The number of indigenous people that inhabited the American continent before the European settlers arrived is still debated about today. Based on numerous different sources, printed as well as online, it ranges from 8 million to 112 million people who lived in tribal societies. Those tribes were often very different in the way they lived: some societies were nomad tribes, their major source of food being hunting – which was why they followed their prey. Others lived from growing maize and plants. Again others in the rocky desert regions lived in houses which they built using the natural rock foundations of the area. There were different sizes of tribes, some being rather small, and some being huge, like for example the Aztec societies or the Anasazi people. But no matter what size the population of tribe was, or how advanced they were in their way of life, there’s one thing all of them had in common: the moment of contact with the European settlers changed their lives forever.
Today the number of Native American people in the United States, although slowly increasing again, is still considerably low: about 1.9 million people today consider themselves to be Native Americans. They make about one percent of the overall population of the United States of America. Throughout the last five centuries, their population was decimated by diseases and wars, caused by the invasions of European settlers. Special programs during the nineteenth century, aiming to “kill the Indian, save the man” have further added to not only the decimation of a race, but the loss of cultures and related to that, languages.
Yet, a lot of aspects of Native American cultures and languages live on today in the modern languages in the form of loanwords. These loanwords allow a glimpse into a unique style of life, which got lost over time.
This paper aims on looking at the different kinds of loanwords, seeing what areas of life they can be classified into and to examine when they entered the English language for the first time.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction
2. Loanwords from Latin American Origin
3. North American Indian Loanwords
4. Conclusion
Objectives and Topics
This paper examines the history and development of Native American loanwords in contemporary American English, specifically investigating how linguistic borrowing correlates with the socio-historical relations between European settlers and indigenous tribes.
- Analysis of loanwords derived from Latin American indigenous languages (e.g., Arawakan, Nahuatl).
- Investigation into North American Indian loanwords and the influence of early colonial contacts.
- Critical review of Charles L. Cutler’s thesis regarding the impact of Indian-White relations on linguistic acquisition.
- Evaluation of historical factors, such as westward expansion and assimilation policies, on language extinction and survival.
Excerpt from the Book
3 North American Indian Loanwords
The first words from North American Indians which appeared in written works in English actually date back to roughly twenty years before the British colonization began. Charles Cutler names Thomas Harriot in this context, who was a mathematician, and arrived in the so called New-World in 1584 at the coast of what is today the area of North Carolina. In 1588 he wrote a thirty-eight page report on Virginia, which already included a number of loanwords which the English language was already familiar with since they had been introduced long before through the discoveries of the Spanish people and the resulting language influence. But this pamphlet does not only include words already in use, but also introduced thirty-seven North American Indian loanwords into the English language. Most of them derive from languages of the Algonquian family, a lot of them being words from the Roanoke people whom Harriot had extensive contact with during his stay. Most of those words are no longer in use today, Cutler names one plant though which name first occurred in that paper and is still in use today: cocúshaw (or cushaw, as it is used today). Cutler describes the “cushaw, along with pumpkins and other squashes” to be native of North America.
The case of Thomas Harriot seemed especially interesting to me, since the tribe which he encountered and was said to speak the language of is the Roanoke tribe, which mysteriously disappeared in 1588. The reasons for that disappearance are still not known, and history books name a number of various assumptions, such as a disease. However, the interesting part is that the tribe disappeared even before the English settlement began; hence the paper of Thomas Harriot is the only source to get a vague notion of what the language of the Roanoke people must have been like.
Summary of Chapters
1. Introduction: Provides an overview of the demographic history of indigenous peoples and outlines the paper's aim to analyze the etymological origins and historical context of loanwords in American English.
2. Loanwords from Latin American Origin: Discusses the early borrowing of words from South and Central American tribes, highlighting how these terms integrated into daily language and botanical terminology.
3. North American Indian Loanwords: Explores the linguistic contact in the North American colonies, critically evaluating how specific historical events and settler-tribal relations influenced the borrowing process.
4. Conclusion: Summarizes the findings by challenging the overly simplistic correlation between friendly relations and word acquisition, arguing for a more nuanced, tribe-specific historical approach.
Keywords
Native American, loanwords, etymology, language contact, colonization, Algonquian, Nahuatl, Arawakan, assimilation, history, linguistics, vocabulary, indigenous languages, cultural history, frontier.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the fundamental scope of this academic paper?
The paper investigates the history and development of Native American loanwords in contemporary American English and examines the socio-historical factors that influenced the borrowing of these terms.
Which thematic fields are central to the analysis?
The core themes include the impact of early colonial contact, the linguistic influence of specific indigenous language families, and the critical assessment of historical linguistic theories regarding Native American cultures.
What is the primary research goal?
The main goal is to evaluate whether the frequency of loanword acquisition is directly dependent on the nature of Indian-White relations, as suggested by existing standard works in the field.
What scientific approach does the author use?
The author employs a historiographic and comparative approach, contrasting documented linguistic data with the broader socio-political history of the North American colonization process.
What topics are covered in the main section?
The main section covers the distinction between Latin American and North American loanword origins, the role of specific figures like Thomas Harriot, and the decline of loanword adoption due to assimilation and repressive policies.
Which keywords best characterize the work?
The most important keywords include loanwords, language contact, colonization, indigenous cultures, linguistic borrowing, and socio-historical development.
How did Latin American loanwords differ from those in North America?
According to the author, Latin American loanwords often became so integrated into global languages that their indigenous roots are forgotten, whereas North American loanwords were more frequently linked to Indian culture, lifestyle, and rituals.
Why does the author consider the existing "acquisition table" problematic?
The author argues that the table is flawed because it generalizes the experience of vastly different tribes and fails to account for the diversity of indigenous histories, thereby ignoring potential counter-examples to the presented thesis.
- Citar trabajo
- Katharina Reese (Autor), 2009, Native American Loanwords in Contemporary American English: History and Development, Múnich, GRIN Verlag, https://www.grin.com/document/163256
