Indian languages. Indigenous languages of North America What language do the Indians speak?

There are two main points of view. According to the first (the so-called “short chronology”), people came to America about 14-16 thousand years ago At that time, the sea level was 130 meters lower than today, and in winter it was not difficult to cross the ice on foot.. According to the second, people settled the New World much earlier, from 50 to 20 thousand years ago (“long chronology”). The answer to the question “How?” much more definite: the ancient ancestors of the Indians came from Siberia through the Bering Strait, and then went south - either along the west coast of America, or along the central part of the continent through the ice-free space between the Laurentian ice sheet and glaciers Coast Ranges in Canada. However, regardless of how exactly the first inhabitants of America moved, traces of their early presence either ended up deep under water due to rising sea levels (if they walked along the Pacific coast), or were destroyed by the actions of glaciers (if people walked along the central part of the continent). Therefore, the earliest archaeological finds are not found in Beringia Beringia- a biogeographic region connecting Northeast Asia and northwestern North America., and much further south - for example, in Texas, northern Mexico, southern Chile.

2. Were the Indians in the eastern United States different from the Indians in the west?

Timucua chief. Engraving by Theodore de Bry after a drawing by Jacques Le Moine. 1591

There are about ten cultural types of North American Indians Arctic (Eskimos, Aleuts), Subarctic, California (Chumash, Washo), northeastern US (Woodland), Great Basin, Plateau, northwest coast, Great Plains, southeastern US, southwestern US.. Thus, the Indians who inhabited California (for example, the Miwoks or Klamaths) were hunters, fishermen and gatherers. The inhabitants of the southwestern United States - the Shoshone, Zuni and Hopi - belong to the so-called Pueblo cultures: they were farmers and grew corn, beans and squash. Much less is known about the Indians of the eastern United States, and especially the southeast, since most Indian tribes died out with the arrival of Europeans. For example, until the 18th century, the Timucua people lived in Florida, distinguished by their wealth of tattoos. The life of these people is recorded in the drawings of Jacques Le Moine, who visited Florida in 1564-1565 and became the first European artist to depict Native Americans.

3. Where and how the Indians lived

Apache wigwam. Photo by Noah Hamilton Rose. Arizona, 1880Denver Public Library/Wikimedia Commons

Adobe houses in Taos Pueblo, New Mexico. Around 1900 Library of Congress

Woodland Indians in the north and northeast of America lived in wigwams - permanent dome-shaped dwellings made of branches and animal skins - while the Pueblo Indians traditionally built adobe houses. The word "wigwam" comes from one of the Algonquian languages. Algonquian languages- a group of Algian languages, one of the largest language families. Algonquian languages are spoken by about 190 thousand people in eastern and central Canada, as well as on the northeast coast of the United States, in particular the Cree and Ojibwe Indians. and translated means something like “house”. Wigs were built from branches that were tied together to form a structure, which was covered with bark or skins on top. An interesting variant of this Indian dwelling are the so-called long houses in which the Iroquois lived. Iroquois- a group of tribes with a total number of about 120 thousand people living in the USA and Canada.. They were made of wood, and their length could exceed 20 meters: in one such house lived several families, whose members were relatives to each other.

Many Indian tribes, such as the Ojibwe, had a special steam bath - the so-called “sweating wigwam”. It was a separate building, as you might guess, for washing. However, the Indians did not wash themselves too often - as a rule, several times a month - and used the steam bath not so much to become cleaner, but as a therapeutic agent. It was believed that the bathhouse helps with illnesses, but if you feel well, you can do without washing.

