American Indian Languages
American Indian Languages

Author: Lyle Campbell

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2000-09-21

Total Pages: 527

ISBN-13: 0195349830

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Native American languages are spoken from Siberia to Greenland, and from the Arctic to Tierra del Fuego; they include the southernmost language of the world (Yaghan) and some of the northernmost (Eskimoan). Campbell's project is to take stock of what is currently known about the history of Native American languages and in the process examine the state of American Indian historical linguistics, and the success and failure of its various methodologies. There is remarkably little consensus in the field, largely due to the 1987 publication of Language in the Americas by Joseph Greenberg. He claimed to trace a historical relation between all American Indian languages of North and South America, implying that most of the Western Hemisphere was settled by a single wave of immigration from Asia. This has caused intense controversy and Campbell, as a leading scholar in the field, intends this volume to be, in part, a response to Greenberg. Finally, Campbell demonstrates that the historical study of Native American languages has always relied on up-to-date methodology and theoretical assumptions and did not, as is often believed, lag behind the European historical linguistic tradition.

Mobilian Jargon
Mobilian Jargon

Author: Emanuel J. Drechsel

Publisher:

Published: 1997-02-06

Total Pages: 424

ISBN-13:

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Drawing on fieldwork and archival research, Drechsel presents a grammatical, sociolinguistic, and ethnohistorical study of Mobilian Jargon, a Muskogean-based American Indian pidgin of the Mississippi valley. Though linguistic and extralinguistic evidence points to Mobilian Jargon's pre-Columbian origin, it was primarily spoken between 1700 and the mid-twentieth century, when it functioned as a lingua franca among linguistically diverse southeastern Native American groups, and in contact between these groups and non-Indians. Drechsel's study questions the universality of some concepts developed in pidgin and creole linguistics, and carries significant implications for the ethnology of Native American peoples, and for the history of North America.

Mobilian Trade Language Phrasebook and Lexicon
Mobilian Trade Language Phrasebook and Lexicon

Author: David V. Kaufman

Publisher:

Published: 2017-12-07

Total Pages:

ISBN-13: 9780999548608

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Mobilian Trade Language Phrasebook and Lexicon is an attempt to encourage revitalization of the now dormant Mobilian Trade Language (MTL). This trade, or pidgin, language was, up until the latter part of the twentieth century, a part of the landscape of the American South and was an important means of communication among various indigenous groups as well as later among Europeans and Africans. This book is designed to get people learning and speaking the language as quickly as possible through learning basic vocabulary and using short phrases.

The Cambridge History of the English Language: English in North America
The Cambridge History of the English Language: English in North America

Author: Richard M. Hogg

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 1992

Total Pages: 676

ISBN-13: 9780521264792

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The volumes of The Cambridge history of the English language reflect the spread of English from its beginnings in Anglo-Saxon England to its current role as a multifaceted global language that dominates international communication in the 21st century.

Language and Linguistic Diversity in the US
Language and Linguistic Diversity in the US

Author: Susan Tamasi

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2014-12-02

Total Pages: 469

ISBN-13: 1136579044

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This highly engaging textbook presents a linguistic view of the history, society, and culture of the United States. It discusses the many languages and forms of language that have been used in the US – including standard and nonstandard forms of English, creoles, Native American languages, and immigrant languages from across the globe – and shows how this distribution and diversity of languages has helped shape and define America as well as an American identity. The volume introduces the basic concepts of sociolinguistics and the politics of language through cohesive, up-to-date and accessible coverage of such key topics as dialectal development and the role of English as the majority language, controversies concerning language use in society, languages other than English used in the US, and the policies that have directly or indirectly influenced language use. These topics are presented in such a way that students can examine the inherent diversity of the communicative systems used in the United States as both a form of cultural enrichment and as the basis for socio-political conflict. The author team outlines the different viewpoints on contemporary issues surrounding language in the US and contextualizes these issues within linguistic facts, to help students think critically and formulate logical discussions. To provide opportunities for further examination and debate, chapters are organized around key misconceptions or questions ("I don't have an accent" or "Immigrants don't want to learn English"), bringing them to the forefront for readers to address directly. Language and Linguistic Diversity in the US is a fresh and unique take on a widely taught topic. It is ideal for students from a variety of disciplines or with no prior knowledge of the field, and a useful text for introductory courses on language in the US, American English, language variation, language ideology, and sociolinguistics.

