A bibliography of the Haida language

Index CJL/RCL 14-16 (1968-1971)

Vocabularies of the Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian Languages

https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/E5F2A0E253D9FDE618D7FFEAB7A1795B/S0008413100019666a.pdf/div-class-title-a-bibliography-of-the-haida-language-div.pdf

Contributions to the ethnology of the Haida

Social condition, beliefs, and linguistic relationship of the Tlingit Indians

Gratifying progress in the reconstruction of Proto-Athapaskan has been made on the sure ground of rigorous comparative method and adequate documentation. In sharp contrast to this, the discussion of Na-Dene is, of necessity, groping and highly speculative in many respects. Here not only the documentation but also simple comparative method still fail us. Indeed, the structure of Na-Dene is apparently so much more complex than the conventional models we use in comparative work that our understanding of Na-Dene relationships has progressed

Proto-Athapaskan-Eyak and the problem of Na-Dene: The phonology.

LANGUAGES may be classified together because of structural similarities without regard to any possible historical relationship between them; this is typology. They may be classified together because they share a number of features and are found in the same area; the similarities are presumed to be the result of diffusion in large part. This is what Trubetskoy termed classification as Sprachbunde. Finally, languages may be classified together because they are believed to have diverged from a common ancestral form of speech; this is genetic classification. All three kinds of classification are of great potential interest to the student of human culture. The special interest of genetic classification is that where there was once linguistic unity, it can be inferred that there was once cultural unity as well. In American anthropology, however, there is still no agreement on the criteria for genetic linguistic classification. The validity of establishing major stocks on the basis, at least in part, of morphological correspondences has been hotly contested. In the late nineteenth century Daniel Brinton (1891) included morphological facts in classifying American languages, while John Wesley Powell (1891) rigorously excluded them, relying on vocabulary facts alone. In this century, Sapir (1929) included morphological correspondences in establishing broad genetic groups, while the later Boas (1920, 1929) and the early Kroeber (1903, 1911, 1913) distrusted morphological resemblances unless accompanied by numerous lexical resemblances as well. This position essentially duplicated that of Powell, for lexical resemblances remained the necessary and sufficient criterion of genetic relationship. An occasional exception came in reasoning that if lexical and morphological resemblances seemed to point to different classifications, neither could be said to show genetic relationship, and diffusion would be invoked to account for both. Rowe has recently demanded the use of lexical evidence alone (Rowe 1954; Lackner and Rowe 1955). Recent statements by Newman (1954:628) and McQuown (1955:502) take the position that only lexical cognates supported by phonetic correspondences are valid proof of genetic relationship, while Hoijer (1941, 1954b:637-638), Bergsland (1951), Swadesh (1951), and Kroeber (1919, 1955) follow Brinton and Sapir in accepting morphological evidence as well. In the development of American anthropology this divergence of opinion on method has become linked with a particular question of fact: are Haida, Tlingit, and the Athapaskan stock genetically related? Is Na-D6ne, Sapir's term for the three, an historical reality? Discussions of Na-Den6 have turned largely on differing views of the general problem of method; conversely, discussions of the problem of method have turned frequently to Na-Dene as a test case. Thus the history of one is not fully understood apart from the history of the other, and new light on one is likely to illuminate both.

Na-Déné and Positional Analysis of Categories†

The following notes on the sounds of the Skidegate dialect of Haida are based on material which I was fortunate enough to secure from Peter R. Kelly, a well educated Haida Indian who is at present engaged in missionary work among the Indians at Nanaimo, Vancouver Island. Mr. Kelly visited Ottawa in March, 1920, as member of an Indian deputation to the Canadian Government and was too much occupied to give me more than a few hours. In spite of the brevity of my notes I believe the insight gained into Haida phonetics is sufficient to warrant this paper. I cannot, of course, give an adequate account of the Haida soundsystem, but purpose merely to present data supplementing Dr. Swanton's brief statement '. The phonetic system employed in this paper is explained in ( Phonectic Transcription of Indian Languages )> (Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, vol. 66, n? 6). A remark or two on the general impression produced by Haida may be of interest. I took several opportunities to have Mr. Kelly speak Haida connectedly and was thus enabled to hear it long enough to form a definite image of its acoustic quality. It is one of the most remarkable languages that I have ever heard. Indeed, I cannot recall having at any time heard connected speech that appeared more definitely possessed of individuality. The great frequency of nasal consonants (n, .), the constant occurrence of sonorous g-sounds, the profusion of I-syllables (see below, p. I52), and the musical cadences are probably the chief determinants of this individuality. Haida is very far from being a harsh language. On the contrary, it was voted a beautiful language by all who.heard Mr. Kelly's recital of a Raven myth. Several of us in Ottawa heard connected Mohawk, Tsimshian, Nass River, Thompson River, Shuswap, and Danish at the same time. If we were asked to rate these seven languages on the score of acoustic appeal, I believe the consensus of opinion would be a division into four groups: Haida as an easy