4. What did they eat?

A man and a woman eating. Engraving by Theodore de Bry after a drawing by John White. 1590

Sowing maize or beans. Engraving by Theodore de Bry after a drawing by Jacques Le Moine. 1591Brevis narratio eorum quae in Florida Americae provincia Gallis acciderunt / book-graphics.blogspot.com

Smoking meat and fish. Engraving by Theodore de Bry after a drawing by Jacques Le Moine. 1591Brevis narratio eorum quae in Florida Americae provincia Gallis acciderunt / book-graphics.blogspot.com

The diet of the North American Indians was quite varied and varied greatly depending on the tribe. Thus, the Tlingits, who lived on the coast of the North Pacific Ocean, mainly ate fish and seal meat. Pueblo farmers ate both corn dishes and the meat of animals obtained by hunting. And the main food of the California Indians was acorn porridge. To prepare it, the acorns had to be collected, dried, peeled and crushed. Then the acorns were placed in a basket and boiled on hot stones. The resulting dish resembled something between soup and porridge. They ate it with spoons or just with their hands. The Navajo Indians made bread from corn, and its recipe has been preserved:

“To make bread, you will need twelve ears of corn with leaves. First you need to peel the cobs and grind the grains using a grain grater. Then wrap the resulting mass in corn leaves. Dig a hole in the ground large enough to accommodate the packages. Light a fire in the pit. When the ground has warmed up properly, remove the coals and place the bundles in the hole. Cover them and light a fire on top. The bread takes about an hour to bake.”

5. Could a non-Indian lead the tribe?

Governor Solomon Bibo (second from left). 1883 Palace of the Governors Photo Archive/New Mexico Digital Collections

In 1885-1889, the Jew Solomon Bibo served as governor of the Acoma Pueblo Indians, with whom he had traded since the mid-1870s. Bibo was married to an Acoma woman. True, this is the only known case when a pueblo was led by a non-Indian.

6. Who is the Kennewick Man?

In 1996, the remains of one of the ancient inhabitants of North America were found near the small town of Kennewick in Washington state. That's what they called him - the Kennewick Man. Outwardly, he was very different from modern American Indians: he was very tall, had a beard and rather resembled modern Ainu Ainu- ancient inhabitants of the Japanese islands.. Researchers suggested that the skeleton belonged to a European who lived in these places in the 19th century. However, radiocarbon dating showed that the owner of the skeleton lived 9,300 years ago.

Reconstruction of the appearance of Kennewick Man Brittney Tatchell/Smithsonian Institution

The skeleton is now kept at the Burke Museum of Natural History in Seattle, and modern-day Washington State Indians regularly demand that the remains be given to them for burial according to Indian traditions. However, there is no reason to believe that the Kennewick man during his lifetime belonged to any of these tribes or their ancestors.

7. What the Indians thought about the moon

Indian mythology is very diverse: its heroes are often animals, such as a coyote, beaver or raven, or celestial bodies - stars, sun and moon. For example, members of the Californian Wintu tribe believed that the moon owes its appearance to a bear who tried to bite it, and the Iroquois claimed that there was an old woman on the moon weaving linen (the unfortunate woman was sent there because she could not predict when the world will end).

8. When the Indians got bows and arrows

Indians of Virginia. Hunting scene. Engraving by Theodore de Bry after a drawing by John White. 1590 North Carolina Collection/UNC Libraries

Today, Indians of various North American tribes are often depicted holding or shooting a bow. It wasn't always like this. Historians know nothing about the fact that the first inhabitants of North America hunted with a bow. But there is information that they used a variety of spears. The first finds of arrowheads date back to around the ninth millennium BC. They were made in the territory of modern Alaska - only then the technology gradually penetrated into other parts of the continent. By the middle of the third millennium BC, onions appeared in the territory of modern Canada, and at the beginning of our era they came to the territory of the Great Plains and California. In the southwestern United States, bows and arrows appeared even later - in the middle of the first millennium AD.

