Native American Languages by Bethanne Patrick

Author:Bethanne Patrick
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Native American Languages
ISBN: 9781422288597
Publisher: National Highlights Inc
Published: 2014-03-11T04:00:00+00:00

In 1836, U.S. Secretary of War Albert Gallatin began the first attempt to create a comprehensive scheme of American Indian languages, as they were called at the time. Gallatin took on this project because the Department of War was responsible for negotiations with Native American tribes and needed to know as many ways to communicate with them as possible.

Gallatin revised and expanded his scheme in 1848, and subsequent attempts to classify Native American languages have been made that include the indigenous languages of both North and South America. Many scholars of languages, or linguists, disagree, however, on how such a classification should be made. Some (known as traditionalists) often have dozens of language families in their schemes because they believe direct relationships between many of these families have not been made. Others (known as reductionists) try to limit the number of language families in order to show their close relationships.

The arguments between these two groups of scholars are complex, but they point to something significant. Until recently, university-level study of Native American languages was carried out by Americans of European descent rather than by native speakers of those languages. The history of Europeans’ warfare with and persecution of Native Americans resulted in Indian languages being downplayed and, in many cases, drowned out. Pressures on different tribal groups to adopt languages of European origin resulted in fewer and fewer people learning those languages at an early age.

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