Indigenous languages are powerful symbols of self-determination and sovereignty for tribal communities in the United States, and many community-based programs have been developed to support and maintain them. The successes of these programs, however, have been difficult to replicate at large research institutions. This article examines the issues…

Framed by the English language and positioned as a distinct subject, Ojibwe culture and language are often appreciated by students rather than taught for a deeper understanding or fluency, or used as the language of instruction in tribal schools. Ojibwe culture and language have been "added on" to existing school curriculum, an approach that…

Early federal government policies for American indigenous people alternated between extermination and assimilation. Imposing the colonists' and immigrants' language on indigenous people was important for achieving the latter. In the 1970-90's, federally funded grants for bilingual education for indigenous schools were offered to accommodate Native…

This monograph will cover the language situation in Mexico; a linguistically very complex country with 62 recognised indigenous languages, the "de facto" official language, Spanish, and some immigrant languages of lesser importance. Throughout the monograph, we will concentrate on three distinct challenges which we consider relevant for…

The dictionary of stems, roots, and affixes for the Blackfoot language provides, for each entry, information on the item's morphological type (e.g., noun stem, verb stem, root), subclassification if relevant, English index, and certain diagnostic inflectional forms (full words or sentences), each with an English translation. In addition, entries…

The first complete descriptive grammar of Lillooet, an interior Salish language spoken in British Columbia (Canada), uses the structuralist method to provide a detailed analysis of the language's sound system, word structure, and syntax, and to explain their functions and positions within Lillooet's overall linguistic structure. The account is…

Drawing from papers presented at the five "Stabilizing Indigenous Languages" symposia held since 1994, this paper recommends strategies for language revitalization at various stages of language loss. Based on a study of minority languages worldwide, Joshua Fishman postulated a continuum of eight stages of language loss, ranging from the…

This paper discusses total physical response storytelling (TPR-S) as a promising approach to teaching a Native American language to Native students who have not learned it at home. TPR-S is an extension of James Asher's TPR immersion approach to teaching second languages. It has become very popular with indigenous teachers because it allows…

"Kansas Working Papers in Linguistics" is intended as a forum for the presentation of the latest original research by the faculty and students of the Department of Linguistics and other related departments of the University of Kansas. Papers in this volume include: "Some Issues in Japanese Accent" (Kenneth Miner);…

This paper presents an analysis of the meanings and uses of two reflexive morphemes in the Mohawk language. Reflexive "atat" is shown to have both reflexive and reciprocal meanings. It is also realized in kinship terms and in the transitive pronominal prefix "yutat." Semi-reflexive "at" has some reflexive functions,…

This article discusses the nominalizer /-qa/ in Hopi, looking specifically at nominalizations in /-qa/ without head nouns, sentential complements in /-qa/, and relative clauses in /-qa/. (CLK)

This journal volume by and about Indian, Inuit, and Metis native Canadian women, contains articles, interviews, book reviews, fiction, poetry, journal entries and art. It is dedicated to the grandmothers who managed to hold on to old ways, teachings, and feelings, and to pass them on. Poems and stories create personal portraits and reminiscences…

The life of a primary mythical character of the Hupa culture unfolds in this story, which was translated from a version told by an 82-year-old Hupa. The introduction summarizes the story plot explaining that the hero of the story is born under strange circumstances (dug up by a girl who ignores the warning not to dig potatoes with two leaves) and…

An analysis of indirect objects in San Jeronimo Mazatec describes the superficial characteristics of indirect objects and the constructions in which indirect objects occur. It is argued that they occur as prepositional phrases that are obligatorily incorporated into the verb in a specific way. The constructions containing indirect objects are…