9. What languages do the Indians speak?

Portrait of Sequoyah, creator of the Cherokee Indian syllabary. Painting by Henry Inman. Around 1830 National Portrait Gallery, Washington / Wikimedia Commons

Today, the Indians of North America speak approximately 270 different languages, which belong to 29 language families, and 27 isolate languages, that is, isolated languages that do not belong to any larger family, but form their own. When the first Europeans came to America, there were many more Indian languages, but many tribes became extinct or lost their language. The largest number of Indian languages have been preserved in California: 74 languages belonging to 18 language families are spoken there. Among the most common North American languages are Navajo (about 180 thousand Indians speak it), Cree (about 117 thousand) and Ojibwe (about 100 thousand). Most Native American languages now use the Latin alphabet, although Cherokee uses an original syllabary developed in the early 19th century. Most Indian languages are at risk of extinction - after all, less than 30% of ethnic Indians speak them.

10. How modern Indians live

Today, most descendants of Indians in the United States and Canada live almost the same as the descendants of Europeans. Only a third of them are occupied by reservations—autonomous Indian territories that make up about two percent of the U.S. area. Modern Indians enjoy a number of benefits, and in order to receive them, you need to prove your Indian origin. It is enough that your ancestor was mentioned in the census of the early 20th century or had a certain percentage of Indian blood.

Tribes have different ways of determining whether a person belongs to them. For example, the Isleta Pueblos consider as theirs only those who have at least one parent who was a member of the tribe and a purebred Indian. But the Oklahoma Iowa tribe is more liberal: to become a member, you need to have only 1/16 Indian blood. At the same time, neither knowledge of the language nor following Indian traditions has any significance.

See also materials about the Indians of Central and South America in the course "".

5. North American Indian languages.

The languages of the North American Indian tribes, especially those belonging to the Algonquian language family, have enriched our vocabulary with a variety of expressions. Most of them, of course, entered the English language. For example, a number of place names in what is now the United States and Canada are of Indian origin. Of the 48 states (not counting Alaska and the Hawaiian Islands), half - exactly 23 - have Indian names: for example, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Dakota, Nebraska, Oregon, Utah, Idaho, Alabama, Delaware, Kansas, Oklahoma, etc. All the most important North American lakes also still bear their original, pre-Columbian names: Huron, Erie, Ontario, Oneida, Seneca, Winnipeg, the famous Michigan and others. And rivers too. The Potomac River, which flows right under the windows of the White House, the Ohio, the Wabash, and the “father of waters” - the Mississippi - have Indian names.

Now let’s open the “dictionary” of the most famous Indian words.

The word "tomahawk", like most other names for "Indian objects", comes from the Algonquian languages. The tomahawk clearly entered the world dictionary through the first English colonists in Virginia (at the beginning of the 17th century. The predecessor of the real tomahawk, as the first Europeans recognized it, even in the post-Columbian era, was a wooden club with a stone head. However, soon after the first contacts with the whites, these stone weapons were replaced by real “tomahawks”, which had a bronze or more often an iron cap.

Wampum. Wampums were strings with bone or stone beads strung on them, but more often by “wampums” we mean wide belts to which such strings of multi-colored beads were attached. Belts among the Algonquins and especially among the Iroquois decorated clothing, served as a currency unit, and most importantly, various important messages were transmitted with their help.

The next famous object of Indian life is the peace pipe, or calumet. This name was given to the peace pipe by French travelers who noticed its resemblance to a pipe or reed pipe. The Peace Pipe played an important role in the social life of many North American Indian groups. It was smoked by members of the “parliament” - the tribal council; smoking a peace pipe formed the basis of many religious rituals, especially among the prairie Indians, etc.

Peyote, or peyote, is a small cactus. It was used during ritual, ecstatic dances. The “dance of the spirits” was entirely related to previous use of the drug peyote. This is how the new Indian religion Ghost-Dance Religion arose. Now the former Ghost-Dance Religion of North American Indians is called the National American Church or the Church of the American Natives. The teachings of this Indian religious society are a mixture of Christian ideas and belief in various supernatural beings of old Indian beliefs.

Pemikan is also a product of the culture of the Indians of North America. The word itself comes from the Creek language and roughly means "processed fat." Pemikan serves as a high-calorie and surprisingly long-storable food supply, that is, as some kind of Indian “canned food”.

