The Indigenous Languages of the Americas takes stock of what is known about the history and classification of these languages and language families. It identifies the gaps in knowledge and puts them into perspective, and it assesses differences of opinion. It also resolves some issues and makes new contributions of its own.
The nine chapters of the book deal incisively with the major themes involving these languages: the classification and history of the Indigenous languages of North American, Middle American (Mexico and Central America), and South American; difficulties involving names of the languages; origins of the languages of the New World; unclassified, phantom, fake, and spurious languages in the Americas; recent hypotheses of remote linguistic relationships; the linguistic areas of the Americas; contact languages, including pidgins, lingua francas, and mixed languages; and loanwords and other new words in the native languages of the Americas.
The Indigenous Languages of the Americas is a comprehensive assessment of what is known about their history and classification. It identifies gaps in knowledge and resolves controversial issues while making new contributions of its own. The book deals with the major themes involving these languages: classification and history of the Indigenous languages of the Americas; issues involving language names; origins of the languages of the New World; unclassified and spurious languages; hypotheses of distant linguistic relationships; linguistic areas; contact languages (pidgins, lingua francas, mixed languages); and loanwords and neologisms.
This book offers a detailed account of all the languages which are native to the Americas. Authored by Professor Lyle Campbell, one of the world's greatest experts in this highly complex field, it takes the reader on a breathtaking journey through three subcontinents, home to a thousand languages, either vital or dormant, and divided over more than 160 unrelated language families and isolates. It exposes the incredible linguistic diversity and richness of the New World... struggling to preserve a unique heritage of multilingual and multicultural diversity. The history of pioneering classificatory efforts, as well as significant recent advances in language classification related to the Americas, receive all the attention to which they are entitled.
