Overview

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 d'Alene, Comanche, Coos, Cora, Cree, Creek, Crow, Cubeo, Cupeno, Dakota, Delaware, Diegueno, Eskimo-Aleut, Esselen, Eyak, Fox, Gros Ventre, Guarani, Guarijio, 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, Luiseno, Maidu, Mapuche, Markoosie, Mayan, Mazahua, Mazatec, Metis, Mexica, Micmac, Misumalpan, Mitchif, Miwok, Mixe-Zoquean, Mixtec, Mobilian, Mohave, Mohawk, Muskogean, Nahuatl, Natchez, Navajo, Nez Perce, Nheengatu, Nicola, Nomlaki, Nootka, Ojibwa, Oneida, O'odham, Otomi, Paiute, Palaihnihan, Panamint, Panoan, Paya, Pima, Pipil, Pomo, Poplocan, Pueblo, Puquina, Purpecha, Quechua, Quiche, Quileute, Sahaptian, Salish, Seneca, Sequoyah, Seri, Serrano, Shasta, Shoshoni, Sioux, Sirenikski, Slavey, Subtiaba-Tlapanec, Taino, Takelma, Tanaina, Tarahumara, Tequistlatecan, Tewa, Tlingit, Toba, Toltec, Totonac, Tsimshian, Tubatulabal, Tukano, Tunica, Tupi, Ute, Uto-Aztecan, Vaupes, Venturei??o , Wakashan, Walapai, Wappo, Washo, Wintu, Wiyot, Xinca, Yahi, Yana, Yokuts, Yucatec, Yuchi, Yuki, Yuma, Yurok, Zapotec, Zoquean, Zuni

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9780816521395

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Reviews

There is no better introduction to American Indian languages than this volume. Highly readable and accessible to a general audience, it is a fine read for anyone interested in the subject. Native California [There are] no less than 160 languages or language families of North and South America on which substantive information is given, from Inuit to Araucanian and from Eyak to Creek. Along with topics long familiar to specialists such as Sapir's discussion of the northern origin of the Navajo, and Haas's work on Koasati genderlects there is much fresh material from Silver's and Miller's own field research. Language in Society It would be the perfect, authoritative book for that ideal course on American Indian languages that we all yearn to teach. But there is so much in it, so lucidly explained, that it could serve equally well as the organizing text for the more general courses on the anthropology of language that we more frequently give. SSILA Newsletter

There is no better introduction to American Indian languages than this volume. Highly readable and accessible to a general audience, it is a fine read for anyone interested in the subject. --Native California [There are] no less than 160 languages or language families of North and South America on which substantive information is given, from Inuit to Araucanian and from Eyak to Creek. Along with topics long familiar to specialists--such as Sapir's discussion of the northern origin of the Navajo, and Haas's work on Koasati genderlects--there is much fresh material from Silver's and Miller's own field research. --Language in Society It would be the perfect, authoritative book for that ideal course on American Indian languages that we all yearn to teach. But there is so much in it, so lucidly explained, that it could serve equally well as the organizing text for the more general courses on the anthropology of language that we more frequently give. --SSILA Newsletter

There is no better introduction to American Indian languages than this volume. Highly readable and accessible to a general audience, it is a fine read for anyone interested in the subject. --Native California [There are] no less than 160 languages or language families of North and South America on which substantive information is given, from Inuit to Araucanian and from Eyak to Creek. Along with topics long familiar to specialists--such as Sapir's discussion of the northern origin of the Navajo, and Haas's work on Koasati genderlects--there is much fresh material from Silver's and Miller's own field research. --Language in Society It would be the perfect, authoritative book for that ideal course on American Indian languages that we all yearn to teach. But there is so much in it, so lucidly explained, that it could serve equally well as the organizing text for the more general courses on the anthropology of language that we more frequently give. --Society for the Study of the Indigenous Languages of the Americas Newsletter

There is no better introduction to American Indian languages than this volume. Highly readable and accessible to a general audience, it is a fine read for anyone interested in the subject. -- Native California [There are no less than 160 languages or language families of North and South America on which substantive information is given, from Inuit to Araucanian and from Eyak to Creek. Along with topics long familiar to specialists--such as Sapir's discussion of the northern origin of the Navajo, and Haas's work on Koasati genderlects--there is much fresh material from Silver's and Miller's own field research. -- Language in Society It would be the perfect, authoritative book for that ideal course on American Indian languages that we all yearn to teach. But there is so much in it, so lucidly explained, that it could serve equally well as the organizing text for the more general courses on the anthropology of language that we more frequently give. -- SSILA Newsletter

There is no better introduction to American Indian languages than this volume. Highly readable and accessible to a general audience, it is a fine read for anyone interested in the subject. -- Native California [There are] no less than 160 languages or language families of North and South America on which substantive information is given, from Inuit to Araucanian and from Eyak to Creek. Along with topics long familiar to specialists--such as Sapir's discussion of the northern origin of the Navajo, and Haas's work on Koasati genderlects--there is much fresh material from Silver's and Miller's own field research. -- Language in Society It would be the perfect, authoritative book for that ideal course on American Indian languages that we all yearn to teach. But there is so much in it, so lucidly explained, that it could serve equally well as the organizing text for the more general courses on the anthropology of language that we more frequently give. -- SSILA Newsletter

Author Information

Shirley Sliver is a professor of anthropology at Sonoma State University. The late Wick R. Miller was on the anthropology faculty at the University of Utah.

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