RE: a note on Athapaskan
Dan Jorgensen (jorgensen@vaxr.sscl.uwo.ca)
Tue, 15 Oct 1991 06:35:51 EDT
A footnote to the posting by Emmon Bach... I suspect that much of what
James May had to say about the different status of Athapaskan languages
refers to a recent -- and still controversial -- book by Joseph Greenberg
entitled _Language in the Americas_ (Stanford, 1987). He argues that the
languages of the Western Hemisphere fall into three groups: Na-Dene (i.e.,
the Athapaskans, including Navaho); Eskmio-Aleut; Amerind. What is contro-
versial about this is not only the separation of Na-Dene from the others,
but the lumping of all other indigenous families (excluding Eskimo-Aleut)
into a single grouping. This is quite as radical proposal as the argument
that the Na-Dene are somehow distinct.
For what it's worth, he offers a brief discussion of his position and some
of the controversy surrounding it in the most recent issue of _Current
Anthropology_ (Vol. 32, No. 4, pp. 453-67), where he also argues that there
is non-linguistic support in favour of his position.
Postscript to the footnote: it's hard to see how much of this has any
bearing on current issues, such as the Hopi-Navaho land dispute. If such
discussions are ultimately to turn on who was where at the dawn of time,
we're all in for lots of trouble.
Dan a.k.a. jorgensen@vaxr.sscl.uwo.ca