An extensive new dictionary of Interior Tlingit containing sections organized
by topic, Tlingit word, and English word.
How to Keep Your Language Alive: A Commonsense Approach to One-on-One
Language Learning.
Leanne Hinton, with Matt Vera and Nancy Steele and the Advocates for Indigenous
California Language Survival. Berkeley, California:
Heyday Books. pp. xvii + 123.
ISBN 1-890771-42-2. US$15.95.
A guide for people trying to learn their native language one-on-one from a speaker.
Based on the experience of people who have participated in Master-Apprentice programs
in California.
Indigenous Langauges Across the Community.
Edited by Barbara Burnaby and Jon Reyhner. Contains papers from
the Seventh Annual Stabilizing Indigenous Languages Conference held in May
2000 in Toronto.
Over two dozen multimedia children's books in Navajo, created by teacher trainees,
have been published. Versions are available for both Windows and MacIntosh sytems.
The Warmth of Love: the Four Seasons of Sophie Thomas.
Terry Jacks. The Sophie Thomas Foundation, 2000. VHS video, 33:33 minutes. C$20.
Describes the use of traditional herbal medicine by Saik'uz elder
Sophie Thomas. See the description in the North Shore News. Call 1-800-667-7718 to purchase.
Cis dideen kat (When the Plumes Rise): The Way of the Lake Babine Nation
A description of the potlatch system, the traditional legal system of the
Lake Babine Nation. Jo-Anne Fiske is an anthropologist. Betty Patrick is Chief
of the Lake Babine Nation.
The Green Book of Language Revitalization in Practice.
Leanne Hinton and Ken Hale (eds.) San Francisco: Academic Press. 2001.
ISBN 0123493536 (hardcover). ISBN 0123493544 (softcover).
A very important collection of papers on all aspects of language maintenance and
revitalization around the world. Topics covered include: immersion programs, language teaching
methods, master-apprentice programs, and resuscitation of extinct languages using linguistic
documentation. The hardcover version is very expensive (US$99.95); a cheaper (US$49.95)
softcover version is to be published in November.
Can threatened languages be saved?
Joshua A. Fishman (ed.). Toronto: Multilingual Matters. 2001.
ISBN 1-85359-493-8 (paperback). ISBN 1-85359-492-X (hardcover).
A collection of 19 papers on reversing language shift dealing with
languages around the world.
The Phonology and Morphology of the Tanacross Athabaskan Language
Gary Holton. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of California at Santa Barbara.
August 2000.
Mushkeg Media, a native-owned production company, has been
broadcasting a 13 part series on the aboriginal languages in Canada.
Videotapes are available for purchase. They are also planning a second
series and are looking for interesting language revitalization efforts.
One of the most comprehensive dictionaries yet published for any native language.
The basis for this dictionary is the mass of linguistic and ethnographic material
compiled by Father Jetté between 1898 and 1927. This material has been edited and
added to by a number of linguists, including Eliza Jones, a fluent native speaker of the
language. The dictionary includes hundreds of cultural notes by Jetté and Jones,
many of them accompanied by Father Jetté's sketches.
Vanishing Voices: The Extinction of the World's Languages.
Daniel Nettle and Suzanne Romaine. 2000.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
A discussion of the rapid loss of languages throughout the world,
with particular attention to the causes of language death and the relationship
between linguistic diversity and biological diversity. An important chapter
is devoted to why we should care about the loss of linguistic diversity.
Linguistic Genocide in Education or Worldwide Diversity and Human Rights?
By Tove Skutnabb-Kangas. 2000.
Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. ISBN 0-8058-3468-0.
A massive (nearly 800 pages) volume of considerable importance for people concerned
with endangered languages.
The Thirty-Fifth International Conference on Salish and Neighbouring Languages
Edited by Suzanne Gessner and Sunyoung Oh. University of British Columbia Working Papers
in Linguistics Volume 3. 2000.
Contains the preprints for the conference held August 16-18 at Mount Currie. Available for
$25.00 plus shipping from:
UBCWPL Editors
Department of Linguistics
Buchanan E-270, 1866 Main Mall
University of British Columbia
Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z1
Canada
Dene Gudeji: Kaska Narratives
Edited by Pat Moore. Watson Lake: Kaska Tribal Council. 1999.
A collection of twenty-seven texts, mostly traditional stories,
from 19 different narrators, with
both interlinear and free translation. Order from: Marie Skidmore,
Kaska Tribal Council, Box 2806, Watson Lake, Yukon Y0A 1C0, Canada.
$45. Add $15 for shipping to US.
The Languages of Native North America
.
By Marianne Mithun.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 770 pp. 1999.
The first part of the book,"The Nature of the Languages", discusses,
in general terms, the principal characteristics of the native languages
of North America. The second part, "Catalogue of Languages", provides
profiles of every family and isolate, including pidgins, creoles, and mixed
languages.
Published by Cambridge University Press.
US$74.95.
Tribal College Journal
The current (Spring) issue of Tribal College Journal is
devoted to the efforts of tribal colleges in the United States to
revitalize native languages. It will be available on March 1st, 2000.
For more information, email the editor
Marjane Ambler.
Practicing Anthropology
The Spring 1999 issue (vol. 21, no. 2) is devoted largely to a series
of ten articles under the heading Reversing Language Shift in
Indigenous America: Collaborations and Views From the Field.
For more information contact the office of the publisher, the Society for
Applied Anthropology:
Society for Applied Anthropology Business Office
P. O. Box 24083
Oklahoma City, OK 73124-0083 USA
405-843-5113