Scalp. The Indians had a cruel military custom, according to which the skin and hair were removed from the head of a killed enemy (and sometimes even from the head of a living prisoner). Thus, the scalp served as proof that the enemy had been killed or neutralized, and therefore it was considered a highly respected evidence of courage, a valuable war trophy. In addition, the scalper was convinced that by scalping the enemy, he was also taking away from him that “universal magical life force,” which, according to legend, was located precisely in the hair.

The next widely known word is squaw. It comes from the Narra-Ganset language and simply means “woman”. For example, a very popular combination of the Indian and English words Squaw-valley together means “Valley of Women.” Americans clearly love such compounds, and we find Squaw-flower (flower), Squaw-fish (fish), etc. in their language.

The tipi (the word comes from the Dakota language) is a pyramidal tent made of buffalo hides, found among all prairie tribes. A tipi is an ordinary house of a prairie Indian. Several dozen conical tipis made up the village. The leather walls of the tipi were decorated with drawings. The tent had special devices with which it was possible to regulate air circulation and, above all, remove smoke from the tent. Each tipi also had a fireplace. Another North American Indian dwelling, the wigwam, is often confused with the tipi. This word comes from the Algonquian languages of the Indian population of the east of what is now the United States and simply means “building.” While teepees were not very different from one another, the wigwams of individual Algonquian tribes were quite heterogeneous. Here, the different climatic conditions of the North American east, the availability of different building materials, etc. played a role. The basis of the wigwam was a frame cut from wooden poles and covered with the material that the builders had at hand.

Sign language. It allowed the Indians of the North American prairies, who spoke dozens of different dialects and even belonged to different language groups (not just the so-called Sioux family of languages), to understand each other. The news that the prairie Indian wanted to communicate to a member of another tribe was transmitted using gestures of one or both hands. These gestures and movements, the exact meaning of which was known to every Indian not only on the prairies, but also in their neighborhood, helped convey rather complex information to their partner. Even agreements between individual tribes, whose representatives did not understand each other, were concluded through sign language.

CONCLUSION

Indians are the only original inhabitants of the entire western half of our planet. When the first Europeans arrived in the New World in 1492, this gigantic continent was by no means uninhabited. It was inhabited by peculiar, amazing people.

In Central America and the Andes region, at the time of European colonization, there was a highly developed artistic culture, destroyed by the conquerors (see Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Panama, Colombia, Peru, Bolivia, Aztecs, Incas, Mayans, Mixtecs, Olmec culture, Zapotecs, Toltecs) .

The art of numerous tribes that were at the stage of the primitive communal system was closely connected with everyday life and material production; it reflected the observations of hunters, fishermen and farmers, embodied their mythological ideas and the wealth of ornamental imagination.

The types of Indian dwellings are varied: canopies, screens, domed huts (wigwams), conical tents (teepees of the prairie Indians of Canada and the USA) made of poles covered with branches, leaves, mats, skins, etc.; clay or stone huts in the mountainous regions of South America; communal dwellings - clapboard houses in northwestern North America; bark-covered frame “longhouses” in the Great Lakes region; stone or adobe village houses (pueblos) in southwestern North America. Wood carving, especially rich on the northwestern coast of North America (polychrome totem and grave poles with intertwined real and fantastic images), is also found among a number of South American tribes. Wickerwork, weaving, embroidery, and the making of feather jewelry, ceramic and wooden utensils, and figurines were widespread. The paintings include fantastic images, rich geometric patterns, military and hunting scenes (drawings of prairie Indians on tipis, tambourines, shields, bison skins).

Studying the life of the Indians helps us take a new look at the present and future of America. Because it is among the Indians that the most distant past meets the most remarkable and rosy future of the continent.

LIST OF REFERENCES USED

1. Cultural studies. Textbook for students of higher educational institutions. Rostov-on-Don: Phoenix Publishing House, 1998. – 576 p.

