5. North American Indian languages.
The languages of the North American Indian tribes, especially those belonging to the Algonquian language family, have enriched our vocabulary with a variety of expressions. Most of them, of course, entered the English language. For example, a number of place names in what is now the United States and Canada are of Indian origin. Of the 48 states (not counting Alaska and the Hawaiian Islands), half - exactly 23 - have Indian names: for example, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Dakota, Nebraska, Oregon, Utah, Idaho, Alabama, Delaware, Kansas, Oklahoma, etc. All the most important North American lakes also still bear their original, pre-Columbian names: Huron, Erie, Ontario, Oneida, Seneca, Winnipeg, the famous Michigan and others. And rivers too. The Potomac River, which flows right under the windows of the White House, the Ohio, the Wabash, and the “father of waters” - the Mississippi - have Indian names.
Now let’s open the “dictionary” of the most famous Indian words.
The word "tomahawk", like most other names for "Indian objects", comes from the Algonquian languages. The tomahawk clearly entered the world dictionary through the first English colonists in Virginia (at the beginning of the 17th century. The predecessor of the real tomahawk, as the first Europeans recognized it, even in the post-Columbian era, was a wooden club with a stone head. However, soon after the first contacts with the whites, these stone weapons were replaced by real “tomahawks”, which had a bronze or more often an iron cap.
Wampum. Wampums were strings with bone or stone beads strung on them, but more often by “wampums” we mean wide belts to which such strings of multi-colored beads were attached. Belts among the Algonquins and especially among the Iroquois decorated clothing, served as a currency unit, and most importantly, various important messages were transmitted with their help.
The next famous object of Indian life is the peace pipe, or calumet. This name was given to the peace pipe by French travelers who noticed its resemblance to a pipe or reed pipe. The Peace Pipe played an important role in the social life of many North American Indian groups. It was smoked by members of the “parliament” - the tribal council; smoking a peace pipe formed the basis of many religious rituals, especially among the prairie Indians, etc.
Peyote, or peyote, is a small cactus. It was used during ritual, ecstatic dances. The “dance of the spirits” was entirely related to previous use of the drug peyote. This is how the new Indian religion Ghost-Dance Religion arose. Now the former Ghost-Dance Religion of North American Indians is called the National American Church or the Church of the American Natives. The teachings of this Indian religious society are a mixture of Christian ideas and belief in various supernatural beings of old Indian beliefs.
Pemikan is also a product of the culture of the Indians of North America. The word itself comes from the Creek language and roughly means "processed fat." Pemikan serves as a high-calorie and surprisingly long-storable food supply, that is, as some kind of Indian “canned food”.
Scalp. The Indians had a cruel military custom, according to which the skin and hair were removed from the head of a killed enemy (and sometimes even from the head of a living prisoner). Thus, the scalp served as proof that the enemy had been killed or neutralized, and therefore it was considered a highly respected evidence of courage, a valuable war trophy. In addition, the scalper was convinced that by scalping the enemy, he was also taking away from him that “universal magical life force,” which, according to legend, was located precisely in the hair.
The next widely known word is squaw. It comes from the Narra-Ganset language and simply means “woman.” For example, a very popular combination of the Indian and English words Squaw-valley together means “Valley of Women.” Americans clearly love such compounds, and we find Squaw-flower (flower), Squaw-fish (fish), etc. in their language.
The tipi (the word comes from the Dakota language) is a pyramidal tent made of buffalo hides, found among all prairie tribes. A tipi is an ordinary house of a prairie Indian. Several dozen conical tipis made up the village. The leather walls of the tipi were decorated with drawings. The tent had special devices with which it was possible to regulate air circulation and, above all, remove smoke from the tent. Each tipi also had a fireplace. Another North American Indian dwelling, the wigwam, is often confused with the tipi. This word comes from the Algonquian languages of the Indian population of the east of what is now the United States and simply means “building.” While teepees were not very different from one another, the wigwams of individual Algonquian tribes were quite heterogeneous. Here, the different climatic conditions of the North American east, the availability of different building materials, etc. played a role. The basis of the wigwam was a frame cut from wooden poles and covered with the material that the builders had at hand.
Sign language. It allowed the Indians of the North American prairies, who spoke dozens of different dialects and even belonged to different language groups (not just the so-called Sioux family of languages), to understand each other. The news that the prairie Indian wanted to communicate to a member of another tribe was transmitted using gestures of one or both hands. These gestures and movements, the exact meaning of which was known to every Indian not only on the prairies, but also in their neighborhood, helped convey rather complex information to their partner. Even agreements between individual tribes, whose representatives did not understand each other, were concluded through sign language.
CONCLUSION
Indians are the only original inhabitants of the entire western half of our planet. When the first Europeans arrived in the New World in 1492, this gigantic continent was by no means uninhabited. It was inhabited by peculiar, amazing people.
In Central America and the Andes region, at the time of European colonization, there was a highly developed artistic culture, destroyed by the conquerors (see Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Panama, Colombia, Peru, Bolivia, Aztecs, Incas, Mayans, Mixtecs, Olmec culture, Zapotecs, Toltecs) .
The art of numerous tribes that were at the stage of the primitive communal system was closely connected with everyday life and material production; it reflected the observations of hunters, fishermen and farmers, embodied their mythological ideas and the wealth of ornamental imagination.
