Names

[Andre Cramblit]

“ANALYZABILITY” OF NOUNS IN NORTHWESTERN CALIFORNIA
William Bright
University of Colorado
www.ncidc.org/bright/

Abstract

Three American Indian tribes of northwestern California — Yurok,  
Hupa, and Karuk — share a nearly uniform culture, but they speak  
entirely distinct and unrelated languages. This is problematic for  
the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, which sees language and culture as  
closely linked. In an earlier paper, the matter was considered in the  
light of names for animals in the three languages. It was found that  
the majority of such names in Yurok consist of unanalyzable single  
morphemes, while the majority in Hupa are “descriptive” combinations  
of several morphemes; the Karuk language lies between the two others.  
A possible explanation was proposed in the historical operation of  
verbal taboo in the usage of hunters and on the names of the  
deceased. In the present paper, the analysis is extended to plant  
terms and to “basic vocabulary”,  but problems are noted in the  
latter concept. It is suggested that the patterns presented here form  
part of the status of native northwestern California not as a  
linguistic area in a strict sense, but as an ethnolinguistic area.