2. Peoples of the world: historical and ethnographic reference book / Ch. ed. Yu.V. Bromley. Ed. board: S.A. Arutyunov, S.I. Brook, T.A. Zhdanko et al. – M.: Soviet Encyclopedia, 1988. – 624 p.

...]. The thrust of the current administration's Indian policy is to "end reliance on federal payments." It is obvious to anyone who is at least generally familiar with the history of the Indians’ struggle for their rights in the second half of the current century that we are talking about a veiled resumption by the American government of the policy of “termination” that met in the 50s of the 20th century. the sharpest...

Christopher Columbus, who mistakenly took a wrong turn on his sea route and ended up in America instead of India. However, everything is not so simple. Columbus was far from the first foreigner on the American continent. To whom do scientists credit the discovery of the New World: Amerigo Vespucci, the Vikings, and even the Indians! Thanks to many years of research, in which representatives of almost all...

the general name for the languages of the Indians of the indigenous peoples of North and South America who lived on these continents before and after the arrival of European colonialists. The Indians usually do not include one of the groups of indigenous inhabitants of America - the Eskimo-Aleut peoples, who live not only in America, but also in Chukotka and the Commander Islands (Russian Federation). Eskimos are very different from their neighbors- Indians physical appearance. However, the racial diversity of the Indians of North and South America is also extremely large, so the non-inclusion of Eskimos and Aleuts among the Indians is motivated mainly by tradition.

The diversity of Indian languages is so great that it is comparable to the diversity of human languages in general, so the term “Indian languages” is very arbitrary. American linguist J. Greenberg, who came up with the so-called “Amerindian” hypothesis, proposed uniting all Indian languages, except for the languages of the Na-Dene family, into a single macrofamily - Amerindian. However, most specialists in Indian languages were skeptical about this hypothesis and the “mass comparison of languages” methodology behind it.

It is quite difficult to indicate the exact number of Indian languages and make an exhaustive list of them. This is due to a number of circumstances. First, it is necessary to distinguish between modern and pre-colonization language pictures. It is believed that before colonization in North America (north of the Aztec empire, located in central Mexico) there were up to four hundred languages, and now there are just over 200 of them left in this territory. Moreover, many languages disappeared before they were recorded in any way . On the other hand, languages such as Quechua in South America have expanded the territorial and ethnic base of their distribution many times over the past centuries.

The second obstacle to calculating Indian languages is related to the problem of distinguishing between language and dialect. Many languages exist in several regional varieties called dialects. Often the question of whether two similar forms of speech should be considered different languages or dialects of the same language is very difficult to resolve. When solving the language/dialect dilemma, several heterogeneous criteria are taken into account.

1) Mutual intelligibility: is mutual understanding possible between speakers of two idioms without prior training? If yes, then these are dialects of the same language; if not, then these are different languages.

2) Ethnic identity: very similar (or even identical) idioms may be used by groups that perceive themselves as different ethnic groups; such idioms can be considered different languages.

3) Social attributes: An idiom that is very close to a certain language may have certain social attributes (for example, statehood), which makes it considered a special language.

4) Tradition: similar situations can be viewed differently simply due to tradition.

From a physical-geographical point of view, America is usually divided into North and South. From political to North (including Canada, USA and Mexico), Central and South. From an anthropological and linguistic point of view, America is traditionally divided into three parts: North America, Mesoamerica and South America. The northern and southern borders of Mesoamerica are understood differently, sometimes in terms of modern political divisions (then, for example, the northern border of Mesoamerica is the border of Mexico and the United States), and sometimes in terms of pre-colonial cultures (then Mesoamerica is the sphere of influence of the Aztec and Mayan civilizations ).