The types of Indian dwellings are varied: canopies, screens, domed huts (wigwams), conical tents (teepees of the prairie Indians of Canada and the USA) made of poles covered with branches, leaves, mats, skins, etc.; clay or stone huts in the mountainous regions of South America; communal dwellings - clapboard houses in northwestern North America; bark-covered frame “longhouses” in the Great Lakes region; stone or adobe village houses (pueblos) in southwestern North America. Wood carving, especially rich on the northwestern coast of North America (polychrome totem and grave poles with intertwined real and fantastic images), is also found among a number of South American tribes. Wickerwork, weaving, embroidery, and the making of feather jewelry, ceramic and wooden utensils, and figurines were widespread. The paintings include fantastic images, rich geometric patterns, military and hunting scenes (drawings of prairie Indians on tipis, tambourines, shields, bison skins).
Studying the life of the Indians helps us take a new look at the present and future of America. Because it is among the Indians that the most distant past meets the most remarkable and rosy future of the continent.
LIST OF REFERENCES USED
1. Cultural studies. Textbook for students of higher educational institutions. Rostov-on-Don: Phoenix Publishing House, 1998. – 576 p.
2. Peoples of the world: historical and ethnographic reference book / Ch. ed. Yu.V. Bromley. Ed. board: S.A. Arutyunov, S.I. Brook, T.A. Zhdanko et al. – M.: Soviet Encyclopedia, 1988. – 624 p.
...]. The thrust of the current administration's Indian policy is to "end reliance on federal payments." It is obvious to anyone who is at least generally familiar with the history of the Indians’ struggle for their rights in the second half of the current century that we are talking about a veiled resumption by the American government of the policy of “termination” that met in the 50s of the 20th century. the sharpest...
Christopher Columbus, who mistakenly took a wrong turn on his sea route and ended up in America instead of India. However, everything is not so simple. Columbus was far from the first foreigner on the American continent. To whom do scientists credit the discovery of the New World: Amerigo Vespucci, the Vikings, and even the Indians! Thanks to many years of research, in which representatives of almost all...
In the 15th century, Christopher Columbus discovered America, but at first he assumed that he had ended up in India. It is for this reason that the indigenous inhabitants of those lands began to be called “Indians.” Settlers from Europe brought to the American continent not only unprecedented goods, products and progress, but also terrible diseases (smallpox, measles, influenza), to which the Indians had no immunity. Most of the indigenous people died in the struggle for survival, while others were driven from their habitats to reservations where they live to this day. Thanks to the fact that the Indians still live in their own communities, they were able to partially preserve ancient customs and traditions, their native language and established way of life.
A little about the history of Indian tribes
Indians have lived in Canada since ancient times. Each tribe spoke its own language and had its own culture. In general, there were about 2,200 different peoples in America, and today there are just over 1,000 of them left. Many Indian tribes were at enmity with each other and waged constant internecine wars. The main occupations of the indigenous peoples of Canada were: buffalo hunting, fishing, and farming. After the Europeans brought weapons and horses to the Indians, it became much easier for them to hunt animals.
Indian genocide
Many scientists believe that Europeans sought to specifically exterminate the indigenous people of Canada. But others disagree with them. An indisputable fact is that after the discovery of America by Columbus, the number of Indian tribes (according to some sources) decreased tenfold. But the indigenous people of Canada also died due to diseases that were brought from the Old World. We must not forget about the constant internecine wars that practically never stopped between individual tribes. The question of the genocide of Indian peoples is still open, but it is very controversial.
Indian life in Canada today
The 2006 census shows that there are just over 700,000 Indians living in Canada. They all live on reservations, where all the necessary conditions for life have been created. Although Indians still have limited rights: they cannot sell their houses, move to a new place of residence, and are prohibited from doing business. They do not have the opportunity to receive a decent education and find a prestigious job. In this regard, many Indians still engage in activities familiar from ancient times: hunting, fishing, farming. Many receive benefits from the Canadian government, but out of desperation they begin to get involved in alcohol and drugs.
It should be noted that over the past 25 years, infant mortality has decreased significantly, so the Indian population in Canada has increased significantly.
The most famous Indian tribes of Canada
Each region of Canada was home to different tribes. They differed in languages, traditions, and occupations. The Hurons, Iroquois, Algonquins, Nootkas, Mohawks and many other tribes that have lived in Canada since ancient times are included in the general group - “Indians”. There were numerous settlements near the lakes in Canada, whose inhabitants were engaged in farming, hunting, trading and fishing. Others lived in the eastern forests, as well as in the north of the country. Nomadic tribes moved from place to place, and sedentary tribes built large settlements and erected wooden houses.
The Iroquois are tribes of Indians who had well-developed agriculture. They grew corn, beans and much more. They were very hostile to other peoples and often waged wars with the Algonquins, Hurons, and Mohicans. In the 16th century, the Iroquois League was created - an alliance of related tribes. In the 17th century, their number was only about 25,000, which is very small compared to other major linguistic groups. Due to continuous wars and diseases brought by Europeans, their numbers were constantly declining.
The ancestors of the Eskimos, who came there from Chukotka, lived in the north of Canada. They were mainly engaged in hunting walruses and deer. The descendants of these tribes call themselves "Inuit". They live in autonomous territories and receive subsidies from the Canadian government.
