Indigenous Language Articles?

[Rudy Troike]

Shannon,

    I was going to suggest Vol. 17 of the Handbook of North American Indians,
but Bill beat me to it. I've used Harry Hoijer's Linguistic Structures of
Native America, originally published by the Viking Fund, for such a course,
but I don't know if it is still available anywhere. If available, I'd
definitely suggest the introductions to Boas' Handbook and Powell's work,
which were reprinted together by, I believe, Nebraska U Press, in a paperback
some years ago. Both still bear reading for historical purposes, since
newcomers tend to focus on the latest work and overlook the state of knowledge
in the past. I also always require Edward Sapir's famous article "Time 
Depth in
Aboriginal North America", which was reprinted in David Mandelbaum's valuable
collection, Selected Writings of Edward Sapir in Language, Culture and
Personality (the original edition, not the stripped-down reprinting). Sapir's
Encyclopedia Britannica article, which sets forth his superstock 
classification,
also deserves inclusion as a framework for much subsequent comparative work
and the basis for much still-ongoing discussion.

    Rudy