Classifications of Indian languages. The history of the classification of North American languages goes back more than one and a half centuries. The forerunner of the genetic classification of North American languages was P. Duponceau, who drew attention to the typological similarity of many of these languages (1838), namely their polysyntheticism. The authors of the first actual genetic classifications were A. Gallatin (1848) and J. Trumbull (1876). But it was the classification named after John Wesley Powell that was truly comprehensive and very influential. Major Powell (1834-1902) was an explorer and naturalist who worked for the Bureau of American Ethnology. In the classification prepared by Powell and his associates, 58 language families of North America were identified (1891). Many of the families he identified have retained their status in the modern classification. In the same 1891, another important classification of American languages appeared, belonging to Daniel Brinton (1891), who introduced a number of important terms (for example, “Uto-Aztecan family”). In addition, Brinton's classification included the languages of not only North but also South America. Later classifications of North American languages were based on Powell's classification, and those of South American languages were based on Brinton's classification.

Soon after the publication of Powell's classification, attempts were made to reduce the number of North American language families. Californian anthropologists A. Kroeber and R. Dixon radically reduced the number of language families in California, in particular they postulated the associations of “Hoca” and “Penuti”. Reductionist trend of the early 20th century. found its culmination in the widely known classification of E. Sapir (1921, 1929). This classification included only six macrofamilies (stocks) of North American languages: Eskimo-Aleut, Algonquian-Wakashan, Na-Dene, Penutian, Hokan-Siouan and Aztec-Tanoan. Sapir considered this classification as a preliminary hypothesis, but later it was reproduced without the necessary reservations. As a result, the impression was formed that the Algonquin-Wakash or Hokan-Siwan associations were the same recognized associations of the New World as, say, the Indo-European or Uralic languages in Eurasia. The reality of the Eskimo-Aleut family was later confirmed, and the remaining five Sapirian macrofamilies were revised or rejected by most specialists.

Native languages of the Americas (eds. L. Campbell and M. Mithun, 1979). This book takes the most conservative approach possible, listing 62 language families (including some Mesoamerican families) that have no identifiable relationship. More than half of these families represent genetically isolated single languages. This concept is based on a qualitatively new level of knowledge about most North American languages compared to Sapir's time: during the 1960-1970s, detailed comparative historical work was carried out on all nuclear families of North America. This work has continued actively over the past two decades. "Consensus Classification" was published in Volume 17 (Languages ) fundamentalHandbook of North American Indians (ed. A. Goddard, 1996). This classification, with minor modifications, repeats the 1979 classification, also representing 62 genetic families.

The first detailed classification of South American languages was proposed in 1935 by the Czech linguist C. Loukotka. This classification includes 113 language families. Subsequently, much work on the classification of Amazonian languages was carried out by the Brazilian linguist A. Rodriguez. One of the most modern and conservative classifications belongs to T. Kaufman (1990).

