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American Indian Languages

Delaware Indian Language of 1824

by C. C. Trowbridge
edited by James A. Rementer

     In 1823, a man named Charles C. Trowbridge went to Indiana Territory on an assignment from Governor Lewis Cass of the Michigan Territory. His mission was to obtain the answers to a list of questions pertaining to the Lenape or Delaware language. After only two and a half months, Trowbridge collected over 280 pages of handwritten information, making the first full-fledged treatment of Southern Unami, the dialect spoken by the two groups still existing in Oklahoma today. This is the dialect of Lenape that was spoken in the southern half of New Jersey, southeastern Pennsylvania, and Delaware.
     After almost two centuries, Delaware Indian language scholar James A. Rementer has now edited and published Trowbridge's extremely thorough study in full. With well over a hundred pages devoted to verb forms alone, and extended word-by-word analyses of texts such as the Lord's Prayer and common phrases, Trowbridge's work serves not only as a detailed grammar but also as an invaluable cultural record from a time when the Lenape community was on its journey from the Mid-Atlantic toward the west. Rementer's extensive introductory material puts in context the historical forces that went into producing this text, with a biography of Captain Pipe, one of Trowbridge's main Indian informants. Contributions by Lenape scholar Bruce Pearson and Timothy Crumrin round out the picture with biographies of Trowbridge himself and William Conner.


2011 ~ 314pp ~ hardcover ~ 978-1-935228-06-6 ~ $80.00

ALRS3

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Sagard's Dictionary of Huron

by Rev. Gabriel Sagard (1632)
edited by Dr. John Steckley, Humber College

     Recollect Brother Gabriel Sagard's 144-page French-Huron dictionary, first published in 1632, is one of the earliest dictionaries of any Native American language and is the foundation of French missionary studies in Iroquoian. This exhaustive new edition by renowned Huron scholar John Steckley is a complete translation of this historic dictionary.
   It begins with a thorough introduction, including extensive notes on Huron linguistic variation and dialect differences, featuring comparisons with other Iroquoian languages. This introduction also breaks new ground in offering evidence of a trade language or pidgin with a St. Lawrence Iroquoian component—the first definitive evidence of the survival of that language since it was first encountered by Cartier in the 1530s. The dictionary section is a direct translation from Sagard's original text, featuring the original French entry, a newly-added English translation, and then the corresponding Huron phrase with added etymological and comparative analyses. Steckley also complements Sagard's phrase-based arrangement with a complete index to the over 230 Huron noun stems and 360 verb stems featured in the dictionary—the first such indexing since the work's original publication and an invaluable asset for detailed linguistic study of early Huron. This edition also includes a bibliography and general index.


2009 ~ 482pp ~ hardcover ~ 978-1-935228-02-8 ~ $95.00

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A Synopsis of the Indian Tribes
Within the United States East of the Rocky Mountains, and in the British and Russian Possessions in North America

by Albert Gallatin (1836)

     Originally published under the auspices of the American Antiquarian Society in 1836, A Synopsis of the Indian Tribes within the United States East of the Rocky Mountains, and in the British and Russian Possessions in North America is a monumental compendia of Native American language. Authored by statesman, politician, and scholar Albert Gallatin (1761–1849), it is among the finest systematic collections of Native American ethnology and linguistics of its day. Containing invaluable information on some 81 tribes, the volume commences with four sections of introductory matter giving an overview of the history of the various North American tribal groups divided by geography (Section 1: Indian Tribes North of the United States; Section 2: Algonkin-Lenape and the Iroquois; Section 3: Southern Indians; Section 4: Indians West of the Mississippi). Section 5 covers general observations on social and cultural practices and Section 6 begins an in-depth discussion of Indian languages.
     Nearly half of this volume is made up of an Appendix dedicated to grammatical notices and vocabularies from dozens of tribes, including the Choctaw, Delaware, Micmac, Wyandot, Cherokee, Eskimo, Massachusett, Sioux, and the various nations of the Iroquois. Of particular note is the Comparative Vocabulary of Fifty-Three Nations which presents a 60-page table of Native words and terms from tribes such as the Ottawa, Nanticoke, Shawnee, Miami, Sauk, Osage, Omaha, Natchez, Pawnee, and dozens of others arranged for easy comparison. Also included is a further comparison of 16 Native languages including Penobscot, Minsi, Nootka, Souriquois, Huron, Woccon, and others. Finally, several short miscellaneous wordlists are included, such as vocabularies of Blackfoot, Powhatan, Cayuga, Iowa, Crow, Shoshonee, Cheyenne, Chinook, Caddo, Seneca, Mohawk, and many others.


