An Introduction to the Shoshoni Language (review)

Shoshoni is one of the northernmost Numic languages of the Uto-Aztecan family. Although many dialects exist across four states—Nevada, Wyoming, Utah, and Idaho—Gould and Loether focus in this book on the dialect spoken in Fort Hall, Idaho. Their aim is to present to a beginning student the skills needed to acquire modest written and spoken proficiency in the language, preferably with the accompanying set of tapes. But as G&L note, the hope is that the student will use this work as a spring-board to further study with native speakers and more advanced grammars and texts. It assumes no prior knowledge about Shoshoni or Numic languages or any theoretical linguistics at all.

The book consists of an introduction, eight chapters of dialogues, grammar, the cultural implications of certain kinds of language use, several short Shoshoni texts and bibliographical sources, and finally a glossary of all vocabulary presented in the dialogues. The introduction briefly surveys the history of the Shoshoni language and people, focusing on the period after contact with Europeans. Ch. 1 briefly discusses the necessary preliminaries of Shoshoni orthography and phonology crucial to mastering the morphophonological alternations—particularly ‘final features’—persistent throughout the language’s morphology.

Chs. 2–8 each begin with one or more dialogues in Shoshoni, a loose English translation, a more literal morphosyntactic gloss, and a small list of vocabulary used within those immediately preceding dialogues. The content of these dialogues is usually extremely practical, a kind of ‘how-to’ guide to live one’s daily life speaking Shoshoni. Topics include greetings, how to ask for directions, expressing likes and dislikes, asking for the time, and other aspects of people’s daily routines, interspersed with cultural notes about when some types of linguistic behavior are appropriate and when not. Grammatical concepts are broached sparingly and always in conjunction with structures presented in preceding dialogues, thus obviating the need for students to skip ahead to understand constructions for which they have not been adequately prepared.

Informality does not, however, imply lack of pedagogical rigor concerning grammar. Grammatical topics include: nominal number, case and case declension, word order, postpositions, question formation, a large array of verbal aspectual morphemes and auxiliaries, antipassivization, adjective-noun agreement, postpositional adjuncts, and a number of different kinds of subordinating constructions. Professional linguists not requiring in-depth grammaticality judgments will find much of interest here. Constructions are also often presented without using their technical names (e.g. antipassivization), so as not to frighten students not versed in linguistic terminology.

This general practical attitude towards language instruction sets G&L’s grammar apart from many grammars of aboriginal languages of the Americas, which are often of a highly technical nature and oriented to trained specialists. This grammar will probably be highly useful for community programs dedicated to language maintenance, as it will allow ethnic Shoshoni who are monolingual speakers of English to approach the language from the standpoint of everyday use, rather than the abstract beauty of its grammatical system. This is a fine work for the terms in which it is conceived.