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The Indigenous Languages of South America: A Comprehensive Guide is a thorough guide to the indigenous languages of this part of the world. With more than a third of the linguistic diversity of the world (in terms of language families and isolates), South American languages contribute new findings in most areas of linguistics. Though formerly one of the linguistically least known areas of the world, extensive descriptive and historical linguistic research in recent years has expanded knowledge greatly. These advances are represented in this volume in indepth treatments by the foremost scholars in the field, with chapters on the history of investigation, language classification, language endangerment, language contact, typology, phonology and phonetics, and on major language families and regions of South America.
The Indigenous Languages of the Americas is a comprehensive assessment of what is known about their history and classification. It identifies gaps in knowledge and resolves controversial issues while making new contributions of its own. The book deals with the major themes involving these languages: classification and history of the Indigenous languages of the Americas; issues involving language names; origins of the languages of the New World; unclassified and spurious languages; hypotheses of distant linguistic relationships; linguistic areas; contact languages (pidgins, lingua francas, mixed languages); and loanwords and neologisms.
The Andean and Pacific regions of South America are home to a remarkable variety of languages and language families, with a range of typological differences. This linguistic diversity results from a complex historical background, comprising periods of greater communication between different peoples and languages, and periods of fragmentation and individual development. The Languages of the Andes documents in a single volume the indigenous languages spoken and formerly spoken in this linguistically rich region, as well as in adjacent areas. Grouping the languages into different cultural spheres, it describes their characteristics in terms of language typology, language contact, and the social perspectives of present-day languages. The authors provide both historical and contemporary information, and illustrate the languages 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.
Universals of language have been studied extensively for the last four decades, allowing fundamental insight into the principles and general properties of human language. Only incidentally have researchers looked at the other end of the scale. And even when they did, they mostly just noted peculiar facts as ''quirks'' or ''unusual behavior'', without making too much of an effort at explaining them beyond calling them ''exceptions'' to various rules or generalizations. Rarissima and rara, features and properties found only in one or very few languages, tell us as much about the capacities and limits of human language(s) as do universals. Explaining the existence of such rare phenomena on the one hand, and the fact of their rareness or uniqueness on the other, is a reasonable and interesting challenge to any theory of how human language works. The present volume for the first time compiles selected papers on the study of rare linguistic features from various fields of linguistics and from a wide range of languages.
Language Isolates explores this fascinating group of languages that surprisingly comprise a third of the world’s languages. Individual chapters written by experts on these languages examine the world's major language isolates and language isolates by geographic regions, with up-to-date descriptions of many, including previously unrecorded language isolates. Each language isolate represents a unique lineage and a unique window on what is possible in human language, making this an essential volume for anyone interested in understanding the diversity of languages and the very nature of human language. Language Isolates is key reading for professionals and students in linguistics and anthropology.
Esta obra presenta una serie de investigaciones acerca de las prácticas y métodos de documentación sobre ocho lenguas fuegopatagónicas: selk'nam, haush, alakaluf / kawesqar, yagan, aonekko ’a’ien, teushen, günün a yajüch y mapuzungun realizadas en la región en el último tercio del siglo xix y hasta mediados del xx en un contexto de expropiación territorial y genocidio de los pueblos preexistentes. Además, pone a disposición los documentos inéditos de estas lenguas que han permanecido albergados en repositorios de Argentina, Chile, Alemania e Italia. La publicación procura visibilizar el trabajo de las y los coproductores de los pueblos originarios en la recolección de información y métodos de documentación de sus lenguas así como en las condiciones materiales en que se desarrollaron.
This volume focuses on word formation processes in smaller and so far underrepresented indigenous languages of South America. The data for the analyses have been mainly collected in the field by the authors. The several language families described here, among them Arawakan, Takanan, and Guaycuruan, as well as language isolates, such as Yurakaré and Cholón, reflect the linguistic diversity of South America. Equally diverse are the topics addressed, relating to word formation processes like reduplication, nominal and verbal compounding, clitic compounding, and incorporation. The traditional notions of the processes are discussed critically with respect to their implementation in minor indigenous languages. The book is therefore not only of interest to readers with an Amerindian background but also to typologists and historical linguists, and it is a supplement to more theory-driven approaches to language and linguistics.
This book discusses the phonological history of Mataguayan, a language family that includes no less than four distinct languages - Maká, Nivaĉle, Chorote, and Wichí - spoken by ca. 65.000 individuals in the Southern Chaco region in Argentina, Paraguay, and Bolivia. The book starts by offering a phonological reconstruction of Proto-Mataguayan, with separate chapters dedicated to its consonants, vowels, word-level prosody, and morphophonological alternations. This is followed by an outline of the phonological evolution of each Mataguayan language all the way from Proto-Mataguayan to contemporary lects, with a special attention to the dialectal diversity of Nivaĉle, Chorote, and Wichí. The study concludes with an etymological dictionary of Mataguayan, where known cognate sets are accompanied by comments on phonetic irregularities, semantic shifts, possible cognates in the neighbouring Guaicuruan family, and references to earlier studies.