Linguistic diversity and linguistic-geographical features of America. American linguist R. Austerlitz formulated an extremely important observation: America is characterized by a much higher genetic density than Eurasia. The genetic density of a particular territory is the number of genetic associations represented in this territory, divided by the area of this territory. The area of North America is several times smaller than the area of Eurasia, and the number of language families in America, on the contrary, is much greater. This idea was developed in more detail by J. Nichols (1990, 1992); According to her data, the genetic density of Eurasia is about 1.3, while in North America it is 6.6, in Mesoamerica it is 28.0, and in South America it is 13.6. Moreover, there are areas in America with particularly high genetic density. These are, in particular, California and the northwestern coast of the United States. This area is an example of a "closed linguistic zone" with high linguistic diversity. Confined zones usually occur under specific geographic conditions; factors contributing to their occurrence are the ocean coasts, mountains, other insurmountable obstacles, as well as favorable climatic conditions. California and the northwest coast, sandwiched between the mountains and the ocean, fit these criteria perfectly; It is not surprising that genetic density here reaches record levels (in California 34.1). On the contrary, the center of North America (the Great Plains area) is an “extended zone”, only a few families are common there, occupying a fairly large area, the genetic density is 2.5.The Settlement of America and the Prehistory of Indian Languages. The settlement of America occurred through Beringia, the zone of the modern Bering Strait. However, the question of the time of settlement remains debatable. One point of view, based on archaeological evidence and dominant for a long time, is that the main prehistoric population migrated to America 12-20 thousand years ago. Recently, more and more evidence has been accumulating about a completely different scenario. Among this evidence there is also linguistic evidence. Thus, J. Nichols believes that the extreme linguistic diversity of America can be explained in two ways. If we adhere to the hypothesis of one wave of migration, then at least 50 thousand years must have passed since this wave to achieve the current level of genetic diversity. If we insist on a later start of migration, then the existing diversity can only be explained by a series of migrations; in the latter case, we have to assume that genetic diversity was transferred from the Old World to the New. It is most likely that both are true, i.e. that the settlement of America began very early and occurred in waves. In addition, archaeological, genetic and linguistic evidence suggests that the bulk of the proto-American population migrated not from the depths of Eurasia, but from the Pacific region.Major families of Indian languages. The largest language families in America are listed below. We will consider them, gradually moving from north to south. In this case, we will not make a distinction between living and dead languages.Family on the Dene (Na-Dene) includes the Tlingit and Eyak-Athabascan languages. The latter are divided into the Eyak language and the rather compact Athabaskan (Athabaskan ~ Athapaskan) family, which includes about 30 languages. Athabascan languages are spoken in three areas. Firstly, they occupy one massif of inland Alaska and almost the entire western part of Canada. The ancestral homeland of the Athabaskans is located in this area. The second Athabascan range is Pacific: these are several enclaves in the states of Washington, Oregon and northern California. Third Area languages are common in the southwestern United States. The South Athabascan languages, otherwise called Apache, are closely related. These include the largest North American language in terms of number of speakers, Navajo.(cm. NAVAJO).Sapir attributed the Haida language to Na-Dene, but after repeated testing this hypothesis was rejected by most experts, and today Haida is considered an isolate.Salish (Salishan) family is distributed compactly in southwestern Canada and northwestern USA. This family contains about 23 languages and is divided into five continental groups and four coastal groups: Central Salish, Tsamos, Bella Coola and Tillamook. There are no proven external connections of the Salish family to date.. Vakash family (Wakashan) is common on the coast of British Columbia and on Vancouver Island. It includes two branches: northern (Kwakiutl) and southern (Nutkan). Each branch includes three languages.Algskaya (Algic) family consists of three branches. One of them is the traditionally distinguished Algonquian family, distributed in the center and east of the continent. The other two branches are the Wiyot and Yurok languages, located in a completely different area in northern California. The relationship of the Wiyot and Yurok languages (sometimes called Ritwan) with the Algonquian languages has long been questioned, but is now recognized by many experts. The question of the ancestral home of the Alg family in the west, in the center or in the east of the continent remains open. The Algonquian family includes about 30 languages and occupies almost all of eastern and central Canada, as well as the entire region around the Great Lakes (except Iroquoian territory,see below ) and the northern part of the Atlantic coast of the United States (as far as North Carolina in the south). Among the Algonquian languages, a compact group of closely related Eastern Algonquian languages stands out. Other languages hardly form groups within the Algonquian family, but come directly from the common Algonquian “root”. Some Algonquian languages - Blackfoot, Cheyenne, Arapaho - spread particularly far west into the prairie region.Siouan (Siouan) family includes about two dozen languages and occupies a compact spot of the main part of the prairie range, as well as several enclaves on the Atlantic coast and in the southeastern United States. The Catawba and Wahkon languages (southeastern United States) are now considered to be a distant group of the Siouan family. The remaining Siouan languages are divided into four groups: the southeastern, Mississippi Valley, upper Missouri, and Mandan groups. The largest group is the Mississippi group, which in turn is divided into four subgroups: Dhegiha, Chiwere, Winnebago and Dakota(cm. DAKOTA).The Siouan languages are probably related to the Iroquoian and Caddoan languages. Other previously proposed Siouan family affiliations are considered unproven or erroneous; The Yuchi language is considered an isolate.Iroquois (Iroquoian) family has about 12 languages. The Iroquoian family has a binary structure: the southern group consists of one Cherokee language, all other languages are included in the northern group. Northern languages are common in the area of Lakes Erie, Huron and Ontario and along the St. Lawrence River, as well as further south on the Atlantic coast of the United States. Cherokee is even further to the southwest.Caddoan (Caddoan) family includes five languages that occupy a chain of north-south enclaves in the prairie area. The Caddo language is further removed from the other Caddoan languages than they are from each other. The kinship of the Caddoan and Iroquois families is now considered practically proven.Muskogean (Muskogean) family includes about 7 languages and occupies a compact region in the extreme southeastern United States east of the lower Mississippi, including Florida. The hypothesis about the unification of the Muskogean languages with four other languages of the same area under the name of the Gulf macrofamily, proposed by M. Haas, has now been rejected; these four languages (Natchez, Atakapa, Chitimasha, and Tunica) are considered isolates.Kiowa-Tanoan (Kiowa-Tanoan) family includes the Kiowa language of the southern prairie region and three languages of the Southwestern United States representing the Pueblo culture (along with Keres languages, a Uto-Aztecan Hopi language, and a Zuni isolate).