2008 ~ 430pp ~ hardcover ~ 978-1-889037-80-0 ~ $85.00



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A Vocabulary of the Nanticoke Dialect

by William Vans Murray; ed. Daniel G. Brinton (1796)

     This volume contains a list of some 300 words collected by Murray in 1796 along the Choptank River on Maryland's Eastern Shore. It further contains introductory remarks and annotation by linguist Daniel G. Brinton, who provides words for comparison in a number of other Algonquin languages including Lenape and Chipeway. This edition features an indexed listing of Brinton's Algonquin comparisons in the appendix.

2005 ~ 46pp ~ paperback ~ 978-1-889758-61-2 ~ $17.95


American Language Reprint Series, Volume 1
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A Vocabulary of Susquehannock

by Rev. Thomas Campanius Holm, et al. (1696)

     Taken from Campanius' Vocabula Mahakuassica, this volume features a list of over 100 words identified as the only known vocabulary of Susquehannock or Andaste, the Iroquoian language spoken along the Susquehanna River in Maryland and Pennsylvania. The edition follows the version translated by Peter S. Duponceau in 1834, with added material from the original 1696 Swedish edition. Discrepancies between the two editions are fully noted and catalogued in the appendix. New to the second edition are additional fragments of data: a single word from George Alsop's A Character of the Province of Maryland (1666), another single word from Benjamin Smith Barton's New Views of the Origin of the Tribes and Nations of America (1798) which purports to be from the Susquehannock remnant at Conestoga, and incidental statements from the Jesuits of Canada and the Moravian Bishop Commerhoff which are our only evidence of the Iroquoian languages of Erie and Scahento, spoken in Northern Pennsylvania.

2007 ~ 80pp ~ paperback ~ 978-1-889758-85-5 ~ $18.95


American Language Reprint Series, Volume 2
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A Vocabulary of the Unami Jargon

by Thomas Campanius Holm (1640)

     From Campanius' Vocabularium Barbaro-Virgineorum, this volume features a vocabulary of the Unami traders' jargon of Lenape-Delaware used along the lower Delaware River, with over 500 entries plus dialogues and speeches recorded in the 1640s. It follows theedition translated by Peter S. Duponceau in 1834. Also included in this volume is William Penn's word-list of the Pennsylvania Indians, which lists 17 words in the jargon.

2005 ~ 62pp ~ paperback ~ 978-1-889758-63-9 ~ $18.95


American Language Reprint Series, Volume 3
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ALR3

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An Ancient New Jersey Indian Jargon

by J. Dyneley Prince, ed. (1684)

     From an anonymous manuscript entitled the "Indian Interpreter" found in the office of the Secretary of State at Trenton, New Jersey, this 261 word vocabulary was taken from Salem County, NJ and is dated to 1684. This version is reprinted from a 1904 article edited by J. Dyneley Prince, who provides detailed explanations of the words and comparisons with other Delaware/Lenape vocabularies. Also includes Gabriel Thomas' Discourses in the Delaware Jargon (41 entries), and new to this expanded edition are 23 terms from Peter Lindeström's Geographia Americae.

2006 ~ 64pp ~ paperback ~ 978-1-889758-83-3 ~ $17.95


American Language Reprint Series, Volume 5
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ALR5

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A Dictionary of Powhatan

by William Strachey (1612)

     This volume represents the largest vocabulary ever collected of Powhatan -- approximately 1,000 entries compiled by William Strachey around 1612. This edition is based on Major's 1849 printing of the British Museum manuscript, with variant forms and extra words cited from the Bodleian manuscript. Two supplementary word-lists of Virginia Algonquian are also included: nine words from an anonymous relation of 1607 attributed to Gabriel Archer, and 29 words from Robert Beverley's 1705 History and Present State of Virginia. This edition also features an introduction by Powhatan scholar Frederic Gleach.

