the only spoken Illyrian language in the world. Besides,it contains two dialects which are the Tosk dialect which iscurrently used and the Gheg dialect which was mainly utilized in theSecond World War. Secondly, the Bulgarian language family is a Slaviclanguage that is directly related to the Serbo-Croatian, it usesCyrillic alphabet which is a similar case seen in the Serbian. Greeklanguage family, on the other hand, is also considered a member ofthe Indo-European family. It has also examined a native to theBalkans. The Greek family continues to use the Greek alphabet.Romania ion the other hand is considered a romance language. This,therefore, means that it is based on Latin. The language family isalso similar to the Italian language, and it is mainly considered tobe a miracle story which relies on the story of Dacia who was theancestor land of Romania. The Daco-Romanic dialect was formed so fastduring this time since the Dacians learned Latin so fast (Rett,pp180).

TheAromanian language is also worth mentioning since it highly resemblesRomania language. The language area on the other hand also has theAlbanian, Serbian and the Greek influences. Serbo-Croatians isanother language family of the Balkans. This is also considered aSlavic language that is also spoken by the Croats. However, whereasthe Croats mostly use the Latin alphabet, the Serbs mainly use theCyrillic alphabet which is very similar to the Russian alphabet. Italso has three dialects, which are Shtokavian, Chakavian and theKajkavian. The last language family in this exact area is theMacedonian. It is a relatively new country in the Balkan geographicalcircle. The major sure way of determining the Macedonian language isthat it uses the South Slavic vocabulary. It is also spoken incertain communities in Albania, Serbia, and Romania. In addition, ituses the Cyrillic alphabet.

TheBalkan language area is considered a language area because of thesimilarities in grammar, vocabulary, syntax and the phonology amidstthe languages in the language area. These languages share severalfeatures. However, the features do not necessarily mean that theindividual languages all have the same language phonetics. Thecommonly spoken languages are the Balkan Slavic, the Albanian, theGreek and the Romani. These form the main languages in the Balkanlanguage area.

Theorigin of the Balkans has often posed a great challenge to scholars.Many scholars have written about the possible origins of thelanguages of the Balkans with a great percentage arguing that theremight be some elements of genetic origins ion the language area. Somewriters also explain that for such a complex linguistic area toemerge, they must share a similar genetic background at some point ittime. However, there is no substantial evidence proving this fact.

Inconclusion, language convergent among the Balkans is a significantcase and a unique one as well. Language convergence often occurs inspecified geographical areas that have two or more languages that arenot exactly related coming together in contact. This contact oftenresults in a group of languages sharing similar linguistic featureswhich are not necessarily inherited from either of the language’sproto-language. Therefore, a good case in point is the Balkanlanguage area. This language area first came into contact between theyears AD800 and AD170. This connection led to the changes in thephonology, lexicon, morphology and syntax of the involved languagegroups which are the Albanian, Bulgarian, Greek and the Romanian. TheBalkan convergence is often considered a rare and extreme case oflanguage convergence. Balkan Slavic is the most dominant languageamong the Balkans. They are considered the largest Indo-Europeanlinguistic group. From the early 6ty century, they had inhabited mostof the Central, Eastern and the southern Eastern Europe. 50% ofEurope contain states with Slavic languages.


Friedman,Victor A. &quotPerhaps mirativity is phlogiston, but admirativity isperfect: On Balkan evidential strategies.&quot LinguisticTypology16.3 (2012): n. pag. Web.

Rett,Jessica. &quotHow &quotmany&quot Maximizes in the BalkanSprachbund.&quot Semanticsand Linguistic Theory(2015): 190. Web.