26.1181, Review: Anthropological Ling; Lang Doc: Boas (2013)

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Subject: 26.1181, Review: Anthropological Ling; Lang Doc: Boas (2013)

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Date: Mon, 02 Mar 2015 17:20:16
From: Juan Colomina [Colomina-alminana_juan at austin.utexas.edu]
Subject: Handbook of American Indian Languages 2 Volume Set

 
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Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/24/24-3853.html

EDITOR: Franz  Boas
TITLE: Handbook of American Indian Languages 2 Volume Set
PUBLISHER: Cambridge University Press
YEAR: 2013

REVIEWER: Juan J Colomina, University of Texas at Austin

Review's Editors: Malgorzata Cavar and Sara Couture

INTRODUCTION

A public Announcement of the Bureau of American Ethnology dated from the
beginning of the twentieth century (Trumbrull 1903, pp. v-viii) informs how,
by Congressional resolution, the US Government authorized the United States
Geographical and Geological Survey of the Rocky Mountain Region to issue a
series of ethnologic reports in 1877.  The first of those North American
Ethnology issues was the pioneering Introduction to the Study of Indian
Languages (Powell 1877), a volume that collected words, phrases, and sentences
of some of the most representative Native American languages and formed the
foundations for Boas’ “Handbook”. After this regional association merged with
the United States Geological Survey in 1879, the Congress provided for the
continuity of ethnologic researches and publications, forming the foundation
of the Bureau of Ethnology under the supervision of Major J.W. Powell. 

The law approved on January 12, 1895, providing for the public printing and
binding and the distribution of public documents, superseded the previous
authorization for ethnologic publications, eliminating the requirement of
annual supervision and authorization by the Congress. The society was
officially renamed the Bureau of American Ethnology on June 4, 1897, after the
law making appropriations for the ethnologic work was passed and the series
for annual reports was approved. In 1900, the Congress authorized the
resumption of publication of these reports in the form of bulletins by
concurrent resolution, continuing the series of 24 bulletins published between
1886 and 1894. What the reader has now available is the reprint in facsimile
form of Bulletin no. 40 (in 2 volumes, published 1911 and 1922 respectively)
of the Bureau of American Ethnology, edited by the eminent anthropologist and
linguist Franz Boas.

SUMMARY

“The Handbook of American Indian Languages” was originally published in two
huge volumes. For this reprint, Cambridge University Press has split the first
volume in two parts. The first part comprises detailed studies of Athapascan
(Hupa), Tlingit, Tsimshian, and Kwak’wala (Kwakiutl). The second part includes
chapters on Chinook, Maidu, Algonquian (Fox), Siouan (Dakota), and Eskimo. The
second volume collects critical studies on the Takelma language of
southwestern Oregon, Coos, Siuslawan, and Chukchee. 

The first volume begins with an “Introduction” by Franz Boas (pp. 1-83), which
is now a classic. As a pioneer of cultural anthropology, Boas deployed his
introduction to promote and spread his well-known cultural relativist approach
to ethnographic study. The first chapter, “Athapascan (Hupa)” by Pliny Earle
Goddard (pp. 85-158), analyzes the different aspects of the Athapascan family
languages. Geographically distributed in three big areas of the US, the
Athapascan stock extends south and north along the Pacific Coast. This chapter
focuses specifically on Hupa, a subfamily placed in the Pacific Coast that
includes at least four mutually intelligible variables. The chapter studies
the phonetics, the grammatical processes and categories, and the verb
structures of Hupa. It includes also a final section in which all the learned
grammar aspects are applied to a particular case of translation, a structure
that will be repeated in all the chapters. 

The second chapter, “Tlingit” by John R. Swanson (pp. 159-204), surveys the
Koluschan language (also known as Tlingit), mainly spoken in southeastern
Alaska. Swanson analyzes here the different grammatical processes and
structures of Tlingit, but also includes very useful tables to catalog
different pronominal and modal suffixes and a large vocabulary section. 

“Haida” is the name of the third chapter, also by Swanson (pp. 205-282).
Originally spoken in the coast of British Columbia, the study of the phonetics
and grammar composition of the Haida language (or Skittagetan) is its topic.

In the fourth chapter, Boas analyzes the phonetic and grammatical structures
of the “Tsimshian” language (pp. 283-422), also known as Chimmesyan, mainly
spoken on the northern coast of British Columbia and in the adjacent region
between the Nass and Skeena rivers. Boas distinguishes up to three different
dialects. Even though the chapter is invested in what the author calls “the
proper Tsimshian,” he also gives descriptions of the differences between each
dialect.