The Algonquins lived in the eastern forests. This is a large tribe of Indians that belongs to the Algonquin language group. According to scientists' research, before the arrival of Europeans their number was about 6,000 people. The Algonquins were constantly at odds with the Iroquois. Today, the descendants of this tribe live on ten reservations in Canada. Their number is 11,000 people.
The Hurons were a union of five tribes. They lived over a vast territory in the Great Lakes region. By the way, the word “Huron” is used to describe both an Indian and a lake in Canada. These tribes led a sedentary lifestyle and built fairly large and fortified villages. They were mainly engaged in fishing and farming, believed in the existence of spirits and practiced shamanism. The language of the Huron Indians has been lost in our time, but the descendants of these peoples still live in Canada today.
Ancient customs, languages and traditions
Some ancient Indian languages have survived to this day. In general, scientists identify about 200 language families. Many tribes became completely extinct, and their languages were lost forever.
Canadian Indians living on reservations still celebrate ancient holidays. In early August, for example, Pow Wow is held - a bright, colorful festival that attracts Indians from all over North America. During the festival, tourists and local residents of Canada can enjoy fiery dances and see with their own eyes the colorful national costumes of the indigenous inhabitants of these lands. During the Pow Wow there is also a fair where everyone can buy souvenirs and goods made by the hands of the Indians.
The holiday has a sacred origin; it begins with prayer. During the opening, you can see the legendary drumming, circle dances and Indian songs, which are very difficult for Europeans to understand, because they are sung out of rhythm.
National Indian cuisine
Indian cuisine is very diverse. Different language groups have their own taste preferences and favorite dishes. But since ancient times, the American Indians' diet has always included turkey meat, corn, potatoes, legumes and pumpkin. Spicy dishes are not popular. Indians use wild ginger and juniper as seasonings. The indigenous peoples of Canada have always eaten meat, and life without it was considered incomplete. However, the Indians treated the killed animals very carefully. It is known, for example, that before a hunt they certainly prayed and asked for forgiveness in advance for the murder.
In the spring, Indian tribes collected maple sap from which they made syrup. You can try it now at the fair during the Pow-Wow. In addition, at the festival you can eat fried bread - a ritual dish of the Indians.
Religion
Most American Indians practiced shamanism. They believed in the power of spirits and the supernatural abilities of animals. The Indians had special ideas about the afterlife: they believed that after death a person continues to live the same way as on earth. The First Nations peoples of Canada did not have temples or special places of prayer. Today, the culture and peculiarities of the beliefs of many tribes have been lost forever, but on reservations you can find Indians who honor the memory of their ancestors and the ancient traditions of their people.
Reservations
Canada is a highly developed country, the main principle of which is the equality of all citizens.
It is located in the north of North America. Canada ranks second in the world (Russia is first) in terms of the size of its territory. Indian tribes have lived on the territory of this country since ancient times, but after the arrival of Europeans, they were forced to leave their habitable places. In the 19th century, the Canadian government decided to move all Indians to reservations.
They live there to this day. Their settlements are strikingly different from each other. In some cases, people are literally fighting for their existence and have problems with clean water, heating and gas. On other reservations you can see modern houses, institutions and hospitals.
Conclusion
When you read adventure books about the cruel customs and traditions of the Indians (for example, about scalping an enemy), it becomes creepy. It seems that this is all fiction. However, such tribes existed in reality. Many of them were very militant and constantly exterminated their neighbors in order to take possession of new territories. Other tribes lived completely calmly, engaged in agriculture, raised livestock, and hunted. But with the arrival of Europeans in America, the life of the Indians changed dramatically, and they had to fight for their rights, for a future in their native territories.
the general name for the languages of the Indians of the indigenous peoples of North and South America who lived on these continents before and after the arrival of European colonialists. The Indians usually do not include one of the groups of indigenous inhabitants of America - the Eskimo-Aleut peoples, who live not only in America, but also in Chukotka and the Commander Islands (Russian Federation). Eskimos are very different from their neighbors- Indians physical appearance. However, the racial diversity of the Indians of North and South America is also extremely large, so the non-inclusion of Eskimos and Aleuts among the Indians is motivated mainly by tradition.The diversity of Indian languages is so great that it is comparable to the diversity of human languages in general, so the term “Indian languages” is very arbitrary. American linguist J. Greenberg, who came up with the so-called “Amerindian” hypothesis, proposed uniting all Indian languages, except for the languages of the Na-Dene family, into a single macrofamily - Amerindian. However, most specialists in Indian languages were skeptical about this hypothesis and the “mass comparison of languages” methodology behind it.
It is quite difficult to indicate the exact number of Indian languages and make an exhaustive list of them. This is due to a number of circumstances. First, it is necessary to distinguish between modern and pre-colonization language pictures. It is believed that before colonization in North America (north of the Aztec empire, located in central Mexico) there were up to four hundred languages, and now there are just over 200 of them left in this territory. Moreover, many languages disappeared before they were recorded in any way . On the other hand, languages such as Quechua in South America have expanded the territorial and ethnic base of their distribution many times over the past centuries.
The second obstacle to calculating Indian languages is related to the problem of distinguishing between language and dialect. Many languages exist in several regional varieties called dialects. Often the question of whether two similar forms of speech should be considered different languages or dialects of the same language is very difficult to resolve. When solving the language/dialect dilemma, several heterogeneous criteria are taken into account.1) Mutual intelligibility: is mutual understanding possible between speakers of two idioms without prior training? If yes, then these are dialects of the same language; if not, then these are different languages.
