Foreign Language Study

The primary native language of central Mexico before and after the Spanish conquest, Nahuatl was used from the mid-sixteenth century forward in an astounding array of alphabetic written documents. James Lockhart, an eminent historian of early Latin America, is the leading interpreter of Nahuatl texts. One of his main tools of instruction has been Horacio Carochi's monumental 1645 Arte de la lengua mexicana, the most influential work ever published on Nahuatl grammar. This new edition includes the original Spanish and an English translation on facing pages. The corpus of examples, source of much of our knowledge about vowel quality and glottal stop in Nahuatl, is presented once in its original form, once in a rationalized manner. Copious footnotes provide explanatory commentary and more literal translations of some of Carochi's examples. The volume is an indispensable pedagogical tool and the first critical edition of the premier monument of Nahuatl grammatical literature.

A significant movement for Catalan independence has been building since 2010 and in 2015 is bringing Catalonia to a political showdown with the Spanish state. The Catalan language has long been cast as a key sign of identity and a rallying point for Catalan nationalism. This classic anthropological study, originally published in 1989 and now available for the first time in paperback, provides essential background for understanding Catalan national identity and its relationship to the distinctive Catalan language. Author Kathryn A. Woolard analyzes language and identity politics at a significant turning point in the modern history of Catalonia: 1979-80, when political autonomy was re-established after the end of the Franco dictatorship. This book examines the formal language politics of parties and policymaking as well as the interpersonal politics of individuals negotiating their social identities through choices between the Catalan and Spanish languages. This dual approach uncovers the relationship between the public and personal meanings of the languages that continue to resonate with Catalan national aspirations in the current political movement. Double Talk confronts enduring questions about bilingual life that arise not only in Spain, but also in settings worldwide.

This book is concerned primarily with the evidence for the validity of a genetic unit, Amerind, embracing the vast majority of New World languages. The only languages excluded are those belonging to the Na-Dene and Eskimo- Aleut families. It examines the now widely held view that Haida, the most distant language genetically, is not to be included in Na-Dene. It confined itself to Sapir's data, although the evidence could have been buttressed considerably by the use of more recent materials. What survives is a body of evidence superior to that which could be adduced under similar restrictions for the affinity of Albanian, Celtic, and Armenian, all three universally recognized as valid members of the Indo-European family of languages. A considerable number of historical hypotheses emerge from the present and the forthcoming volumes. Of these, the most fundamental bears on the question of the peopling of the Americas. If the results presented in this volume and in the companion volume on Eurasiatic are valid, the classification of the world's languages based on genetic criteria undergoes considerable simplification.

A Stanford University Press classic.

A Stanford University Press classic.

This is the first new Thai-English dictionary by an American Scholar to appear in over twenty years. It includes many new words and new uses of old words that have entered the language since Wold War II, an it employs the latest official spellin of words (based on the Thai-Thai Government Dictionary of 1950), with some older spellings cross-referenced to the present spelling. Its 20,000 entries are presented in a sinle alphabetical listing: standard vocabulary items, names of people and organizations, place names, and abbreviatiions.

The pronunciation of words is shown in a scientific writing which includes five tones, stress within rhythm groups, and intonation whenever clauses or sentences are cited. The pronunciation guide is not a translation; rather it is the standard pronunciation used by educated speakers in Bangkok, which often differs from the traditional spelling in tone and vowel length.

Levels of usage—vulgar, common, colloquial, elegant, royal, and sacerdotal—are indicated whenever pertinent. Slang terms and idioms are included, and for words that American students find difficult there are grammatical comments and ample examples of usage.

At first glance, there may seem little reason to think of English and German as variant forms of a single language. There are enormous differences between the two in pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar, and a monolingual speaker of one cannot understand the other at all. Yet modern English and German have many points in common, and if we go back to the earliest texts available in the two languages, the similarities are even more notable.

How do we account for these similarities? The generally accepted explanation is that English and German are divergent continuations of a common ancestor, a Germanic language now lost. This book surveys the linguistic and cultural backgrounds of the earliest kown Germanic languages, members of what has traditionally been known as the English family tree: Gothic, Old Norse, Old Saxon, Old English, Old Frisian, Old Low Franconian, and Old High German.

For each language, the author provides a brief history of the people who spoke it, an overview of the important texts in the language, sample passages with full glossary and word-by-word translations, a section on orthography and grammar, and discussion of linguistic or philological topics relevant to all the early Germanic languaes but best exemplified by the particular language under consideration. These topics inclued the pronunciation of older languages; the runic inscriptions; Germanic alliterative pietry; historical syntax, borrowing, analogy, and drift; textual transmission; and dialect variation.

A Stanford University Press classic.