Michael D. Fortescue

A Comparative Manual of Affixes for the Inuit Dialects of Greenland, Canada, and Alaska

West Greenlandic

Steven A. Jacobson

Michael Fortescue

Lawrence Kaplan

Lawrence D. Kaplan

This dictionary covers 10 Eskimo dialects (Alutiiq, Central Alaskan Yupik, Naukan, Central Siberian Yupik, Sirenik, Seward Peninsula Inuit, North Alaskan Inuit, Western Canadian Inuit, Eastern Canadian Inuit, Greenlandic Inuit). An introductory section details the classification of languages and dialects and their phonologies, and discusses the relationship of Eskimo and Aleut languages. Following this, the main section lists base words alphabetically, with dialectal variations. Subsequent sections address these categories of linguistic forms: forms from single Eskimo languages with proposed cognates in Aleut; postbases and enclitics; inflections; and demonstratives. Indexes are given separately for Aleut, Central Alaskan Yupik, Eastern Canadian Inuit, Greenlandic Inuit, and proto-form glosses. A dialect map with distribution of settlement is not included. Contains over 100 references. (MSE)

With Aleut Cognates

Comparative Eskimo Dictionary

This volume consists of 19 papers presented at the 16th International Conference on Historical Linguistics, which was held in August 2003 in Copenhagen and drew the largest number of participants and the widest array of languages that this important biannual conference has ever had. As with previous volumes, the papers selected cover a wide range of subjects besides the core areas of historical linguistics, and this time include studies on ethnolinguistics, grammaticalisation, language contact, sociolinguistics, and typology. The individual languages treated include Brazilian Portuguese, Chukchi, Korean, Danish, English, German, Greek, Japanese, Kok-Papónk, Latin, Newar, Old Norse, Romanian, Seneca, Spanish, and Swedish. The volume reflects the state of the art both empirical and theoretical  in Historical Linguistics today, and shows the discipline to be as flourishing and capable of new advances as ever.

Selected Papers from the 16th International Conference on Historical Linguistics, Copenhagen, 11-15 August 2003

Historical Linguistics 2003

Comparative Wakashan Dictionary

This book is intended as counter-evidence to the perception that Linguistics is a domain of dusty schoolroom grammar. It follows that linguistics can be characterised differently than as proponents of theoretical orientations who spend their brief breaks from their bone-dry work bashing each other over the head with their different favourite abstractions. The discipline may appear to outsiders as fragmented and -- worse still -- lacking in relevance to the real world outside its gates. This book demonstrates that Linguistics, in all its varied branches, can be entertaining as well as thought-provoking, and that its domain is indeed a coherent one despite all the internecine squabbling. In an unconventional way Michael Fortescue introduces his subject as a kind of fable with a historical moral that professional linguists, as well as students, should enjoy as a useful commentary on the state of the discipline today.

The Domain of Language

Orientation Systems of the North Pacific Rim is an extension of the author's earlier volume Eskimo Orientation Systems (also published in the series Monographs on Greenland - Meddelelser om Grønland, Man & Society, 1988). This time it covers all the contiguous languages ? and cultures ? across the northern Pacific rim from Vancouver Island in Canada to Hokkaido in northern Japan, plus the adjacent Arctic coasts of Alaska and Chukotka. These form a testing ground for recent theories concerning the nature and classification of orientation systems and their shared ?frames of reference?, in particular the many varieties of ?landmark? systems typifying the Arctic and sub-Arctic. Despite the wide variety of languages spoken here (all of them endangered), there is much in common as regards their overlapping geographical settings and the ways in which terms for orientation within the microcosm (the house) and within the macrocosm (the surrounding environment) mesh throughout the region. This is illustrated with numerous maps and diagrams, from both coastal and inland sites. Attention is paid to ambiguities and anomalies within the systems revealed by the data, as these may be clues to pre-historic movements of the populations concerned ? from a riverine setting to the coast, from the coast to inland, or more complex successive displacements. Cultural factors over and beyond environmental determinism are discussed within this broad context.

Michael D. Fortescue

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