2) Ethnic identity: very similar (or even identical) idioms may be used by groups that perceive themselves as different ethnic groups; such idioms can be considered different languages.
3) Social attributes: An idiom that is very close to a certain language may have certain social attributes (for example, statehood), which makes it considered a special language.
4) Tradition: similar situations can be viewed differently simply due to tradition.
From a physical-geographical point of view, America is usually divided into North and South. From political to North (including Canada, USA and Mexico), Central and South. From an anthropological and linguistic point of view, America is traditionally divided into three parts: North America, Mesoamerica and South America. The northern and southern borders of Mesoamerica are understood differently, sometimes in terms of modern political divisions (then, for example, the northern border of Mesoamerica is the border of Mexico and the United States), and sometimes in terms of pre-colonial cultures (then Mesoamerica is the sphere of influence of the Aztec and Mayan civilizations ).
Classifications of Indian languages. The history of the classification of North American languages goes back more than one and a half centuries. The forerunner of the genetic classification of North American languages was P. Duponceau, who drew attention to the typological similarity of many of these languages (1838), namely their polysyntheticism. The authors of the first actual genetic classifications were A. Gallatin (1848) and J. Trumbull (1876). But it was the classification named after John Wesley Powell that was truly comprehensive and very influential. Major Powell (1834-1902) was an explorer and naturalist who worked for the Bureau of American Ethnology. In the classification prepared by Powell and his associates, 58 language families of North America were identified (1891). Many of the families he identified have retained their status in the modern classification. In the same 1891, another important classification of American languages appeared, belonging to Daniel Brinton (1891), who introduced a number of important terms (for example, “Uto-Aztecan family”). In addition, Brinton's classification included the languages of not only North but also South America. Later classifications of North American languages were based on Powell's classification, and those of South American languages were based on Brinton's classification.Soon after the publication of Powell's classification, attempts were made to reduce the number of North American language families. Californian anthropologists A. Kroeber and R. Dixon radically reduced the number of language families in California, in particular they postulated the associations of “Hoca” and “Penuti”. Reductionist trend of the early 20th century. found its culmination in the widely known classification of E. Sapir (1921, 1929). This classification included only six macrofamilies (stocks) of North American languages: Eskimo-Aleut, Algonquian-Wakashan, Na-Dene, Penutian, Hokan-Siouan and Aztec-Tanoan. Sapir considered this classification as a preliminary hypothesis, but later it was reproduced without the necessary reservations. As a result, the impression was formed that the Algonquin-Wakash or Hokan-Siwan associations were the same recognized associations of the New World as, say, the Indo-European or Uralic languages in Eurasia. The reality of the Eskimo-Aleut family was later confirmed, and the remaining five Sapirian macrofamilies were revised or rejected by most specialists.
The contrast between linguists prone to lumping and splitting remains in American studies to this day. Beginning in the 1960s, the second of these trends began to gain strength; its manifesto was the book
Native languages of the Americas (eds. L. Campbell and M. Mithun, 1979). This book takes the most conservative approach possible, listing 62 language families (including some Mesoamerican families) that have no identifiable relationship. More than half of these families represent genetically isolated single languages. This concept is based on a qualitatively new level of knowledge about most North American languages compared to Sapir's time: during the 1960-1970s, detailed comparative historical work was carried out on all nuclear families of North America. This work has continued actively over the past two decades. "Consensus Classification" was published in Volume 17 (Languages ) fundamentalHandbook of North American Indians (ed. A. Goddard, 1996). This classification, with minor modifications, repeats the 1979 classification, also representing 62 genetic families.The first detailed classification of South American languages was proposed in 1935 by the Czech linguist C. Loukotka. This classification includes 113 language families. Subsequently, much work on the classification of Amazonian languages was carried out by the Brazilian linguist A. Rodriguez. One of the most modern and conservative classifications belongs to T. Kaufman (1990).
