Synopses & Reviews
New Voices for Old Words is a collection of previously unpublished Algonquian oral traditions featuring historical narratives, traditional stories, and legends that were gathered during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The collection presents them here in their original languages with new English-language translations. Accompanying essays explain the importance of the original texts and their relationships to the early researchers who gathered and, in some cases, actively influenced these texts.and#160;Covering the Northeast, eastern Canada, the Great Lakes, and the Great Plains, the Algonquian languages represented in New Voices for Old Words include Gros Ventre, Peoria, Arapaho, Meskwaki, Munsee-Delaware, Potawatomi, and Sauk, all of which are either endangered or have lost their last speakers; for several of these languages no Native text has ever been published. This volume presents case studies in examining and applying such principles as ethnopoetics to the analysis of traditional texts in several languages of the Algic language family. These papers show how much valuable linguistic and folkloric information can be recovered from older texts, much of it information no longer obtainable from living sources. The result is a groundbreaking exploration of Algonquian oral traditions that are given a new voice for a new generation.
Review
"This book is a very good, thorough reference grammar for Muskogee. . . .and#160;For those working with the language and its speakers, it is quite useful and will be an oft-referenced work."and#8212;Pamela Innes, Journal of Anthropological Research
Review
andldquo;These carefully edited texts, in eight Algonquian languages no longer widely spoken, show how pre-modern records can be made accessible to readers interested in the traditional narratives and linguistic styles of an earlier time. They provide models for future philological studies as well as reliable data on some little-known languages.andrdquo;andmdash;David H. Pentland, professor of Algonquian studies at the University of Manitoba and#160;
Synopsis
Creek (or Muskogee) is a Muskogean language spoken by several thousand members of the Muscogee (Creek) and Seminole nations of Oklahoma and by several hundred members of the Seminole Tribe of Florida. This volume is the first modern grammar of Creek, compiled by a leading authority on the languages of the southern United States.and#160;Intended for scholars, students, and Creek instructors, this reference grammar describes all the major morphological and syntactic patterns in the language. Special attention is given to pitch accent and tone, active agreement, locative prefixes, tense, aspect, and switch reference. The description covers several hundred years of documentation and draws heavily on materials written by Creek speakers. It is likely to be the definitive source on the language for years to come.
About the Author
Jack B. Martin is an associate professor of English at the College of William and Mary. He is the coeditor of Totkv Mocvse/New Fire: Creek Folktales and the coauthor of A Dictionary of Creek/Muskogee (Nebraska 2000). Margaret McKane Mauldin is a Creek instructor at the University of Oklahoma. She was awarded the degree of Doctor of Humane Letters from the College of William and Mary for her contribution to the study and preservation of the Creek language. Juanita McGirt teaches Creek in Okemah, Oklahoma, and transcribed and translated recordings and documents for this volume.