Introduction

• Main Author: Campbell, Lyle
• Format: Book Part
• Language: unknown
• Published: Oxford University PressNew York, NY 1997
• Subjects: Arctic; Greenland; Indian; Yamana; eskimo*; Siberia; Tierra del Fuego
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780195094275.003.0001; https://academic.oup.com/book/chapter-pdf/52194200/isbn-9780195094275-book-part-1.pdf

Abstract spoken from Siberia to Greenland and from the Arctic to Tierra del Fuego; they include the southernmost language of the world (Yagan [alias Yamana]) and some of the northernmost languages (Eskimoan). They number into the hundreds (or, better said, into the low thousands). Yet what do we really know about them and their history? Where did they come from? To what extent are they related to one another? What does their study reveal about the past of their speakers and about the American Indian languages themselves? These and related matters are the concerns of this book. In 1954 Morris Swadesh counseled: At times some scholars despair of solving the difficult problems of remote prehistory and confine themselves to details of historical phonology or to the compilation of descriptive materials.