Linguistic diversity and linguistic-geographical features of America. American linguist R. Austerlitz formulated an extremely important observation: America is characterized by a much higher genetic density than Eurasia. The genetic density of a particular territory is the number of genetic associations represented in this territory, divided by the area of this territory. The area of North America is several times smaller than the area of Eurasia, and the number of language families in America, on the contrary, is much greater. This idea was developed in more detail by J. Nichols (1990, 1992); According to her data, the genetic density of Eurasia is about 1.3, while in North America it is 6.6, in Mesoamerica it is 28.0, and in South America it is 13.6. Moreover, there are areas in America with particularly high genetic density. These are, in particular, California and the northwestern coast of the United States. This area is an example of a "closed linguistic zone" with high linguistic diversity. Confined zones usually occur under specific geographic conditions; factors contributing to their occurrence are the ocean coasts, mountains, other insurmountable obstacles, as well as favorable climatic conditions. California and the northwest coast, sandwiched between the mountains and the ocean, fit these criteria perfectly; It is not surprising that genetic density here reaches record levels (in California 34.1). On the contrary, the center of North America (the Great Plains area) is an “extended zone”, only a few families are common there, occupying a fairly large area, the genetic density is 2.5.The Settlement of America and the Prehistory of Indian Languages. The settlement of America occurred through Beringia, the zone of the modern Bering Strait. However, the question of the time of settlement remains debatable. One point of view, based on archaeological evidence and dominant for a long time, is that the main prehistoric population migrated to America 12-20 thousand years ago. Recently, more and more evidence has been accumulating about a completely different scenario. Among this evidence there is also linguistic evidence. Thus, J. Nichols believes that the extreme linguistic diversity of America can be explained in two ways. If we adhere to the hypothesis of one wave of migration, then at least 50 thousand years must have passed since this wave to achieve the current level of genetic diversity. If we insist on a later start of migration, then the existing diversity can only be explained by a series of migrations; in the latter case, we have to assume that genetic diversity was transferred from the Old World to the New. It is most likely that both are true, i.e. that the settlement of America began very early and occurred in waves. In addition, archaeological, genetic and linguistic evidence suggests that the bulk of the proto-American population migrated not from the depths of Eurasia, but from the Pacific region.Major families of Indian languages. The largest language families in America are listed below. We will consider them, gradually moving from north to south. In this case, we will not make a distinction between living and dead languages.Family on the Dene (Na-Dene) includes the Tlingit and Eyak-Athabascan languages. The latter are divided into the Eyak language and the rather compact Athabaskan (Athabaskan ~ Athapaskan) family, which includes about 30 languages. Athabascan languages are spoken in three areas. Firstly, they occupy one massif of inland Alaska and almost the entire western part of Canada. The ancestral homeland of the Athabaskans is located in this area. The second Athabascan range is Pacific: these are several enclaves in the states of Washington, Oregon and northern California. Third Area languages are common in the southwestern United States. The South Athabascan languages, otherwise called Apache, are closely related. These include the largest North American language in terms of number of speakers, Navajo.(cm. NAVAJO).Sapir attributed the Haida language to Na-Dene, but after repeated testing this hypothesis was rejected by most experts, and today Haida is considered an isolate.Salish (Salishan) family is distributed compactly in southwestern Canada and northwestern USA. This family contains about 23 languages and is divided into five continental groups and four coastal groups: Central Salish, Tsamos, Bella Coola and Tillamook. There are no proven external connections of the Salish family to date.. Vakash family (Wakashan) is common on the coast of British Columbia and on Vancouver Island. It includes two branches: northern (Kwakiutl) and southern (Nutkan). Each branch includes three languages.Algskaya (Algic) family consists of three branches. One of them is the traditionally distinguished Algonquian family, distributed in the center and east of the continent. The other two branches are the Wiyot and Yurok languages, located in a completely different area in northern California. The relationship of the Wiyot and Yurok languages (sometimes called Ritwan) with the Algonquian languages has long been questioned, but is now recognized by many experts. The question of the ancestral home of the Alg family in the west, in the center or in the east of the continent remains open. The Algonquian family includes about 30 languages and occupies almost all of eastern and central Canada, as well as the entire region around the Great Lakes (except Iroquoian territory,see below ) and the northern part of the Atlantic coast of the United States (as far as North Carolina in the south). Among the Algonquian languages, a compact group of closely related Eastern Algonquian languages stands out. Other languages hardly form groups within the Algonquian family, but come directly from the common Algonquian “root”. Some Algonquian languages - Blackfoot, Cheyenne, Arapaho - spread particularly far west into the prairie region.Siouan (Siouan) family includes about two dozen languages and occupies a compact spot of the main part of the prairie range, as well as several enclaves on the Atlantic coast and in the southeastern United States. The Catawba and Wahkon languages (southeastern United States) are now considered to be a distant group of the Siouan family. The remaining Siouan languages are divided into four groups: the southeastern, Mississippi Valley, upper Missouri, and Mandan groups. The largest group is the Mississippi group, which in turn is divided into four subgroups: Dhegiha, Chiwere, Winnebago and Dakota(cm. DAKOTA).The Siouan languages are probably related to the Iroquoian and Caddoan languages. Other previously proposed Siouan family affiliations are considered unproven or erroneous; The Yuchi language is considered an isolate.Iroquois (Iroquoian) family has about 12 languages. The Iroquoian family has a binary structure: the southern group consists of one Cherokee language, all other languages are included in the northern group. Northern languages are common in the area of Lakes Erie, Huron and Ontario and along the St. Lawrence River, as well as further south on the Atlantic coast of the United States. Cherokee is even further to the southwest.Caddoan (Caddoan) family includes five languages that occupy a chain of north-south enclaves in the prairie area. The Caddo language is further removed from the other Caddoan languages than they are from each other. The kinship of the Caddoan and Iroquois families is now considered practically proven.Muskogean (Muskogean) family includes about 7 languages and occupies a compact region in the extreme southeastern United States east of the lower Mississippi, including Florida. The hypothesis about the unification of the Muskogean languages with four other languages of the same area under the name of the Gulf macrofamily, proposed by M. Haas, has now been rejected; these four languages (Natchez, Atakapa, Chitimasha, and Tunica) are considered isolates.Kiowa-Tanoan (Kiowa-Tanoan) family includes the Kiowa language of the southern prairie region and three languages of the Southwestern United States representing the Pueblo culture (along with Keres languages, a Uto-Aztecan Hopi language, and a Zuni isolate).The so-called “Penutian” macrofamily, proposed at the beginning of the 20th century. Kroeber and Dixon, is extremely problematic and as a whole is not recognized by specialists. Within the “Penutian” association, the most encouraging connections are between the Klamath language, the Molala language (both in Oregon) and the Sahaptin languages (Oregon, Washington); this association is called the “Penutian languages of the Plateau” (4 languages). Another relationship that is considered as a reliable genetic connection within the framework of the “Penutian” association is the unity of the Miwok family (7 languages) and the Costanoan family (8 languages); This association is called the “Utian” family and is located in northern California. In total, the hypothetical “Penutian” association, in addition to the two already named, includes 9 more families: Tsimshian family (2 languages), Shinuk family (3 languages), Alsey family (2 languages), Siuslau language, Kus family (2 languages), Takelma -Kalapuyan family (3 languages), Vintuan family (2 languages), Maiduan family (3 languages) and Yokuts family (at least 6 languages). Sapir also attributed the Cayuse language (Oregon) and the “Mexican Penutian” family Mihe-Soke and the Huave language to the Penutian macrofamily.
