Arctic languages: An awakening Edited by Dirmid R. F. Collis (review)

624 LANGUAGE, VOLUME 67, NUMBER 3 (1991) cribes to me notions and words which I could not have entertained or articulated . She also has me reading Talmud with Sapir (403). Alas, I did not. I wish I had—it would be a sustaining memory. Greater care in checking sources would have obviated these errors. Regrettably, the author's imputations cannot but raise questions as to her reliability in other contexts. Edward Sapir's stature as scholar and humanist will lead others to write of him and his world. Meanwhile, Darnell has mined the sources with diligence, and her biography will serve as a useful, informative backdrop for the life and times of a unique figure in the history of linguistics and anthropology. REFERENCES Edgerton, Franklin. 1940. Edward Sapir. Year Book 1939. 460-64. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society. Hymes, Dell H. 1985. Epilogue. Selected writings of Edward Sapir, 1st paperback edn., ed. by David G. Mandelbaum, 599-600. Berkeley: University of California Press. Kroeber, Theodora. 1961. Ishi in two worlds: A biography of the last wild Indian in North America. Berkeley & Los Angeles: University of California Press. Lienhardt, Godfrey. 1985. Observers observed: Review of history of anthropology, vol. 1, ed. by George W. Stocking. Times Literary Supplement, June 7.647. Mandelbaum, David G. 1941. Edward Sapir. Jewish Social Studies 3.131-40. ------ (ed.) 1949. Selected writings of Edward Sapir in language, culture, and personality. Berkeley: University of California Press. Pike, Kenneth. 1986. Reminiscences about Edward Sapir. New perspectives in language , culture, and personality, ed. by William Cowan. Michael K. Foster, and Konrad Koerner, 387-88. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: Benjamins. Sapir, Edward. 1916. Time perspective in aboriginal American culture: A study in method. Ottawa: Canada, Department of Mines. Geological Survey, Memoir 90, Anthropological Series 13. ------. 1921. Language: An introduction to the study of speech. New York: Harcourt, Brace. Siskin, Edgar E. 1986. The life and times of Edward Sapir. Jewish Social Studies 48.283-92. Sullivan, Harry Stack. 1939. Edward Sapir, Ph.D., ScD. Psychiatry 2.159. The Jerusalem Center for Anthropological Studies 39 Hatikva Street Yemin Moshe 94103 Jerusalem Israel [Received 4 December 1990; revision received 7 January 1991. Arctic languages: An awakening. Edited by Dirmid R. F. Collis. Paris: UNESCO, 1990. (Distributed by UNIPUB, Lanham, MD.) Pp. 458. $43.00. Reviewed by Bernard Comrie, University of Southern California This work deals primarily with the social functions of the languages of the Arctic, with surveys, of varying degrees of length, of the structure of the languages . The book falls into three main chapters, in addition to the editor's 'General introduction' (15-17): 'Siberia: The languages of the Soviet North' (21-127), with contributions by Yevgeniya Alekseenko, Alla Bugaeva, Nadezhda Bulatova, Vera D'yakonova, Galina Grachyova, Ilya REVIEWS625 Gurvich, Piotr Inenlikei, Ludmila Khomich, Yevdokiya Kuzakova, Georgy Menovshchikov, Galina Otaina, Yevdokiya Rombandeeva, Piotr Skorik, Orest Sunik, Chuner Taksami, Nikolai Tereshkin, Vassily Uvachan, Nikolai Vakhtin, Alexander Volodin, and Alevtina Zhukova; 'North America and Greenland: Native Languages' (131-364), with contributions by Knut Bergsland, Christian Berthelsen, Louis-Jacques Dorais, Michael Fortescue, Inge Kleivan, Lawrence D. Kaplan, Edna Ahgeak MacLean, Aqigsslaq M0ller, and Robert Petersen; and 'Northern Scandinavia : The Sámi language in the Nordic countries' (367-458), with contributions by Marjut Aikio, Elina Helander, Ole Henrik Magga, and Pekka Sammallahti. The second chapter in turn divides into three parts: Alaska, Canada, and Greenland. The number of languages dealt with in each part is naturally different, though bearing little relation to the number of pages, so that some languages receive much more extensive coverage than others. For the USSR, some 25 languages are covered in 107 pages; for Alaska, Aleut and four varieties of Eskimo (one Inuit, three Yupik) are covered in 54 pages; for Canada, the Inuit dialect chain receives 105 pages; for Greenland, Greenlandic (subsuming the local varieties of Inuit) receives 74 pages; and for Northern Scandinavia the varieties of Sámi (Lappish) are given 92 pages. The very fact that Soviet researchers are collaborating with those from the other Arctic countries on a project of this nature is a welcome sign of changing times, from which the Arctic peoples too are benefiting (for instance, through increased interchange between the indigenous inhabitants of Alaska and...