Native American language question

nyoung@desire.wright.edu
Sun, 27 Feb 1994 15:14:55 EST

[ This article and the response which follows are taken from the Usenet
"soc.culture.native" newsgroup. Neither Nils nor Acee are on the
NAT-LANG list. I just thought that the articles might be interesting
to some of the NAT-LANG readers, though. To write to either person,
please use the addresses from the "Original Sender" lines of their
articles. --Gary ]

I recently finished reading Leslie Marmon Silko's novel
_Ceremony_. I was intrigued by her use of language as much
as by her references to it and to the Laguna language in
particular. She says at one point that one of the characters
speaks "using the old dialect full of sentences that were
involuted with explanations of their own origins...." (34).
I look Laguna up in Boaz's introduction to _Handbook_
_of_Native_American_Languages_, and found that the research
Boaz cited put Laguna in the Keresan language family (159).
However, Charlton Lair, in speaking of Native American
languages in _Language_in_America_, makes no mention of Laguna
and puts Keres in the class of language isolates and phylum with
undetermined origin (38). Laird here is recapitulating the
research of Voegelin. In fact, Laird doesn't even mention Laguna
as a language.
I would be interested in knowing more about this language,
if it is a separate Native American language. I presume that
it is, as Laird says of many NA languages, polysynthetic and
consolidating. But I'd like to have more info before I open
my mouth wide enough to insert my foot.
Any takers?

Nils R. Bull Young
Freelance Philosopher
Agent Provocateur