Lexical Acculturation in Native American Languages (Oxford Studies in Anthropological Linguistics, 20)

Lexical acculturation refers to the accommodation of languages to new objects and concepts encountered as the result of culture contact. This unique study analyzes a survey of words for 77 items of European culture (e.g. chicken, horse, apple, rice, scissors, soap, and Saturday) in the vocabularies of 292 Amerindian languages and dialects spoken from the Arctic Circle to Tierra del Fuego. The first book ever to undertake such a large and systematic cross-language investigation, Brown's work provides fresh insights into general processes of lexical change and development, including those involving language universals and diffusion. Contents......Page 10 ONE: Introduction......Page 14 TWO: Methodology......Page 22 THREE: Nomenclature......Page 30 FOUR: Lexical Universals......Page 53 FIVE: Lexical Borrowability......Page 66 SIX: Regional Patterns and Bilingualism......Page 81 SEVEN: Lexical Replacement......Page 103 EIGHT: Native Term Diffusion......Page 116 NINE: European Loan Diffusion......Page 132 TEN: Loan Shift: A Brief Case Study......Page 148 ELEVEN: Postcontact Linguistic Areas......Page 155 TWELVE: Conclusion......Page 169 APPENDIX A: Statistical Reports on Individual Items of Acculturation......Page 179 APPENDIX B: Lexical Sources and Other Information for 292 Language Cases......Page 193 References......Page 232 A......Page 250 C......Page 251 E......Page 253 G......Page 254 J......Page 255 M......Page 256 O......Page 258 P......Page 259 S......Page 260 U......Page 262 Z......Page 263 B......Page 264 D......Page 265 H......Page 266 L......Page 267 P......Page 268 S......Page 269 W......Page 270