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Of extant languages, Ch’orti’ Mayan is the closest to ancient the Maya hieroglyphic script, but it is a language that is decreasing in usage. In southern Guatemala where it is spoken, many children no longer learn it, as Spanish dominates most experiences. From linguistic and anthropological data gathered over many years, Kerry Hull has created the largest and most complete Ch’orti’ Mayan dictionary to date. With nearly 9,000 entries, this trilingual dictionary of Ch’orti’, Spanish, and English preserves ancient words and concepts that were vital to this culture in the past.

Each entry contains examples of Ch’orti’ sentences along with their translations. Each term is defined grammatically and linked to a grammatical index. Variations due to age and region are noted. Additionally, extensive cultural and linguistic annotations accompany many entries, providing detailed looks into Ch’orti’ daily life, mythology, flora and fauna, healing, ritual, and food. Hull worked closely with native speakers, including traditional ritual specialists, and presents that work here in a way that is easily accessible to scholars and laypersons alike. 

An examination of Italian immigrants and their children in the early twentieth century, A New Language, A New World is the first full-length historical case study of one immigrant group's experience with language in America. Incorporating the interdisciplinary literature on language within a historical framework, Nancy C. Carnevale illustrates the complexity of the topic of language in American immigrant life. By looking at language from the perspectives of both immigrants and the dominant culture as well as their interaction, this book reveals the role of language in the formation of ethnic identity and the often coercive context within which immigrants must negotiate this process.

This comprehensive survey of indigenous languages of the New World introduces students and general readers to the mosaic of American Indian languages and cultures and offers an approach to grasping their subtleties.

Authors Silver and Miller demonstrate the complexity and diversity of these languages while dispelling popular misconceptions. Their text reveals the linguistic richness of languages found throughout the Americas, emphasizing those located in the western United States and Mexico, while drawing on a wide range of other examples found from Canada to the Andes. It introduces readers to such varied aspects of communicating as directionals and counting systems, storytelling, expressive speech, Mexican Kickapoo whistle speech, and Plains sign language.

The authors have included basics of grammar and historical linguistics, while emphasizing such issues as speech genres and other sociolinguistic issues and the relation between language and worldview. They have incorporated a variety of data that have rarely or never received attention in nontechnical literature in order to underscore the linguistic diversity of the Americas, and have provided more extensive language classification lists than are found in most other texts.

American Indian Languages: Cultural and Social Contexts is a comprehensive resource that will serve as a text in undergraduate and lower-level graduate courses on Native American languages and provide a useful reference for students of American Indian literature or general linguistics. It also introduces general readers interested in Native Americans to the amazing diversity and richness of indigenous American languages.

Coverage includes:

Achumawi, Acoma, Algonquin, Apache, Araucanian, Arawakan, Athapascan, Atsugewi, Ayamara, Bacairi, Bella Coola, Beothuk, Biloxi, Blackfoot, Caddoan, Cahto, Cahuilla, Cakchiquel, Carib, Cayuga, Chemehuevi, Cherokee, Chibchan, Chichimec, Chimakuan, Chimariko, Chinook, Chipewyan, Choctaw-Chickasaw, Chol, Cocopa, Coeur d'Alene, Comanche, Coos, Cora, Cree, Creek, Crow, Cubeo, Cupeño, Dakota, Delaware, Diegueño, Eskimo-Aleut, Esselen, Eyak, Fox, Gros Ventre, Guaraní, Guarijío, Haida, Havasupai, Hill Patwin, Hopi, Huastec, Huave, Hupa, Inuit-Inupiaq, Iroquois, Jaqaru, Je, Jicaque, Kalapuyan, Kamia, Karankawas, Karuk, Kashaya, Keres, Kickapoo, Kiliwa, Kiowa-Tanoan, Koasati, Konkow, Kuna, Kwakiutl, Kwalhioqua-Tlatskanai, Lakota, Lenca, Luiseño, Maidu, Mapuche, Markoosie, Mayan, Mazahua, Mazatec, Métis, Mexica, Micmac, Misumalpan, Mitchif, Miwok, Mixe-Zoquean, Mixtec, Mobilian, Mohave, Mohawk, Muskogean, Nahuatl, Natchez, Navajo, Nez Perce, Nheengatú, Nicola, Nomlaki, Nootka, Ojibwa, Oneida, O'odham, Otomí, Paiute, Palaihnihan, Panamint, Panoan, Paya, Pima, Pipil, Pomo, Poplocan, Pueblo, Puquina, Purpecha, Quechua, Quiché, Quileute, Sahaptian, Salish, Seneca, Sequoyah, Seri, Serrano, Shasta, Shoshoni, Sioux, Sirenikski, Slavey, Subtiaba-Tlapanec, Taíno, Takelma, Tanaina, Tarahumara, Tequistlatecan, Tewa, Tlingit, Toba, Toltec, Totonac, Tsimshian, Tubatulabal, Tukano, Tunica, Tupí, Ute, Uto-Aztecan, Vaupés, Venture¤o, Wakashan, Walapai, Wappo, Washo, Wintu, Wiyot, Xinca, Yahi, Yana, Yokuts, Yucatec, Yuchi, Yuki, Yuma, Yurok, Zapotec, Zoquean, and Zuni.

A collection of the total range of scholarly and popular writing on English as spoken from Maryland to Texas and from Kentucky to Florida

The only book-length bibliography on the speech of the American South, this volume focuses on the pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar, naming practices, word play, and other aspects of language that have interested researchers and writers for two centuries. Compiled here are the works of linguists, historians, anthropologists, sociologists, and educators, as well as popular commentators.

With over 3,800 entries, this invaluable resource is a testament to the significance of Southern speech, long recognized as a distinguishing feature of the South, and the abiding interest of Southerners in their speech as a mark of their identity. The entries encompass Southern dialects in all their distinctive varieties—from Appalachian to African American, and sea islander to urbanite.