Examines constituent order in Haida sentences. (AM)

Discusses and critiques the ideas presented in Joseph H. Greenberg's 1987 book, "Language in the Americas." The book has been greeted with dismay by many specialists in Amerindian linguistics. (38 references) (JL)

Outlines a brief history of Mesoamerica, a region of Ancient North America which stretches from north central Mexico to the western half of El Salvador. Describes the languages of the region, common traits of the cultures which developed there, the periods, and the geography. (PRA)

Provides a brief history of the Wampanoag Indians and the extinction of their language, Massachusett. Describes the Massachusett Language Revival Project and the sources underpinning its instructional materials: the 1663 "Indian Bible" and Massachusett grammar book by John Eliot, and early dictionaries and vocabularies. (SV)

Child welfare struggles to manage child abuse and neglect and to seek permanency for children, while being culturally responsive to the communities it serves. Family group conferencing, piloted in New Zealand and now used in the United States and other countries, is a strengths-based model that brings together families and their support systems to…

It is known that for Louise Erdrich the "old language" is Ojibwe, sometimes called Anishinaabe or Ojibwemowin, a language that is still spoken, but that, like most Native American languages, is losing ground to English or, more rarely, Spanish. Erdrich has been learning the Ojibwe language for some years, and she is increasingly macaronic in her…

This article contains a description of the Dual Proficiency (DP) program in an urban elementary school located in the heart of a large south-western city, as well as the teachers who designed and now implement DP, and the immigrant community participating by choice in DP. We write from a context where, ironically, the number of English language…

In considering literacy, we take a step back to ask: literacy in which language? And what is the purpose and measure of achievement? Although not in disagreement with the Bialostok and Whitman article in this issue, we place English literacy as a part of the continuing drive to colonize and assimilate indigenous peoples. Local indigenous control…

Language decline in many immigrant and ethnic communities is always a persistent problem in America. To prevent Native tribal languages from becoming obliterated, several organizations have been founded to document and teach Indigenous languages, a number of tribes have crafted ambitious language policies, and Congress approved the Native American…

The question of what is humanity and how it is expressed has endless and dynamic answers. My paper is an attempt to construct and explain the answer based on the insights Indigenous humanity expressed in the continent called North America. The four fundamental insights are organised around the concept of creation as ecology, the insights of…

This directory lists colleges and universities in the United States and Canada that offer courses in 51 Native American languages. Entries are organized under language headings and include the name and address of the institution, contact person, telephone number, fax number, and E-mail address. Language headings are Anishinabe, Apache, Arapaho,…

Efforts by Canada Natives to put their languages into standard written formats and to use Native languages with their children are discussed in this review of the Stoney Indian Language Project. The Stoney community is centered at Morley, Alberta (Canada), and the population of the three bands--Bear's Paw, Chiniki, and Goodstoney--is nearly 2,700.…

This paper is essentially a commentary on Steriade 1990, which deals with certain aspects of Winnebago phonology. The issues cluster around a much-discussed process known as Dorsey's Law (see Miner 1992 and references given there) that is operative in Mississippi Valley Siouan and that Steriade has generalized to other language groups. Winnebago…

This dictionary of the Omaha Indian language, written by an Omaha Indian and an assistant, contains an introduction, lists of terms for good and bad traits found among the Omaha, a guide to Omaha pronunciation and phonology, an alphabetized vocabulary of approximately 4,000 words, and a guide to kinship terms. Vocabulary is transcribed into the…

This investigation focuses on syllable boundary demarcation in Hualapai and Havasupai, both native American Indian languages spoken in Northern Arizona. In an attempt to understand better the nature of the syllable, allophonic variation with respect to syllable position is examined. Cross-linguistic evidence suggests that sounds may take on…