Athabaskan Language Studies

Athabaskan Language Studies PDF Author: Robert W. Young
Publisher: UNM Press
ISBN: 9780826317056
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 518

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Book Description
Many leading figures in the field of Athabaskan languages contributed to this volume, and their range of topics matches Robert Young's interests. Four papers deal with northern Athabaskan languages, which Young studied in the 1930s. The remaining essays focus on aspects of Navajo language and culture; Young has specialized in this area for over fifty years in collaboration with his mentor, William Morgan, Sr. Several essays present detailed analysis of verb and sentence structure in Navajo, two are studies of Navajo literacy, another examines Navajo philosophy, and one offers the first study of how children learn the complexities of the Navajo verb. Anyone interested in Navajo studies or Athabaskan languages will find these essays invaluable.

The Athabaskan Languages

The Athabaskan Languages PDF Author: Theodore Fernald
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0195353226
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 345

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Book Description
The Native American language family called Athabaskan has received increasing attention from linguists and educators. The linguistic chapters in this volume focus on syntax and semantics, but also involve morphology, phonology, and historical linguistics. Included is a discussion of whether religion and secular issues can be separated in Navajo classrooms.

We Are Our Language

We Are Our Language PDF Author: Barbra A. Meek
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
ISBN: 0816504482
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 233

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Book Description
For many communities around the world, the revitalization or at least the preservation of an indigenous language is a pressing concern. Understanding the issue involves far more than compiling simple usage statistics or documenting the grammar of a tongue—it requires examining the social practices and philosophies that affect indigenous language survival. In presenting the case of Kaska, an endangered language in an Athabascan community in the Yukon, Barbra A. Meek asserts that language revitalization requires more than just linguistic rehabilitation; it demands a social transformation. The process must mend rips and tears in the social fabric of the language community that result from an enduring colonial history focused on termination. These “disjunctures” include government policies conflicting with community goals, widely varying teaching methods and generational viewpoints, and even clashing ideologies within the language community. This book provides a detailed investigation of language revitalization based on more than two years of active participation in local language renewal efforts. Each chapter focuses on a different dimension, such as spelling and expertise, conversation and social status, family practices, and bureaucratic involvement in local language choices. Each situation illustrates the balance between the desire for linguistic continuity and the reality of disruption. We Are Our Language reveals the subtle ways in which different conceptions and practices—historical, material, and interactional—can variably affect the state of an indigenous language, and it offers a critical step toward redefining success and achieving revitalization.

Athabaskan Prosody

Athabaskan Prosody PDF Author: Sharon Hargus
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9027247838
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 449

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Book Description
Printbegrænsninger: Der kan printes 10 sider ad gangen og max. 40 sider pr. session

The Navajo Sound System

The Navajo Sound System PDF Author: J.M. McDonough
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 940100207X
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 222

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Book Description
The Navajo language is spoken by the Navajo people who live in the Navajo Nation, located in Arizona and New Mexico in the southwestern United States. The Navajo language belongs to the Southern, or Apachean, branch of the Athabaskan language family. Athabaskan languages are closely related by their shared morphological structure; these languages have a productive and extensive inflectional morphology. The Northern Athabaskan languages are primarily spoken by people indigenous to the sub-artic stretches of North America. Related Apachean languages are the Athabaskan languages of the Southwest: Chiricahua, Jicarilla, White Mountain and Mescalero Apache. While many other languages, like English, have benefited from decades of research on their sound and speech systems, instrumental analyses of indigenous languages are relatively rare. There is a great deal ofwork to do before a chapter on the acoustics of Navajo comparable to the standard acoustic description of English can be produced. The kind of detailed phonetic description required, for instance, to synthesize natural sounding speech, or to provide a background for clinical studies in a language is well beyond the scope of a single study, but it is necessary to begin this greater work with a fundamental description of the sounds and supra-segmental structure of the language. Inkeeping with this, the goal of this project is to provide a baseline description of the phonetic structure of Navajo, as it is spoken on the Navajo reservation today, to provide a foundation for further work on the language.

Language Contact and Change in the Americas

Language Contact and Change in the Americas PDF Author: Andrea L. Berez-Kroeker
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
ISBN: 9027267332
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 416

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Book Description
This unique collection of articles in honor of Marianne Mithun represents the very latest in research on language contact and language change in the Indigenous languages of the Americas. The book aims to provide new theoretical and empirical insights into how and why languages change, especially with regard to contact phenomena in languages of North America, Meso-America and South America. The individual chapters cover a broad range of topics, including sound change, morphosyntactic change, lexical semantics, grammaticalization, language endangerment, and discourse-pragmatic change. With chapters from distinguished scholars and talented newcomers alike, this book will be welcomed by anyone with an interest in internally- and externally-motivated language change.

Studies in Evidentiality

Studies in Evidentiality PDF Author: Robert M. W. Dixon
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9789027229625
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 374

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Book Description
Printbegrænsninger: Der kan printes 10 sider ad gangen og max. 40 sider pr. session.

Gwich'in Athabascan Implements

Gwich'in Athabascan Implements PDF Author: Thomas A. O’Brien
Publisher: University of Alaska Press
ISBN: 1602231451
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 166

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Book Description
The most detailed and well-illustrated study of material culture for any northern Athabascan language group to date, Gwich’in Athabascan Implements reproduces pre- and early post-contact tools that are historically important to the Athabaskan people. A long-term collaboration between anthropologist Thomas O’Brien and Athabascan elder David Salmon, this volume provides more than one hundred one-to-one sketches of a wide variety of implements, many of which are no longer commonly found in use.

Mid-Holocene Language Connections between Asia and North America

Mid-Holocene Language Connections between Asia and North America PDF Author: Edward Vajda
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004436820
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 545

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Book Description
This volume presents the up-to-date results of investigations into the Asian origins of the only two languages families of North America, Eskaleut and Na-Dene, that are widely acknowledged as having likely genetic links in northern Asia.

Athabaskan Prosody

Athabaskan Prosody PDF Author: Sharon Hargus
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9027285292
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 450

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Book Description
This collection of articles on stress and tone in various Athabaskan languages will interest theoretical linguists and historically oriented linguists alike. The volume brings to light new data on the phonetics and/or phonology of prosody (stress, tone, intonation) in various Athabaskan languages, Chiricahua Apache, Dene Soun'liné, Jicarilla Apache, Sekani, Slave, Tahltan, Tanacross, Western Apache, and Witsuwit’en. As well, some contributions describe how prosody is to be reconstructed for Proto-Athabaskan, and how it evolved in some of the daughter languages.