The Indigenous Languages of the Americas takes stock of what is known about the history and classification of these languages and language families. It identifies the gaps in knowledge and puts them into perspective, and it assesses differences of opinion. It also resolves some issues and makes new contributions of its own.
The nine chapters of the book deal incisively with the major themes involving these languages: the classification and history of the Indigenous languages of North American, Middle American (Mexico and Central America), and South American; difficulties involving names of the languages; origins of the languages of the New World; unclassified, phantom, fake, and spurious languages in the Americas; recent hypotheses of remote linguistic relationships; the linguistic areas of the Americas; contact languages, including pidgins, lingua francas, and mixed languages; and loanwords and other new words in the native languages of the Americas.

lgrsnf/The Indigenous Languages of the Americas - History and Classification.pdf

IRL Press at Oxford University Press

Oxford Institute for Energy Studies

German Historical Institute London

United Kingdom and Ireland, United Kingdom

PT, 2024

2023

Cover
The Indigenous Languages of the Americas
Copyright
Contents
List of Illustrations
Preface
Acknowledgments
Phonetic Symbols
Abbreviations
1. Introduction
1.1. Introduction
1.2. Names and Naming
1.3. Terminology
1.4. Loss of Diversity and the Status of Indigenous Languages of the Americas
1.5. Historical Overview of Attempts to Classify the Languages of the Americas
1.6. Origins of the American Indian Languages
1.7. Methods
1.8. Conventions Used in This Book
2. North American Indian Languages North of Mexico
2.1. Introduction
2.2. Classification and History of North American Indian Languages
3. Middle American Languages (Mexico and Central America)
3.1. Introduction
3.2. Classification and History of Middle American Languages
3.2.1. Mesoamerican Languages
3.2.2. Non-​Mesoamerican Language Families of Middle America
3.3. Mesoamerican Linguistic Prehistory
4. Indigenous Languages of South America
4.1. Introduction
4.2. Classification and History of South American Indigenous Languages
4.2.1. Larger Language Families
4.2.2. Small Language Families
4.2.3. Language Isolates
4.3. South American Language Families (Including Language Isolates)
4.4. Wrap-​Up
5. Unclassified and Spurious Languages
5.1. Introduction
5.2. Unclassified Languages of North America
5.3. Unclassified Languages of Middle America (Mexico and Central America)
5.4. Unclassified Languages of South America
5.5. Phantom, False, and Spurious Languages
5.5.1. Phantom, False, and Spurious Languages of North America
5.5.2. Phantom, False, and Spurious Languages of Middle America
5.5.3. Phantom, False, and Spurious Languages of South America
5.5.4. Other Language Fakes
6. Distant Linguistic Relationships
6.1. Introduction
6.2. Recent Success Stories
6.3. Terms and Methods
6.4. Historical Attempts to Classify the Languages of the Americas: A Case Study
6.5. Proposals of Distant Genetic Relationships
6.5.1. The Hokan Hypothesis
6.5.2. Penutian
6.5.3. Yok-​Utian
6.5.4. Amerind
6.5.5. Dene-​Yeniseian
6.5.6. Mayan-​MixeZoquean
6.5.7. Chitimacha-​Totozoquean
6.5.8. Macro-​Jê Sensu Lato
6.5.9. The Tupían-​Cariban and Tupían-​Cariban-​Jê hypotheses
6.5.10. Macro-​Guaicurúan
6.5.11. Quechumaran
Appendix 1: A Closer Look at Greenberg’s Macro-​Panoan Hypothesis
Appendix 2: List of Distant Genetic Relationship Proposals
7. Linguistic Areas of the Americas
7.1. Introduction
7.2. North American Linguistic Areas
7.2.1. Northwest Coast Linguistic Area
7.2.2. Northern Northwest Coast Linguistic Area
7.2.3. Plateau Linguistic Area
7.2.4. Northern California Linguistic Area
7.2.5. Northwest California
7.2.6. Clear Lake Linguistic Area
7.2.7. South Coast Range and Greater South Coast Range Linguistic Areas
7.2.8. Central California Linguistic Area
7.2.9. Southern California-​Western Arizona Linguistic Area
7.2.10. Great Basin Linguistic Area
7.2.11. Pueblo Linguistic Area
7.2.12. Plains Linguistic Area
7.2.13. Northeast Linguistic Area
7.2.14. Southeast Linguistic Area
7.3. Mesoamerican Linguistic Area
7.4. Linguistic Areas of South America
7.4.1. Proposals of Macro-​linguistic Areas in South America
7.4.2. Amazonia as a Linguistic Area?
7.4.3. The Colombian-​Central American Linguistic Area
7.4.4. Northern Amazonia Linguistic Areas
7.4.4.1. The Vaupés (Vaupés-​Içana) Linguistic Area
7.4.4.2. The Caquetá-​Putumayo Linguistic Area
7.4.4.3. The Venezuelan-​Antillean Linguistic Area
7.4.4.4. Southern Guiana (Northeastern Amazonian) Linguistic Area
7.4.5. Southern Amazonia Linguistic Areas
7.4.5.1. Guaporé-​Mamoré Linguistic Area
7.4.5.2. Tocantins-​Mearim Interfluvium Linguistic Area(?)
7.4.5.3. The Upper Xingu Linguistic Area
7.4.6. Highlands (West) Linguistic Areas
7.4.6.1. The Andean Area, Central Andean Linguistic Area
7.4.6.2. The Ecuadoran-​Colombian Subarea
7.4.7. The Gran Chaco Linguistic Area(?)
7.4.8. Southern Region Linguistic Areas
7.4.8.1. The Southern Cone Linguistic Area(?)
7.4.8.2. “Fuegian” Linguistic Area(?)
8. Contact Languages
8.1. Introduction
8.2. Pidgins
8.2.1. Indigenous Pidgins of North America
8.2.2. Indigenous Pidgins in South America
8.2.3. Línguas Gerais of Brazil
8.3. Lingua Francas of the New World
8.3.1. North American Indigenous Lingua Francas
8.3.2. Lingua Francas in Latin America
8.4. Mixed Languages
8.5. Socio-​cultural-​political Factors in South America Language Contact
8.5.1. Marriage Patterns, Multilingualism, Linguistic Exogamy
9. Loanwords and Other New Words in the Indigenous Languages of the Americas
9.1. Introduction
9.2. Wanderwörter
9.3. Other Loanwords among Indigenous Languages
9.4. Loanwords from Indigenous Languages into European Languages
9.5. Loanwords from European Languages into Indigenous American Languages
9.6. Calquing
9.7. Taboo and Multilingual Obscenity Avoidance
9.8. Reticence toward Loanwords
9.9. New Words that Rely on Native Resources
References
Index of languages
Index of Personal Names
Subject Index

2024-09-10