American Indian Languages The Historical Linguistics of Native America

by Campbell, Lyle

• ISBN13: 9780195140507
• ISBN10: 0195140508
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2000-09-21
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

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.

Table of Contents

Phonetic Symbols	xii
Note on the Classification Lists and the Maps	xiv
Introduction	3	(23)
Appendix Native American Pidgins and Trade Languages	18	(8)
The History of American Indian Linguistics	26	(64)
Appendix Comparison of Major Classifications of North American Languages	86	(4)
The Origin of Native American Languages	90	(17)
Languages of North America	107	(49)
Languages of Middle America	156	(14)
Languages of South America	170	(36)
Distant Genetic Relationships: The Methods	206	(54)
Distant Genetic Relationships: The Proposals	260	(70)
Linguistic Areas of the Americas	330	(23)
Maps	353	(24)
Notes	377	(52)
References	429	(54)
Index of Languages, Language Families, and Proposed Genetic Relationships	483	(21)
Author Index	504	(6)
Subject Index	510