American Indian languages : the historical linguistics of Native America

Book

American Indian languages : the historical linguistics of Native America / Lyle Campbell.

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.

Record details

ISBN: 0195094271
ISBN: 9780195094275
ISBN: 0195140508
ISBN: 9780195140507
ISBN: 9786610481453
ISBN: 6610481458
Physical Description: xi, 512 pages : maps ; 26 cm.
Publisher: New York : Oxford University Press, 1997.

Content descriptions

Bibliography, etc. Note:: Includes bibliographical references (pages 429-482) and indexes.
Formatted Contents Note:: Note on the Classification Lists and the Maps -- 1. Introduction -- App. Native American Pidgins and Trade Languages -- 2. The History of American Indian Linguistics -- App. Comparison of Major Classifications of North American Languages -- 3. The Origin of Native American Languages -- 4. Languages of North America -- 5. Languages of Middle America -- 6. Languages of South America -- 7. Distant Genetic Relationships: The Methods -- 8. Distant Genetic Relationships: The Proposals -- 9. Linguistic Areas of the Americas -- Index of Languages, Language Families, and Proposed Genetic Relationships.