Handbook of North American Indians, vol. 17: Languages (review)

This book (‘Volume 17’, as specialists generally call it, henceforth Vol. 17) is listed as seventeenth in the Smithsonian Institution’s twenty-volume Handbook of North American Indians project, but it was the tenth to appear. Only one of the other general volumes appeared earlier (vol. 4, History of Indian-White relations, in 1988); the first two books published in the series were regional volumes, California and Northeast, both in 1978. Not only is the project as a whole a long-running event, but Vol. 17 itself has a lengthy history: eight of its twenty-five main chapters were submitted between 1992 and 1995, but all the others were first submitted between 1972 and 1977.¹ In spite of its rather distant 1996 publication date, the editors of Language have agreed that its importance—its established eminence in the permanent literature on Native American languages—make it appropriate to publish a review even at this late date.

Listing the chapters of an edited volume in a review is rarely a good idea, but this is not an ordinary edited volume, and a complete list is needed to give a clear idea of the impressive scope of the entire work. The book begins with an introduction by the editor (1–16), followed by thirteen general chapters: ‘The description of the Native languages of North America before Boas’, by Ives Goddard (17–42); ‘The description of the Native languages of North America: Boas and after’, by Marianne Mithun (43–63); ‘Language and the culture history of North America’, by Michael K. Foster (64–110); ‘Borrowing’, by Catherine A. Callaghan and Geoffrey Gamble (111–16); ‘Dynamics of linguistic contact’, by Michael Silverstein (117–36); ‘Overview of general characteristics’, by Mithun (137–57); ‘Native writing systems’, by Willard B. Walker (158–84); ‘Place-names’, by Patricia O. Afable and Madison S. Beeler (185–99); ‘Personal names’, by David H. French and Kathrine S. French (200–221); ‘The ethnography of speaking’, by Wick R. Miller (222–43); ‘Discourse’, by M. Dale Kinkade and Anthony Mattina (244–74); ‘Nonspeech communication systems’, by Allan R. Taylor (275–89); and ‘The classification of the Native languages of North America’, by Goddard (290–323).

The other twelve main chapters are sketches of particular languages, chosen for maximum diversity in geographical and family coverage (although there is no sketch of a language from the southeastern US): Central Alaskan Yupik, by Osahito Miyaoka (325–63); Hupa, by Victor Golla (364–89); Cree, by H. C. Wolfart (390–439); Lakhota, by David S. Rood and Allan R. Taylor (440–82); Zuni, by Stanley Newman (483–506); Eastern Pomo, by Sally McLendon (507–50); Seneca, by Wallace L. Chafe (551–79); Wichita, by Rood (580–608); Thompson Salish, by Laurence C. Thompson, M. Terry Thompson, and Steven M. Egesdal (609–43); Coahuilteco, by Rudolph C. Troike (644–65); Sahaptin, by Bruce Rigsby and Noel Rude (666–92); and Shoshone, by Miller (693–720).

The book concludes with ‘Sources’, by Herbert J. Landar (721–61), an ambitious compilation that is intended to provide, wherever possible, references to ‘a printed grammar, dictionary, and collection of texts for each native language of North America’ (721); a list of contributors (four of them deceased by the time the book went to press), including the dates of submission and then acceptance of each article (762–63); an enormous comprehensive bibliography covering the entire book (764–925); and an index (926–57). And finally, in a pocket inside the back cover, there are two handsome multicolored maps: a large map of ‘Native languages and language...