Osage Grammar
Osage Grammar

Author: Carolyn Quintero

Publisher: U of Nebraska Press

Published: 2004-01-01

Total Pages: 532

ISBN-13: 9780803238039

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When Europeans first made contact with the Osages, they lived in present-day Missouri, along the Osage River. After being forced onto a reservation, the Osages purchased land from the Cherokees in Indian Territory and resettled in northeastern Oklahoma in the later part of the nineteenth century. Today the Osage tribe numbers about 18,000, but only two elders still speak the traditional language, a member of the Siouan family of languages. Osage Grammar is the first documentation of how the Osage language works, including more than two thousand sentences from Osage speakers, and a detailed description of its phonology, morphology, and syntax. Also featured are such components as verb conjugations, derivation, and suffixes; kinship terms; and the nominal system. The importance of documenting a language, especially when on the verge of extinction, can hardly be overstated. Growing up in Osage County, Oklahoma, Carolyn Quintero has been documenting the Osage language for twenty years, speaking to more than a dozen elders and transcribing hundreds of hours of interviews. Her research could not now be repeated since most of the elders whose words appear on these pages are gone. This book will become an essential reference and guide for all scholars and students interested in the Osage language and in other Siouan languages of the West. Osage Grammar will also serve as a bedrock for the present revitalization of Osage culture and language within the community.

Osage Dictionary
Osage Dictionary

Author: Carolyn Quintero

Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press

Published: 2014-10-22

Total Pages: 385

ISBN-13: 0806186232

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Osage, a language of the Dhegiha branch of the Siouan family, was spoken until recently by tribal members in northeastern Oklahoma. No longer in daily use, it was in danger of extinction. Carolyn Quintero, a linguist raised in Osage County, worked with the last few fluent speakers of the language to preserve the sounds and textures of their complex speech. Compiled after painstaking work with these tribal elders, her Osage Dictionary is the definitive lexicon for that tongue, enhanced with thousands of phrases and sentences that illustrate fine points of usage. Drawing on a collaboration with the late Robert Bristow, an amateur linguist who had compiled copious notes toward an Osage dictionary, Quintero interviewed more than a dozen Osage speakers to explore crucial aspects of their language. She has also integrated into the dictionary explications of relevant material from Francis La Flesche’s 1932 dictionary of Osage and from James Owen Dorsey’s nineteenth-century research. The dictionary includes over three thousand main entries, each of which gives full grammatical information and notes variant pronunciations. The entries also provide English translations of copious examples of usage. The book’s introductory sections provide a description of syntax, morphology, and phonology. Employing a simple Siouan adaptation of the International Phonetic Alphabet, Quintero’s transcription of Osage sounds is more precise and accurate than that in any previous work on the language. An index provides Osage equivalents for more than five thousand English words and expressions, facilitating quick reference. As the most comprehensive lexical record of the Osage language—the only one that will ever be possible, given the loss of fluent speakers—Quintero’s dictionary is indispensable not only for linguists but also for Osage students seeking to relearn their language. It is a living monument to the elegance and complexity of a language nearly lost to time and stands as a major contribution to the study of North American Indians.

Vital Relations
Vital Relations

Author: Jean Dennison

Publisher: UNC Press Books

Published: 2024-04-10

Total Pages: 166

ISBN-13: 1469676982

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Relationality is a core principle of Indigenous studies, yet there is relatively little work that assesses what building relations looks like in practice, especially in the messy context of Native nations' governance. Focusing on the unique history and context of Osage nation building efforts, this insightful ethnography provides a deeper vision of the struggles Native nation leaders are currently facing. Exploring the Osage philosophy of moving to a new country as a framework for relational governance, Jean Dennison shows that for the Osage, nation building is an ongoing process of reworking colonial constraints to serve the nation's own ends. As Dennison argues, Osage officials have undertaken deliberate changes to strengthen Osage relations to their language, self-governance, health, and land—core needs for a people to thrive now and into the future. Scholars and future Indigenous leaders can learn from the Osage Nation's past challenges, strategies, and ongoing commitments to better enact the difficult work of Indigenous nation building.

Clues to Lower Mississippi Valley Histories
Clues to Lower Mississippi Valley Histories

Author: David V. Kaufman

Publisher: University of Nebraska Press

Published: 2020-10-01

Total Pages: 258

ISBN-13: 1496222237

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2019 Choice Outstanding Academic Title In Clues to Lower Mississippi Valley Histories David V. Kaufman offers a stunning relational analysis of social, cultural, and linguistic change in the Lower Mississippi Valley from 500 to 1700. He charts how linguistic evidence aids the understanding of earlier cultural and social patterns, traces the diaspora of indigenous peoples, and uncovers instances of human migration. Historical linguistics establishes evidence of contact between indigenous peoples in the linguistic record where other disciplinary approaches have obscured these connections. The Mississippi Valley is the heartland of early North American civilizations, a rich and diversified center of transportation for every part of eastern North America and to Mesoamerica. The Lower Mississippi Valley region emerged as the home of the earliest mound-building societies in the Americas and was home to some of the most impressive kingdoms encountered by Spanish and French explorers. The languages of the region provide the key to the realities experienced by these indigenous peoples, their histories, and their relationships. Clues to Lower Mississippi Valley Histories focuses on relationships that constitute what linguists call a sprachbund (language union), or language area. Kaufman illuminates and articulates these linguistic relationships through a skillful examination of archaeological and ethnohistorical data. Clues to Lower Mississippi Valley Histories examines the relationship between linguistics and archaeology to elucidate the early history of the Lower Mississippi Valley.

Missouri
Missouri

Author:

Publisher: Missouri History Museum

Published: 1998

Total Pages: 800

ISBN-13: 9781883982232

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Once considered a "foolish boondoggle" of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's Works Progress Administration, the Federal Writers' Project was initiated to allow employment opportunity to those associated with the arts during the Great Depression. The American Guide Series became the most successful venture, offering jobs to writers nationwide as each state endeavored to produce a comprehensive guidebook. Under the direction of Charles van Ravenswaay, former director of the Missouri Historical Society, Missouri: A Guide to the "Show Me" State was first published in 1941. Now, in a classic reprint, Missouri Historical Society Press restores this guidebook to its original splendor and returns it to the bookshelves. With a current road map included with the book, travelers can compare sights and tours described in the antiquated guide and see how they have developed or disappeared. As Walter A. Schroeder and Howard W. Marshall describe in the updated introduction, "The `unmarked, dirt road, impassable when wet, ' that we encounter in reading the WPA guide is no longer a hurdle to be negotiated in order to reach an out-of-the-way site." Due to nearly thirty thousand additional miles of paved roadway and endless gas station and motel chains, every corner of Missouri is now easily accessible. And, as Missouri Historical Society President Robert R. Archibald states in the foreword, "If you are the kind of traveler who has no intention of stirring from a comfortable chair near the reading lamp, this reprint is really all the equipment you require for a fascinating journey through the Missouri of the past."