Native Languages of the Americas

• Main Author: Lyovin, Anatole V
• Format: Book Part
• Language: unknown
• Published: Oxford University PressNew York, NY 1997
• Subjects: Bering Strait
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780195081152.003.0007; https://academic.oup.com/book/chapter-pdf/52192006/isbn-9780195081152-book-part-7.pdf

Abstract In North, Central, and South America there are three groups of languages: (1) the native or aboriginal languages of the Americas, (2) the varieties of languages imported into the Americas from the Old World (primarily Europe) and which now predominate in the region, and (3) some important contact languages which arose on the soil of the American continent. Contact languages in general, as well as those that arose in the Americas from Europe have over the years developed traits that mark them as being somewhat different from their European antecedents; however, these differences will not be discussed here. In this chapter only the native American languages will be discussed. Most authorities seem to agree that the original population of the Americas came over from Asia, most likely across the Bering Strait or even across the land bridge which, geologists say, connected Asia and America in the re mote past. One basis for this claim is that the native Americans share some racial traits in common with peoples of Asia, for example, the Mongolian spot which appears on the back and buttocks of newborn babies and disappears as they grow into adulthood.