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Anthropology and linguistics, as historically developing disciplines, have had partly separate roots and traditions. In particular settings and in general, the two disciplines have partly shared, partly differed in the nature of their materials, their favorite types of problem the personalities of their dominant figures, their relations with other disciplines and intellectual current. The two disciplines have also varied in their interrelation with each other and the society about them. Institutional arrangements have reflected the varying degrees of kinship, kithship, and separation. Such relationships themselves form a topic that is central to a history of linguistic anthropology yet marginal to a self-contained history of linguistics or anthropology as either would be conceived by most authors. There exists not only a subject matter for a history of linguistic anthropology, but also a definite need.
Morris Swadesh, one of this century's foremost scientific investigators of language, dedicated much of his life to the study of the origin and evolution of language. This volume, left nearly completed at his death and edited posthumously by Joel F. Sherzer, is his last major study of this difficult subject.Swadesh discusses the simple qualities of human speech also present in animal language, and establishes distinctively human techniques of expression by comparing the common features that are found in modern and ancient languages. He treats the diversification of language not only by isolating root words in different languages, but also by dealing with sound systems, with forms of compositi...
This book traces how indigenista innovation gave way to stagnation as local opposition, shifting national priorities, and waning financial support took their toll.
This volume explores the reversing language shift (RLS) theory in the Mexican scenario from various viewpoints: The sociohistorical perspective delves into the dynamics of power that emerged in the Mexican colony as a result of the presence of Spanish. It examines the processes of external and internal Indianization affecting the early European protagonists and the varied dimensions of language shift and maintenance of the Mexican colonial period. The Mexican case sheds light upon language contact from the time in which Western civilization came into contact with the Mesoamerican peoples, for the encounter began with a demographic catastrophe that motivated a recovery mission. While the reco...
Comprised of 24 newly commissioned chapters, this defining reference volume on Latin America introduces English-language readers to the debates, traditions, and sensibilities that have shaped the study of this diverse region. Contributors include some of the most prominent figures in Latin American and Latin Americanist anthropology Offers previously unpublished work from Latin America scholars that has been translated into English explicitly for this volume Includes overviews of national anthropologies in Mexico, Cuba, Peru, Argentina, Ecuador, Bolivia, Colombia, and Brazil, and is also topically focused on new research Draws on original ethnographic and archival research Highlights national and regional debates Provides a vivid sense of how anthropologists often combine intellectual and political work to address the pressing social and cultural issues of Latin America
This is the first comprehensive grammar of any variety of Mixtec written for linguists. It provides theoretically informed (generative) description and analysis of the phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, and lexical semantics of this dialect, situated in the broader context of Mixtecan and Otomanguean languages. Texts and a lexicon (Mixtec-English/English-Mixtec, 1,500 words) are included as well.
The history of writing, or so the standard story goes, is an ascending process, evolving toward the alphabet and finally culminating in the "full writing" of recorded speech. Writing without Words challenges this orthodoxy, and with it widespread notions of literacy and dominant views of art and literature, history and geography. Asking how knowledge was encoded and preserved in Pre-Columbian and early colonial Mesoamerican cultures, the authors focus on systems of writing that did not strive to represent speech. Their work reveals the complicity of ideology in the history of literacy, and offers new insight into the history of writing. The contributors--who include art historians, anthropol...