The fifth chapter, “Kwakiutl” by Boas (pp. 423-553), focuses on this family of
languages placed on the northern coast of the state of Washington. The chapter
analyzes not only the three different dialects of Kwakiutl, their phonetics
and grammars, but also the similarities and differences that they have at a
morphological level with other surrounding languages, such as Nootka.

“Chinook” (Ts!inu’k) is the language analyzed in the sixth chapter, also by
Boas, (pp. 559-677). This language includes a number of different dialects;
Boas examines its phonetics, syntax, and grammar.

Ronald B. Dixon is the author of the seventh chapter on “Maidu” (or Pujuman)
(pp. 679-734). Spoken in northeastern California, the Maidu extends from the
Sacramento valley to the Sierra Nevada mountains. The chapter surveys
different characteristics of Maidu’s phonetics and grammatical structure.

The language of the Fox (in the “Algonquian” linguistic family) is described
in the eighth chapter, originally written by William Jones and revised by
Truman Michelson (pp. 735-873). The language has many dialects, and it
extended from the regions west and south of the Great Lakes in the states of
Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio. The dialect taken
up here is the Fox, which was still spoken by nearly four hundred persons in
Tama County, Iowa, when the survey was done in the early 1900’s. The
phonetics, syntax, and grammar of the Fox are spelled out in the chapter.

Boas and Swanson are the authors of the ninth chapter (pp. 875-965). It is
devoted to the “Siouan (Dakota Teton and Santee Dialects, with remarks on the
Ponca and Winnebago”). Containing several dialects, Siouan was spoken in the
western plains, extending from the northern border of the US far to the south,
including also the southern Appalachian region, the coast of the Gulf of
Mexico, east of the Mississippi river, and the lower Yazoo river. The chapter
presents a sketch of the Siouan grammar, based mainly on the Santee and Teton
dialects of the Dakota language.

“Eskimo” is the tenth and last chapter of the first volume, and is written by
William Thalbitzer (pp. 967-1069). With more than 40,000 speakers, extending
from the northernmost shores of America in Alaska and East Greenland to the
south of the Bering Sea and the easternmost point of Asia, Eskimo dialects
(even though today it is more usual to speak about Inuit, Yupik, and/or Aleut
to avoid its pejorative connotation) differ in important aspects. This chapter
includes a study of the grammar of the dialect spoken in the Disco bay (West
Greenland).

The first chapter of the second volume, written by Edward Sapir, analyzes the
Takelma language of southwestern Oregon (pp. 1-296), and includes a survey of
its phonology and morphology.

The second chapter, “Coos” by Leo J. Frachtenberg (pp. 297-429), surveys the
phonetic, morphological, and grammatical aspects of this language based on the
Siletz reservation (Oregon). Also known as Kusan, this language includes two
principal dialects, Hanis and Miluk. Since the latter was practically extinct
when Franchtenberg studied it, the chapter analysis focuses on the former.

The chapter entitled “Siuslawan (Lower Umpqua)” is also written by
Frachtenberg, and is the third of this second volume (pp. 431-629). Siuslawan
includes two dialects, lower Umpqua and Siuslaw, spoken in the regions
surrounding the homonymous rivers, and Frachtenberg spells out the grammatical
aspects of the former dialect in this chapter.

The fourth and last chapter, “Chukchee” by Waldemar Bogoras (pp. 631-903),
examines the phonetic, morphological, and other grammatical characteristics of
the Chukchee, the Koryak, and the Kamchadel. The chapter especially points out
their markedly divergent forms and the more complicated phonetics of the last
language. Additionally, Bogoras analyzes the recent process of Russianization
(that has as its main consequence a more obscure analysis of their morphology)
of these languages.

EVALUATION

One hundred years have passed since the first print of this handbook. If after
a century a publisher such as Cambridge University Press has decided to
reprint it in its Library Collection Series under the epithet “Books of
enduring scholarly value,” I can add few words to eulogize its importance.
However, it is necessary to point out some of its virtues to encourage
scholars, graduate and undergraduate students, and the general reader to
approach this delightful contemporary classic of the field of
ethnolinguistics.

First, the chapters of this book do not only focus on the different languages
analyzed, they also allow a voice to the people that speak them. Each chapter
contains then a critical discussion of the speakers of the language, its
geographical distribution at the time the data was collected, the phonetic
system, and an exhaustive analysis of both the grammar and vocabulary of the
language under focus. Overall, the handbook’s aim was to build a landmark of
scientific principles for the study of indigenous peoples and languages. Since
the authors successfully accomplished this purpose, this book has become an
incunabulum.