2005 ~ 107pp ~ paperback ~ 978-1-889758-62-0 ~ $19.95


American Language Reprint Series, Volume 8
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ALR8

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A Vocabulary of Mohegan-Pequot

by J. Dyneley Prince and Frank Speck (1903)

     Mohegan-Pequot was an Eastern Algonquian language originally spoken in southeastern Connecticut along the Thames River. It became extinct in the early 20th century. This vocabulary contains 446 words collected in 1903 by J. Dyneley Prince and Frank Speck from Fidelia Fielding, a resident of Mohegan, Connecticut and the last native speaker of the dialect; with 12 additional words from the Brothertown reservation in Wisconsin. It features etymological and comparative linguistic commentary for each term by Prince and Speck.

2005 ~ 81pp ~ paperback ~ 978-1-889758-64-7 ~ $18.95


American Language Reprint Series, Volume 9
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A Vocabulary of New Jersey Delaware

by James Madison (1792)

     Recorded in the Indian village of Edgepillock in New Jersey in 1792, (modern-day Indian Mills, Burlington County) these 267 words of the Southern Unami dialect are taken from the papers of President James Madison as reprinted in Henry Schoolcraft's Indian Tribes . Also contains 76 entries Johannes DeLaet's 1633 vocabulary of the Sanhican Indians located north of Trenton, NJ which somescholars believe is the only example of the Unalachtigo dialect of Delaware.

2006 ~ 64pp ~ paperback ~ 978-1-889758-84-1 ~ $18.95


American Language Reprint Series, Volume 10
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A Vocabulary of Roanoke

by Thomas Hariot, John White and John Lawson

      This volume collects all the extant data on the Carolina Algonquian language. It contains words recorded by the now-famous Roanoke colonists of 1585: 37 words from Thomas Hariot's Brief and True Relation, 50 names of birds and fishes from John White's watercolors, and 5 words from the discourse of Ralph Lane. Also includes the only remaining sample of the Pamlico dialect, 37 words from John Lawson's New Voyage to Carolina of 1709.

2006 ~ 51pp ~ paperback ~ 978-1-889758-81-7 ~ $17.95


American Language Reprint Series, Volume 13
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ALR13

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Denny's Vocabulary of Shawnee

by Ebenezer Denny (1786)

     This vocabulary is a substantial collection of 404 Shawnee words and phrases collected by Major Ebenezer Denny in January of 1786. It was compiled from Shawnees assembled for treaty at Fort Finney, located along the Great Miami River in the southwestern corner of Ohio, mostly from a woman called "the Grenadier Squaw."

2006 ~ 51pp ~ paperback ~ 978-1-889758-65-5 ~ $17.95


American Language Reprint Series, Volume 14
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ALR14

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Cummings' Vocabulary of Delaware

by Richard W. Cummings (1852)

     Nearly 350 words of the Southern Unami dialect of Delaware or Lenape make up this vocabulary which first appeared in Henry Schoolcraft's History, Condition and Prospects of the Indian Tribes of the United States. It was recorded in 1852 most likely on the Kansas reservation just north of the Kansas River. The expanded 2006 edition also contains an additional 200 words taken by Lt. Amiel Weeks Whipple on the Kansas reservation from the noted Delaware chief Black Beaver in 1853.

2006 ~ 74pp ~ paperback ~ 978-1-889758-82-5 ~ $18.95


American Language Reprint Series, Volume 15
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ALR15

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Cummings' Vocbulary of Shawnee

by Richard W. Cummings (1852)

     This vocabulary draws from a questionnaire prepared by Henry Schoolcraft and was subsequently published in his Indian Tribes (1851-1857). It was collected by U.S. Indian agent Richard W. Cummings, probably from the Shawnees of Kansas.

2009 ~ 47pp ~ paperback ~ 978-1-889758-95-4 ~ $17.95


American Language Reprint Series, Volume 21
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ALR21

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A Vocabulary of Seneca

by Albert Gallatin (1820)

     This volume offers a list of over 400 words of the Seneca language compiled by an anonymous collector in the War Department inthe 1820s. It also contains an additional 89 words of Seneca derived from a manuscript of J. Parish collected prior to 1820. Both of these were originally published in Albert Gallatin's Synopsis of the Indian Tribes in 1836.

2009 ~ 75pp ~ paperback ~ 978-1-889758-96-1 ~ $18.95


American Language Reprint Series, Volume 22
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ALR22

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Wood's Vocabulary of Massachusett

by William Wood (1634)

     The earliest substantial vocabulary of Massachusett was that taken by William Wood and published in his New England's Prospect in 1634. It represents the North Shore dialect of the language and contains over 250 words and phrases in the now-extinct language. Included are the numbers up to twenty, days of the week, months, and names of important people and places.

