25.4366, Calls: Historical Linguistics, Genetic Classification/Netherlands

Mon Nov 3 20:50:48 UTC 2014

LINGUIST List: Vol-25-4366. Mon Nov 03 2014. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 25.4366, Calls: Historical Linguistics, Genetic Classification/Netherlands

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Date: Mon, 03 Nov 2014 15:50:30
From: Kate Bellamy [k.r.bellamy at hum.leidenuniv.nl]
Subject: Historical Relations Among Languages of the Americas

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Full Title: Historical Relations Among Languages of the Americas 

Date: 02-Sep-2015 - 05-Sep-2015
Location: Leiden, Netherlands 
Contact Person: Kate Bellamy
Meeting Email: k.r.bellamy at hum.leidenuniv.nl

Linguistic Field(s): Genetic Classification; Historical Linguistics 

Call Deadline: 15-Nov-2014 

Meeting Description:

Approaches to language classification in the Americas have fluctuated considerably over the past 100 years. The beginning of the 20th century saw a sense of urgency in proposing long-distance relationships, most of which were not supported by sound empirical evidence (e.g., Sapir 1921). In contrast, towards the end of the 20th century confidence in the viability of this kind of enterprise was increasingly waning, marked by publications such as Campbell and Mithun (1979) and Campbell (1997). More recent years, however, have seen a renewed interest in taking up the challenge of understanding the linguistic past of a continent usually taken to be one of the linguistically most diverse areas of the world. Recent proposals have tended to be cautious, paying more detailed attention to the presentation and analysis of the materials on which they are based, as compared to much of the earlier work in the area. Some examples include the proposed links between Harakmbut and Katukina (Adelaar 2000) and between Totozoquean and Chitimacha (Brown et al. 2014), as well as the Macro-Jê affiliation of Jabutí (Ribeiro and van der Voort 2010). Such advances have in no small measure been possible because of the improved availability and quality of descriptive data. Current descriptive research on poorly documented languages, particularly in South America, will similarly allow for more progress in the understanding of the linguistic prehistory of Native America. Moreover, philological analysis of materials available for extinct and/or poorly documented languages has the potential to improve our understanding of their histories. Finally, computational methods have recently supplemented the toolkit of traditional historical linguistics, promising new ways of systematically arriving at potentially viable hypotheses in this field.

A keynote address will be delivered by Prof. dr. Willem F. H. Adelaar (Leiden University).

Call for Papers:

Historical relationships among languages of the Americas

With this workshop we would like to stimulate a continuation of research into historical relations of languages in the Americas in the recent tradition of careful data analysis and rigorous application of comparative methodology. Departing from the position that the current state of comparative historical studies of Native American languages only reflects a partly complete classification, and that some existing proposals may require modification, we welcome papers that: 

(i) Present evidence for hitherto unrecognized or poorly established genealogical relations among languages or language families of the Americas
(ii) Revisit older proposals, taking into account more recent data and/or methodological improvements
(iii) Assess the genealogical positions of extinct and poorly documented languages on the basis of detailed, philologically sound analysis of extant materials
(iv) Bring languages into the purview of linguistic classification on the basis of new descriptive data

We welcome a diversity of approaches ranging from the comparative method in historical linguistics to more recent quantitative/computational methods. 

Please send preliminary abstracts of no more than 300 words to Kate Bellamy (k.r.bellamy at hum.leidenuniv.nl) by November 15.

References:

Adelaar, Willem F. H. 2000. Propuesta de un nuevo vinculo genético entre dos grupos lingüísticos indígenas de la Amazonía occidental: Harakmbut y Katukina. In: Esquerre, Luis Miranda (ed.), Actas del I Congreso de Lenguas Indígenas de Sudamérica, Tomo II,, 219-236. Lima, Perú: Universidad Ricardo Palma.

Brown, Cecil H., Søren Wichmann, and David Beck. 2014. Chitimacha: a Mesoamerican language in the Lower Mississippi Valley. International Journal of American Linguistics 80.4: 425-474

Campbell, Lyle. 1997. American Indian Languages: The Historical Linguistics of Native America. New York: Oxford University Press.

Campbell, Lyle and Marianne Mithun (eds.). 1979. The Languages of Native America: Historical and Comparative Assessment. Austin: University of Texas Press.

Ribeiro, Eduardo Rivail and Hein van der Voort. 2010. Nimendajú was right: the inclusion of the Jabutí language family in the Macro-Jê stock. International Journal of American Linguistics 76.4: 517-570.

Sapir, Edward. 1921. A bird’s-eye view of American languages north of Mexico. Science 54:408.

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