Reassessing Nineteenth-Century Missionary Linguistics on the Pacific Northwest Coast
Summary This article reconsiders various aspects of missionary linguistics on the Pacific Northwest Coast in the late 19th century. In particular, it explores the complex relationship between Alfred Hall’s (1853–1918) A Grammar of the Kwagiutl Language (1888) and Charles Harrison’s (d.1926) Haida Gr...
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Language: | English |
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John Benjamins Publishing Company
2008
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Online Access: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/hl.35.1-2.06tom http://www.jbe-platform.com/deliver/fulltext/hl.35.1-2.06tom.pdf |
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crjohnbenjaminsp:10.1075/hl.35.1-2.06tom 2024-06-09T07:46:31+00:00 Reassessing Nineteenth-Century Missionary Linguistics on the Pacific Northwest Coast Tomalin, Marcus 2008 http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/hl.35.1-2.06tom http://www.jbe-platform.com/deliver/fulltext/hl.35.1-2.06tom.pdf en eng John Benjamins Publishing Company Historiographia Linguistica volume 35, issue 1-2, page 83-120 ISSN 0302-5160 1569-9781 journal-article 2008 crjohnbenjaminsp https://doi.org/10.1075/hl.35.1-2.06tom 2024-05-15T13:26:34Z Summary This article reconsiders various aspects of missionary linguistics on the Pacific Northwest Coast in the late 19th century. In particular, it explores the complex relationship between Alfred Hall’s (1853–1918) A Grammar of the Kwagiutl Language (1888) and Charles Harrison’s (d.1926) Haida Grammar (1895), and it is shown that, in many cases, both the basic analytical framework and the clarificatory examples that Harrison used were largely derived from Hall’s work. Such connections have not been recognised previously, and yet they are of importance, since they indicate that traditional Graeco-Roman categories and paradigms were not the only templates used by missionaries who were seeking to analyse the indigenous languages of North America. In addition, Hall’s and Harrison’s accounts of numerals in Kwak’wala and Haida (respectively) are reassessed, and it is suggested that their analyses were influenced by the classificatory approaches presented in contemporaneous studies of non-Western languages (e.g., Japanese). Article in Journal/Newspaper haida John Benjamins Publishing Company Pacific Historiographia Linguistica 35 1-2 83 120 |
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John Benjamins Publishing Company |
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crjohnbenjaminsp |
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English |
description |
Summary This article reconsiders various aspects of missionary linguistics on the Pacific Northwest Coast in the late 19th century. In particular, it explores the complex relationship between Alfred Hall’s (1853–1918) A Grammar of the Kwagiutl Language (1888) and Charles Harrison’s (d.1926) Haida Grammar (1895), and it is shown that, in many cases, both the basic analytical framework and the clarificatory examples that Harrison used were largely derived from Hall’s work. Such connections have not been recognised previously, and yet they are of importance, since they indicate that traditional Graeco-Roman categories and paradigms were not the only templates used by missionaries who were seeking to analyse the indigenous languages of North America. In addition, Hall’s and Harrison’s accounts of numerals in Kwak’wala and Haida (respectively) are reassessed, and it is suggested that their analyses were influenced by the classificatory approaches presented in contemporaneous studies of non-Western languages (e.g., Japanese). |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Tomalin, Marcus |
spellingShingle |
Tomalin, Marcus Reassessing Nineteenth-Century Missionary Linguistics on the Pacific Northwest Coast |
author_facet |
Tomalin, Marcus |
author_sort |
Tomalin, Marcus |
title |
Reassessing Nineteenth-Century Missionary Linguistics on the Pacific Northwest Coast |
title_short |
Reassessing Nineteenth-Century Missionary Linguistics on the Pacific Northwest Coast |
title_full |
Reassessing Nineteenth-Century Missionary Linguistics on the Pacific Northwest Coast |
title_fullStr |
Reassessing Nineteenth-Century Missionary Linguistics on the Pacific Northwest Coast |
title_full_unstemmed |
Reassessing Nineteenth-Century Missionary Linguistics on the Pacific Northwest Coast |
title_sort |
reassessing nineteenth-century missionary linguistics on the pacific northwest coast |
publisher |
John Benjamins Publishing Company |
publishDate |
2008 |
url |
http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/hl.35.1-2.06tom http://www.jbe-platform.com/deliver/fulltext/hl.35.1-2.06tom.pdf |
geographic |
Pacific |
geographic_facet |
Pacific |
genre |
haida |
genre_facet |
haida |
op_source |
Historiographia Linguistica volume 35, issue 1-2, page 83-120 ISSN 0302-5160 1569-9781 |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1075/hl.35.1-2.06tom |
container_title |
Historiographia Linguistica |
container_volume |
35 |
container_issue |
1-2 |
container_start_page |
83 |
op_container_end_page |
120 |
_version_ |
1801376432398532608 |