2009 ~ 50pp ~ paperback ~ 978-1-889758-97-8 ~ $17.95


American Language Reprint Series, Volume 27
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ALR27

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A Vocabulary of Wyandot

by Col. John Johnson, Benjamin Smith Barton, et al. (1819)

     This volume contains 145 words of Wyandot collected by Col. John Johnston in 1819. Johnston was an Indian agent and "beloved friend" who was associated with the Wyandot and Shawnee tribes in Ohio for over 50 years. The volume also includes a smaller sample of about 40 Wyandot words collected by Benjamin Smith Barton in the late 18th century. Also included are three sets Wyandot numerals collected by Conrad Weiser (1755), William Walker (1851), and Samuel Haldeman (1847).

2009 ~ 45pp ~ paperback ~ 978-1-889758-98-5 ~ $17.95


American Language Reprint Series, Volume 30
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ALR30

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Castiglioni's Vocabulary of Cherokee

by Luigi Castiglioni (1790)

     This volume features one of the earliest published vocabularies of Cherokee. It was taken from Viaggio negli Stati Uniti dell' America Settentrionale (1790), an account of the early American Republic written by Luigi Castiglioni following his tour of the United States. A Milanese gentleman and botanist, Castiglioni recorded nearly 170 words in the Western or Upper dialect of Cherokee, and this new edition is translated from the original Italian. The volume also contains contemporary remarks on the language by the naturalist William Bartram (1791) and includes a valuable list of the names of 43 Cherokee towns which were inhabited during the 1770s.

2009 ~ 39pp ~ paperback ~ 978-1-889758-99-2 ~ $17.95


American Language Reprint Series, Volume 33
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ALR33

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The American Language Reprint Series

Series Editor: Claudio R. Salvucci


     At 30+ volumes and growing, the American Language Reprint (ALR) series aims to compile and preserve the various Indian word-lists, vocabularies, and phrase books which were collected during the early years of North American settlement. These handy, small-format books focus on the languages and dialects of the eastern woodlands, with a primary emphasis on the Eastern Algonquian and Iroquoian families.
     Each ALR volume takes an original historical word-list and alphabetizes the words in two sections, from the native language to English and vice-versa. The original orthographies are preserved exactly as they occur, complete with all diacritics and special characters used by the original authors. Several of these vocabularies have been edited and annotated by some of the most prominent linguists of the last two centuries, such as Daniel Brinton, J. Dyneley Prince, and others.




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in the ALR Series


American Languages in New France
Extracts from The Jesuit Relations

Compiled and edited by Claudio R. Salvucci

"A fascinating book for anyone interested  in Native American languages ... an invaluable tool for historical linguists, anthropologists, and ethnologists."                                                                                                        —Language Magazine

     This volume collects valuable fragments of linguistic data and accounts of Native language as used among the Algonquian and Iroquoian tribes of New France. It documents not only observations on the languages themselves, but also on the mutual intelligibility and geographical extent of various dialects, the various pidgins and jargons that came into use as a result of cultural contact, and the use of European languages such as French and Basque in native North America.
    Included as well are several extended tracts in various Native American languages: Brébeuf’s 1636 description of Huron grammar, Lalemant’s interlinear translation of a Huron prayer, Vimont’s letter in Algonquin, Le Jeune’s description of Montagnais, and many others. A map showing the location the missions and the approximate distributions of Native languages is provided, as well as useful appendices including: a Native language concordance of the nearly 1,600 terms mentioned in the volume; a chart which compares the various observations about linguistic relationships found in the extracts with a modern classification; Nearly 100 brief biographies of Jesuits mentioned most prominently in the text, extracted from the Thwaites edition.
.

2002 ~ 344pp ~ 3 appendices ~ map ~ hardcover ~ 1-889758-35-3 ~ $75.00



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Handbook of the Delaware Indian Language
The Oral Tradition of a Native People

by Scott Hayes Wenning

     From the time of William Penn through the French and Indian War, the Delaware or Lenape played a major role in the events of the time. Using the 18th century journals of the Moravian missionaries John Heckewelder and David Zeisberger, this book pieces together information so that even novices can understand basic Delaware speech. Complete with a brief history, pronunciation guide, and grammatical key to using the Delaware language, this book includes a 2,500 word vocabularly list, and a step-by-step guide which makes learning the language fun and easy.

2000 ~ 124pp ~ paperback ~ 1-889037-23-0 ~ $16.95




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