American Indian Languages: Cultural and Social Contexts

About this book

This comprehensive survey of indigenous languages of the New World introduces students and general readers to the mosaic of American Indian languages and cultures and offers an approach to grasping their subtleties. Authors Silver and Miller demonstrate the complexity and diversity of these languages while dispelling popular misconceptions. Their text reveals the linguistic richness of languages found throughout the Americas emphasizing those located in the western United States and Mexico while drawing on a wide range of other examples found from Canada to the Andes. It introduces readers to such varied aspects of communicating as directionals and counting systems storytelling expressive speech Mexican Kickapoo whistle speech and Plains sign language. The authors have included basics of grammar and historical linguistics while emphasizing such issues as speech genres and other sociolinguistic issues and the relation between language and worldview. They have incorporated a variety of data that have rarely or never received attention in nontechnical literature in order to underscore the linguistic diversity of the Americas and have provided more extensive language classification lists than are found in most other texts. American Indian Languages: Cultural and Social Contexts is a comprehensive resource that will serve as a text in undergraduate and lower-level graduate courses on Native American languages and provide a useful reference for students of American Indian literature or general linguistics. It also introduces general readers interested in Native Americans to the amazing diversity and richness of indigenous American languages.Coverage includes: Achumawi Acoma Algonquin Apache Araucanian Arawakan Athapascan Atsugewi Ayamara Bacairi Bella Coola Beothuk Biloxi Blackfoot Caddoan Cahto Cahuilla Cakchiquel Carib Cayuga Chemehuevi Cherokee Chibchan Chichimec Chimakuan Chimariko Chinook Chipewyan Choctaw-Chickasaw Chol Cocopa Coeur dAlene Comanche Coos Cora Cree Creek Crow Cubeo Cupeo Dakota Delaware Diegueo Eskimo-Aleut Esselen Eyak Fox Gros Ventre Guaran Guarijo Haida Havasupai Hill Patwin Hopi Huastec Huave Hupa Inuit-Inupiaq Iroquois Jaqaru Je Jicaque Kalapuyan Kamia Karankawas Karuk Kashaya Keres Kickapoo Kiliwa Kiowa-Tanoan Koasati Konkow Kuna Kwakiutl Kwalhioqua-Tlatskanai Lakota Lenca Luiseo Maidu Mapuche Markoosie Mayan Mazahua Mazatec Mtis Mexica Micmac Misumalpan Mitchif Miwok Mixe-Zoquean Mixtec Mobilian Mohave Mohawk Muskogean Nahuatl Natchez Navajo Nez Perce Nheengat Nicola Nomlaki Nootka Ojibwa Oneida Oodham Otom Paiute Palaihnihan Panamint Panoan Paya Pima Pipil Pomo Poplocan Pueblo Puquina Purpecha Quechua Quich Quileute Sahaptian Salish Seneca Sequoyah Seri Serrano Shasta Shoshoni Sioux Sirenikski Slavey Subtiaba-Tlapanec Tano Takelma Tanaina Tarahumara Tequistlatecan Tewa Tlingit Toba Toltec Totonac Tsimshian Tubatulabal Tukano Tunica Tup Ute Uto-Aztecan Vaups Ventureo Wakashan Walapai Wappo Washo Wintu Wiyot Xinca Yahi Yana Yokuts Yucatec Yuchi Yuki Yuma Yurok Zapotec Zoquean Zuni