Re: Native American language sampler

Jeffrey:

I'll second And's recommendation of the Mithun text and add Volume 17 of the
Handbook of North American Indians, published by the Smithsonian institution
(series editor Ives Goddard). There are about 10 grammatical sketches in the
volume (including Wick Miller's sketch of Shoshoni), each of which contains
good (if terse) information on phonology, grammar, and short word lists. Both
the Mithun and the Handbook are rather expensive, though the Mithun is now out
in paperback.

An older volume which might still be useful is a collection of grammatical
sketches edited by Harry Hoijer entitled _Linguistic Structure of Native
America_. The sketches don't contain word lists, but are otherwise pretty good
(if dated). It includes a sketch by Benjamin Whorf of Hopi, so you can see for
yourself what he found out about time and the Hopi language :-).

Dirk

At 6:09 PM -0500 3/20/03, Jeffrey Henning wrote:
>I wanted to get some ideas from Native American languages.  I'm looking
>for a sampler -- preferably, a reference that would provide a page or
>two giving examples of phonology, grammar and lexicon for the ten or
>twenty most prominent Native American languages.  I spent some time on
>Amazon and doing web searches, but didn't find what I was looking for.
>
>Can anyone point me in the right direction?
>
>Best regards,
>
>Jeffrey

--
Dirk Elzinga                                               Dirk_Elzinga@byu.edu

"It is important not to let one's aesthetics interfere with the appreciation of
fact." - Stephen Anderson

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