American Languages
Featured Books
Currently, the featured books section highlights some of the library's best handbooks & guides for to the languages from and spoken in the Americas. These books typically offer the reader an opportunity to survey and learn about a broad field of scholarship in a comprehensive way. They give a snap shop of the discipline covered at the time the book is published. Unlike a retrospective collection of articles, these guides are written or edited as a planned and intentional effort, with chapters and sections interrelating and complimenting one another and thereby tend to be more readable and integrated research works.
The Languages of Native North AmericaCall Number: PM108.L35 1999This book is a comprehensive and authoritative survey of the native North American languages. These several hundred languages show tremendous genetic and typological diversity, and offer numerous challenges to current linguistic theory. The book includes an overview of their special characteristics, descriptions of special styles, a catalog of the languages that details their locations, genetic affiliations, number of speakers, and major structural features, and lists published material on them.
The Amazonian Languages by Call Number: PM5099.8.A48 1999The Amazon Basin is arguably both one of the least-known and the most complex linguistic regions in the world. It is the home of some 300 languages belonging to around twenty language families, plus more than a dozen genetic isolates, and many of these languages (often incompletely documented and mostly endangered) show properties that constitute exceptions to received ideas about linguistic universals. This book provides an overview in a single volume of this rich and exciting linguistic area. The editors and contributors have sought to make their descriptions as clear and accessible as possible, in order to provide a basis for further research on the structural characteristics of Amazonian languages and their genetic and areal relationships, as well as a point of entry to important cross-linguistic data for the wider constituency of theoretical linguists.
The Mesoamerican Indian Languages by Call Number: PM3008.S9 1983At least a hundred indigenous Indian languages are known to have been spoken in Mesoamerica, the cultural area that includes most of Mexico and part of South America, but it is only in the past fifty years that many of them have been adequately described. For some we still have no more than a partial description, often in an obscure source. Professor Suárez draws together this considerable mass of scholarship in a general survey that will provide an invaluable source of reference. The approach is primarily descriptive, and a major part of the volume is concerned with synchronic descriptions of phonology, morphology and syntax. The volume will be of interest and importance both to general linguists and to others with a serious interest in Mesoamerican culture and society.
The Languages of the Andes by Call Number: PM5100.A34 2004The Andean and Pacific regions of South America are home to a remarkable variety of languages and language families, with a range of typological differences. The Languages of the Andes is the first book in English to document in a single volume the indigenous languages of this region, as well as in adjacent areas. The authors provide both historical and contemporary information, illustrated with detailed grammatical sketches. Written in a clear and accessible style, this book will be a valuable source for students and scholars of linguistics and anthropology alike.
Good Starting Databases for American Languages
The following databases are good places to go to start researching your topic. Each database has a slightly different focus, so you might need to try out a couple of databases before finding one that returns the sort of results you are looking for.
- HLAS Online (Handbook of Latin American Studies) This link opens in a new windowLatin American works in social sciences and humanities. Produced by the Library of Congress.
- MLA International Bibliography This link opens in a new windowSubjects covered include literature, language and linguistics, folklore, literary theory and criticism, and the dramatic arts.
Good Starting Journals for American Languages
The following are links to specific academic journals which are published and peer-reviewed by experts in the field. If you want to narrow your search to a specific topic, country, or issue, finding a journal that publishes in that area can help.
- International Journal of American LinguisitcsInternational Journal of American Linguistics is a world forum for the study of all the languages native to North, Central, and South America. Inaugurated by Franz Boas in 1917, IJAL concentrates on the investigation of linguistic data and on the presentation of grammatical fragments and other documents relevant to Amerindian languages.
- Journal of Mesoamerican Languages and LinguisticsThe goal of the Journal of Mesoamerican Languages and Linguistics (JMLL) is to contribute to the documentation of Mesoamerican languages, many of which are endangered, as well as to their historical, theoretical, and typological analysis. Some topics that the Editorial Board of this journal hopes to develop further, due to the dearth of relevant publications in the past, include the following: Mesoamerican sociolinguistics (with its potential for elucidating aspects related to language socialization and language endangerment), the history of Mesoamerican linguistics, and the study of indigenous sign languages (or related systems). Other topics that are encouraged include: the linguistic structure of indigenous writing systems and texts (from any time period), and possible historical relationships (whether by common descent or contact) between Mesoamerican languages and non-Mesoamerican languages - not to mention further research on the nature of Mesoamerica as a linguistic area.
- Colombian Applied Linguistics JournalThe Colombian Applied Linguistics Journal, CALJ, is published by the College of Sciences and Education, Master's Program in Applied Linguistics of Universidad Distrital in Bogotá, Colombia for professionals of education interested in research and teaching issues in the field of Applied Linguistics for the Teaching of English. This journal is mainly concerned with disseminating completed and ongoing research relevant to the field of language education.
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Materials on Linguistics topics are found under the "P" category on the 3rd floor of the Chester Fritz Library.
| PM1-94 | Hyperborean languages of Arctic Asia and America |
|---|---|
| PM101-2711 | American languages (Aboriginal) |
| PM3001-4566 | Languages of Mexico and Central America |
| PM5001-7356 | Languages of South America and the West Indies |
| PM7801-7895 | Mixed languages |