Kochimi-Yumanskaya (Cochim-Yuman) family is common in the border region between the United States and Mexico. The Cochimi languages are found in central Baja California, and the Yuman family of ten languages is found in western Arizona, southern California, and northern Baja California. The Yuman family was classified as a “Hokan” macrofamily. Now the Kochimi-Yuman family is considered as the core of this hypothetical association. The most likely genetic connections between the Cochimi-Yuman languages and the Pomoan languages spoken in northern California (the Pomoan family includes seven languages). According to modern ideas, the “Khokan” association is as unreliable as the Penutian one; in addition to those already mentioned, it includes 8 independent families: the Seri language, the Washo language, the Salin family (2 languages), the Yana languages, the Palainihan family (2 languages), the Shastani family (4 languages), the Chimariko language and the Karok language. Sapir also included Yakhik Esselen and the now extinct Chumash family, which included several languages, among the Khokan languages.Uto-Aztecan (Uto-Aztecan) family largest in the western United States and Mexico. There are about 22 Uto-Aztecan languages in the United States. These languages fall into five main groups: Nama, Tak, Tubatulabal, Hopi and Tepiman. A number of other groups are represented in Mexico, including the Aztec languages(cm . AZTEC LANGUAGES).Uto-Aztecan languages occupy the entire Great Basin of the United States and large areas of northwestern and central Mexico. The Comanche language is common in the southern prairie region. Numerous external connections of the Uto-Aztecan languages proposed in the literature are unreliable.The last two families examined are partly located in Mexico. Next we come to families that are represented exclusively in Mesoamerica.
Otomangean (Otomanguean) family has many dozens of languages and is spoken primarily in central Mexico. The seven groups within the Otomanguean family are Amusgo, Chiapanec-Mangue, Chinanteco, Mixteco, Otomi-Pame, Popolocan and Zapotec.Totonac (Totonacan) family is distributed in east-central Mexico and includes two branches: Totonac and Tepehua. The Totonac family includes about a dozen languages.Mihye-soke family (Mixe-Zoque) is widespread in southern Mexico and includes about two dozen languages. The two main branches of this family are the Miche and the Soke.Mayan family (Mayan) The largest family of the south of Mexico, Guatemala and Belize. There are currently between 50 and 80 Mayan languages.Cm . MAYAN LANGUAGES.Misumalpan (Misumalpan) family includes four languages, located in El Salvador, Nicaragua and Honduras. Perhaps this family is genetically related to the Chibchan (see below ). Chibchanskaya (Chibchan) language family is transitional between the languages of Mesoamerica and South America. Related languages are spoken in Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Venezuela and Colombia. The Chibchan family includes 24 languages.The further families under consideration are strictly South American, although some of them have peripheral representatives in Central America.
Arawakan (Arawakan), or Maipurean, family is distributed throughout almost all of South America, a number of Central American countries down to Guatemala, and all the islands of the Caribbean, including Cuba. The center of gravity of this family, however, is in the western Amazon. The Arawak family consists of five main branches: central, eastern, northern (including the Caribbean, Interior and Wapishana groups), southern (including the Bolivia-Paran, Campa and Purus groups) and western.Caribbean(Ká riban) the main family of northern South America. (We emphasize that the Caribbean group mentioned in the previous paragraph does not refer to this family, but to the Arawakan. This homonymy arose due to the fact thatá Ribi peoples from the mainland conquered the Arawak peoples of the islands and in some cases transferred their self-name to them. TOá The Ribi family includes 43 languages.In western Amazonia (roughly the same place as the Arawak family) the languages are found
Tucanoan (Tuká noan) family. This family includes 14 languages.The Andean region contains languages
Quechuan(Quechuan) and Aymaran (Aymaran) families. The great languages of South America, Quechua and Aymara, belong to these families. The Quechuan family includes several Quechua languages, which in other terminology are called dialects(cm. QUECHUA).Aymaran family, or Khaki (Jaquí ), consists of two languages, one of which is Aymaraá (cm. AIMAR Á).Many experts suggest that these two families are related and form the Kechumara macrofamily; other linguists explain the similarities by borrowings.Located in the southern foothills of the Andes
Panoan (Panoan) family. It is divided into eight branches, named according to geography (eastern, north-central, etc.), and includes 28 languages.There is a family in eastern Brazil
or (Je), which includes 13 languages. There is a hypothesis that languagesor together with 12 more small families (from 1 to 4 languages each) form a macrofamilymacro. TO macro include, in particular, the Chiquitano language, the Bororoan family, the Mashakali family, the Caraj languagesá and etc.Along the periphery of the macro-area, i.e. actually distributed throughout Brazil and surrounding areas