Second, even though American ethnolinguistic studies had come in contact with
Humboldtian theses prior to Boas’ arrival to the USA in 1886, it was Boas who
first institutionalized the idea of cultural relativity. Boas adopted the
Humboldtian notion of “inner form” to characterize the diversity of Native
American languages. This notion tends to view languages as conditioning the
worldview of their speakers. However, unlike Humboldt, Boas left room for the
possibility of a reciprocal influence between language and thought. Influenced
by the idea that we should evaluate each culture according to its own criteria
(Lucy 1992, p. 11), Boas proposed that a society’s values and practices
reflected its culture, and could not be understood in relation to its members’
genetic make-up (Nanda and Warms 2009, p. 5).

Boas claimed that relativity existed not just in culture, but also in
language. Thus, like some of his predecessors, Boas asserted that language
acts as a storehouse for cultural values, and upon examining it, we can learn
much about the society that speaks it. More technically, grammatical meaning
can only be interpreted in the context of the complete (social) system to
which it belongs. As Boas says, “inferences based on peculiar forms of
classification of ideas, and due to the fact that a whole group of distinct
ideas are expressed by a single term, occur commonly in the terms of
relationship of various languages; as, for instance, in our term ‘uncle,’
which means two distinct classes of father’s brother and mother’s brother.
Here also, it is commonly assumed that the linguistic expression is a
secondary reflex of the customs of the people; but the question is quite open
in how far the one phenomenon is the primary one and the other the secondary
one, and whether the customs of the people have not rather developed from the
unconsciously developed terminology. […] [F]urthermore, the peculiar
characteristics of language are clearly reflected in the views and customs of
the peoples of the world” (pp. 72-73).

Third, although language stores cultural values, Boas did not claim that it
influenced culture. As Jakobson said when referring to Boas’ ideas, “languages
differ essentially in what they must convey and not in what they may convey”
(1944, p. 191).  In some ways, however, Boas does seem to accept the posterior
Whorfian claim that language conditions the speaker’s worldview: “language
exerts a limited influence upon culture. It may, however, be safely said, that
when changes of culture demand new ways of expression, languages are
sufficiently pliable to follow new needs. […] Under modern conditions, culture
conditions the growth of language; the opposite influence is slight” (Boas
1942, p. 183).

Finally, even though the ideas contained in this handbook are well known, few
people have actually read it in its totality. We, as scholars and academics
interested in languages and indigenous peoples, should spend some time reading
the foundations of our fields. Contemporary readers might think that the
thesis and data recollected are not viable anymore. I do not think so, and it
is my final suggestion to always keep our classics in mind. This book should
be on your shelves.

REFERENCES

Boas, Franz. 1942. Language and Culture. Studies in the History of Culture:
The Discipline of Humanities, edited by the American Council of Learned
Societies, 178-184. Menasha, WI: George Banta.

Jakobson, Roman. 1944. Franz Boas’ Approach to Language. International Journal
of American Linguistics 10(2). 188-195.

Lucy, John. Language Diversity and Thought: A Reformulation of the Linguistic
Relativity Hypothesis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Nanda, Sandy and Robert Warms. 2009. Culture Counts: A Concise Introduction to
Cultural Anthropology. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.

Powell, J.W. 1877. Introduction to the Study of Indian Languages. Washington:
Government Printing Office. 

Trumbull, James H. 1903. Natick Dictionary. Washington: Government Printing
Office. Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 25.


ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Juan J. Colomina is Assistant Professor of Sociolinguistics at the Center for
Mexican American Studies at The University of Texas at Austin. Project:
'Points of View and Temporal Structures' (FII2011-24549) (funded by Ministerio
de Economía y Competitividad). His books include Los problemas de las teorías
representacionales de la conciencia (Tenerife: Universidad de La Laguna, 2010)
and Implicaciones de la teoría de los actos de habla (Madrid: EAE, 2011), and
he has coedited (with V. Raga) La filosofía de Richard Rorty (Madrid:
Biblioteca Nueva, 2010.)  He has also published more than fifty articles in
several collected books and international journals. His research areas of
interest focus on the boundaries between Semantics and Pragmatics, Philosophy
of Language, Linguistic Anthropology, Philosophy of Mind and Consciousness,
Philosophy of Science, and Logic.





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