The Historic Indian Tribes of Louisiana
The Historic Indian Tribes of Louisiana

Author: Fred B. Kniffen

Publisher: LSU Press

Published: 1994-09-01

Total Pages: 348

ISBN-13: 9780807119631

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Although many specialized studies have been written about Louisiana's Indian tribes, no complete account has appeared regarding their long, varied history. The Historic Indian Tribes of Louisiana: From 1542 to the Present is a highly informative study that reconstructs the history and cultural evolution of these people. This study identifies tribal groups, charts their migrations within the state, and discusses their languages and customs. According to the authors, the first descriptions of Louisiana Indians are contained in accounts kept by members of Hernando de Soto's expedition In the 1540s. The next recorders of Indian life were the French in the 1700s. European influences irrevocably marked the Indians' lives. The natives lost tribal lands to the new settlers and replaced many of their weapons and tools with those of the Europeans. Diseases apparently introduced by the Spaniards decimated entire tribes and caused the disappearance of certain tribal languages that had never been recorded. However, much of Indian material culture has survived even to the present, including the dugout canoe, or pirogue, and the beautiful cane basketry of the Chitimacha tribe.According to the authors, current figures show that Louisiana has the third largest native American population in the eastern United States. Several of Louisiana's present-day Indian tribes, such as the Tunica-Biloxi, Choctaw, and Koasati, entered the state in the second half of the eighteenth century. They gradually established settlements throughout the state, at times displacing the native tribes. Today, many of Louisiana's Indians work in business and industry and as farmers and loggers.The Historic Indian Tribes of Louisiana is a valuable contribution to the literature on Louisiana History. It will be of interest to anthropologists, geographers, historians, and anyone wanting to know more about these important members of Louisiana's population.

Speaking American
Speaking American

Author: Richard W. Bailey

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2012-01-04

Total Pages: 226

ISBN-13: 0199921466

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

When did English become American? What distinctive qualities made it American? What role have America's democratizing impulses, and its vibrantly heterogeneous speakers, played in shaping our language and separating it from the mother tongue? A wide-ranging account of American English, Richard Bailey's Speaking American investigates the history and continuing evolution of our language from the sixteenth century to the present. The book is organized in half-century segments around influential centers: Chesapeake Bay (1600-1650), Boston (1650-1700), Charleston (1700-1750), Philadelphia (1750-1800), New Orleans (1800-1850), New York (1850-1900), Chicago (1900-1950), Los Angeles (1950-2000), and Cyberspace (2000-present). Each of these places has added new words, new inflections, new ways of speaking to the elusive, boisterous, ever-changing linguistic experiment that is American English. Freed from British constraints of unity and propriety, swept up in rapid social change, restless movement, and a thirst for innovation, Americans have always been eager to invent new words, from earthy frontier expressions like "catawampously" (vigorously) and "bung-nipper" (pickpocket), to West African words introduced by slaves such as "goober" (peanut) and "gumbo" (okra), to urban slang such as "tagging" (spraying graffiti) and "crew" (gang). Throughout, Bailey focuses on how people speak and how speakers change the language. The book is filled with transcripts of arresting voices, precisely situated in time and space: two justices of the peace sitting in a pumpkin patch trying an Indian for theft; a crowd of Africans lounging on the waterfront in Philadelphia discussing the newly independent nation in their home languages; a Chicago gangster complaining that his pocket had been picked; Valley Girls chattering; Crips and Bloods negotiating their gang identities in LA; and more. Speaking American explores--and celebrates--the endless variety and remarkable inventiveness that have always been at the heart of American English.