Tupian(Tup ian ) macrofamily. It includes about 37 languages. The Tupian macrofamily includes the core Tupi-Guarani family, which consists of eight branches: Guaranian, Guarayu, Tupian proper, Tapirape, Cayabi, Parintintin, Camayura and Tukunyape. The Guarani branch includes, in particular, one of the great South American languages - the Paraguayan Guarani language(cm. GUARANI).In addition to the Tupi-Guarani languages, the Tupi union includes eight more separate languages (their genetic status has not been definitively established).Sociolinguistic information. American Indian languages are extremely diverse in their sociolinguistic characteristics. The current state of Indian languages developed under the conditions of European colonization and subsequent existence as languages of ethnic minorities. Nevertheless, in the current state, reflexes of the social and demographic situation that took place in the pre-colonial period are clearly visible. There are many individual differences in the modern sociolinguistic status of Indian languages, but there are features common to entire areas. In this sense, it is convenient to consider North America, Mesoamerica and South America each separately.Despite the high linguistic genetic density of North America, population density during the pre-contact period was low. Most estimates of the Indian population before colonization are in the region of 1 million. Indian tribes, as a rule, did not number more than a few thousand people. This situation continues today: Indians represent very small minorities in the United States and Canada. However, there are several tribes whose numbers number in the tens of thousands: Navajo, Dakota, Cree, Ojibwa, Cherokee. Many other tribes within 18
20th centuries disappeared completely (as a result of genocide, epidemics, assimilation) or survived as ethnic groups, but lost their language. According to the data of A. Goddard (based, in turn, on information from M. Krauss, B. Grimes, and others), 46 Indian and Eskimo-Aleut languages have been preserved in North America, which continue to be acquired by a fairly large number of children as native languages. In addition, there are 91 languages that are spoken by a fairly large number of adults, and 72 languages that only a few older people speak. Another 120 or so languages that were somehow recorded have disappeared. Almost all North American Indians speak English (or French or Spanish). In the last one or two decades, vigorous efforts have been made by Indians and linguists in a number of places in the United States and Canada to revive indigenous languages.The populous Mayan and Aztec empires were destroyed by the conquistadors, but the descendants of these empires number in the hundreds of thousands. These are the Masahua languages (250-400 thousand, Oto-Manguean family, Mexico), Eastern Huastec Nahuatl (more than 400 thousand, Uto-Aztecan family, Mexico), Mayan Qeqchi languages (280 thousand, Guatemala), West-central Quiche ( more than 350 thousand, Guatemala), Yucatecan (500 thousand, Mexico). The average number of Mesoamerican speakers is an order of magnitude higher than in North America.
In South America, the linguistic situation is extremely polarized. On the one hand, the vast majority of languages have a very small number of speakers - several thousand, hundreds or even tens of people. Many languages have disappeared, and this process is not slowing down. Thus, in most of the largest language families, from a quarter to half of the languages have already become extinct. However, the population speaking indigenous languages is estimated at between 11 and 15 million people. This is due to the fact that several South American languages became interethnic for entire groups of Indian tribes, and subsequently a means of self-identification for Indians (regardless of their specific ethnic origin) or even entire countries. As a result, Indian languages acquired official status in a number of states.
(cm. QUECHUA; AYMARA; GUARANI).Typological features. For all the genetic diversity of the languages of the Americas, it is clear that very few generalizations can be made about the structural features of these languages. Most often, as a constitutive feature of the “American” language type,polysynthetism , i.e. a large number of morphemes per word on average (compared to the interlingual “standard”). Polysynthetism is a characteristic not of any words, but only of verbs. The essence of this grammatical phenomenon is that many meanings, often expressed in the languages of the world as part of names and functional parts of speech, are expressed in polysynthetic languages as part of a verb. The result is long verb forms containing many morphemes, and other parts of the sentence are not as obligatory as in European-style languages (Boas spoke of the “word-sentence” in North American languages). Sapir gave the following example of a verb form from the Californian Yana language (Sapir 1929/Sapir 1993: 414): yabanaumawildjigummaha"nigi "let us, each [of us], indeed move westward across the stream." The structure of this form is: ya-(several .people.move); banauma- (all); wil- (through); dji- (to.west); gumma- (really); ha"- (let); nigi (we). In the Iroquois Mohawk language, the word ionsahahnekúntsienhte means “he scooped up water again” (an example from the work of M. Mitun). The morphemic analysis of this word is as follows: i- (through); ons- (again); a- (past); ha- (masculine unit agent); hnek- (liquid);ó ntsien- (get.water); ht- (causative); e" (precision).Most of the largest language families in North America have a pronounced tendency towards polysyntheticism: Na-Dene, Algonquian, Iroquoian, Siouan, Caddoan, Mayan. Some other families, especially in the western and southern parts of the continent, are closer to the typological average and are characterized by moderate synthetism. Polysynthesis is also characteristic of many languages of South America.
One of the main aspects of polysynthetism is the presence of indicators of arguments in the verb; such are the morpheme -nigi "we" in Yana and ha- "he" in Mohawk. These indicators encode not only the internal features of the arguments themselves (person, number, gender), but also their role in predication (agent, patient, etc.). Thus, role meanings, which in languages like Russian are expressed by cases as part of names, are expressed in polysynthetic languages as part of the verb. J. Nichols formulated an important typological opposition between vertex/dependent marking: if in a language like Russian, role relationships are marked on dependent elements (names), then in a language like Mohawk on the vertex element (verb). Indicators of arguments in a verb are traditionally interpreted in American studies as pronouns incorporated into the verb. To describe this phenomenon, Jelinek proposed the concept of “pronominal arguments”: in languages of this type, the true arguments of the verb are not independent nominal word forms, but associated pronominal morphemes as part of the verb. Nominal word forms in this case are considered as “adjuncts” to pronominal arguments. Many Indian languages are characterized by the incorporation into the verb of not only pronominal morphemes, but also nominal roots, especially corresponding to the semantic roles of patient and place.
Using the material of Indian languages, an active sentence construction was discovered for the first time. Activity a phenomenon alternative to ergativity and accusativity
(cm . LINGUISTIC TYPOLOGY).In an active construction, both agent and patient are encoded regardless of the transitivity of the verb. The active model is characteristic, in particular, of such language families as Pomoan, Siouan, Caddoan, Iroquois, Muskogean, Keres, etc. in North America, and for the Tupian languages in South America. The concept of active languages, which belongs to G.A. Klimov, is largely based on these Indian languages.Indian languages significantly influenced the development of word order typology. Studies of basic word order routinely cite data from South American languages to illustrate rare orders. Yes, in
á in the Ribi language of Khishkaryana, according to the description of D. Derbyshire, the basic order is “object predicate subject” (very rare in the languages of the world). The material of Indian languages also played a big role in the development of the typology of pragmatic word order. For example, R. Tomlin and R. Rhodes found that in Ojibwa Algonquian the most neutral order is the opposite of that common in European languages: thematic information comes after non-thematic information. M. Mitun, relying on the material of polysynthetic languages with pronominal arguments, proposed not to consider the basic order as a universally applicable characteristic; indeed, if noun phrases are merely appendices to pronominal arguments, then their order should hardly be considered an important characteristic of the language.Another feature of a number of Indian languages is the opposition between the proximal (near) and obviative (distant) third person. The most famous system of this type is found in the Algonquian languages. Noun phrases are explicitly marked as referring to a proximate or obviative person; this choice is made on discursive grounds; a person known or close to the speaker is usually chosen as proximate. Further, on the basis of the difference between two third persons in a number of Indian languages, the grammatical category of inverse is built. Thus, in Algonquian languages there is a personal hierarchy: 1st, 2nd person > 3rd proximate person > 3rd obviative person. In transitive predications, the agent may be higher than the patient in this hierarchy, and then the verb is marked as a direct form, and if the agent is lower than the patient, then the verb is marked as inverse.
Andrey Kibrik LITERATURE Berezkin Yu.E., Borodatova A.A., Istomin A.A., Kibrik A.A.Indian languages . In the book: American ethnology. Study guide (in print)Klimov G.A. Typology of active languages . M., 1977
On the pages of the Vamvigvam store we talked about all the houses of the Indians and other nomadic tribes - wigwams, tipis, yarangas, etc.
The time has come to find out more about the residents of these homes themselves.
Indians is the common name given to the indigenous people of North America. The only exceptions are the Aleuts and Eskimos. The origin of this name originates from the misconception of the first guests from Europe, such as Christopher Columbus and others. They believed that the continent they discovered was India, not America.
According to their anthropological type, Indians belong to the Americanoid race. At the moment, the number of Indians on both American continents already exceeds 75 million people, taking into account those Indians who have lost their belonging to any tribe. It is worth recalling that only in the 60s of the last century this figure was 30 million. There are now approximately 1,000 different Indian tribes and nationalities, and this number, despite the general growth of the Indian population, has decreased: in the end
XV centuries there were approximately 2,200 different nationalities, tribes and species.
According to numerous studies that have been conducted on this topic, the ancestors of the Eskimos and Indians came to American soil from Asia and Altai. In ancient times, on the site of the Bering Strait there was the Bering Bridge, which was a fairly wide isthmus that allowed free migration between continents. The Indians settled and settled in the new land for many thousands of years. The similarities between the Indian tribes living in America, as well as the Chukchi and other peoples who live in Eurasia, are quite noticeable, and this is expressed not only in their lifestyle, but also in many other things. For example, scientists were able to establish that the DNA of the indigenous inhabitants of Altai and the Indians living on a completely different continent is somewhat similar due to the presence of unique mutations in them.
Before colonization began in America, most Indians lived in tribes dominated by a communal tribal system. Some tribes had matriarchy, and some had patriarchy, but the system was preserved. At that time, in North America alone there were 400 tribes that spoke their own unique languages and dialects and did not have any written language. In 1825, thanks to its leader, Sequoia, the Cherokee tribe created a syllabary alphabet, and two years later the tribe's first newspaper, called the Cherokee Phoenix, appeared.
However, not all tribes were so educated: the steppe Indians used pictographic writing. There was also an intertribal slang used for trading: it was called "mobile". Sign language was also used by the Indians. Wampums, which are beads made from mollusk shells, acted as money.