The so-called “Penutian” macrofamily, proposed at the beginning of the 20th century. Kroeber and Dixon, is extremely problematic and as a whole is not recognized by specialists. Within the “Penutian” association, the most encouraging connections are between the Klamath language, the Molala language (both in Oregon) and the Sahaptin languages (Oregon, Washington); this association is called the “Penutian languages of the Plateau” (4 languages). Another relationship that is considered as a reliable genetic connection within the framework of the “Penutian” association is the unity of the Miwok family (7 languages) and the Costanoan family (8 languages); This association is called the “Utian” family and is located in northern California. In total, the hypothetical “Penutian” association, in addition to the two already named, includes 9 more families: Tsimshian family (2 languages), Shinuk family (3 languages), Alsey family (2 languages), Siuslau language, Kus family (2 languages), Takelma -Kalapuyan family (3 languages), Vintuan family (2 languages), Maiduan family (3 languages) and Yokuts family (at least 6 languages). Sapir also attributed the Cayuse language (Oregon) and the “Mexican Penutian” family Mihe-Soke and the Huave language to the Penutian macrofamily.

Kochimi-Yumanskaya (Cochim-Yuman) family is common in the border region between the United States and Mexico. The Cochimi languages are found in central Baja California, and the Yuman family of ten languages is found in western Arizona, southern California, and northern Baja California. The Yuman family was classified as a “Hokan” macrofamily. Now the Kochimi-Yuman family is considered as the core of this hypothetical association. The most likely genetic connections between the Cochimi-Yuman languages and the Pomoan languages spoken in northern California (the Pomoan family includes seven languages). According to modern ideas, the “Khokan” association is as unreliable as the Penutian one; in addition to those already mentioned, it includes 8 independent families: the Seri language, the Washo language, the Salin family (2 languages), the Yana languages, the Palainihan family (2 languages), the Shastani family (4 languages), the Chimariko language and the Karok language. Sapir also included Yakhik Esselen and the now extinct Chumash family, which included several languages, among the Khokan languages.Uto-Aztecan (Uto-Aztecan) family largest in the western United States and Mexico. There are about 22 Uto-Aztecan languages in the United States. These languages fall into five main groups: Nama, Tak, Tubatulabal, Hopi and Tepiman. A number of other groups are represented in Mexico, including the Aztec languages(cm . AZTEC LANGUAGES).Uto-Aztecan languages occupy the entire Great Basin of the United States and large areas of northwestern and central Mexico. The Comanche language is common in the southern prairie region. Numerous external connections of the Uto-Aztecan languages proposed in the literature are unreliable.

The last two families examined are partly located in Mexico. Next we come to families that are represented exclusively in Mesoamerica.

Otomangean (Otomanguean) family has many dozens of languages and is spoken primarily in central Mexico. The seven groups within the Otomanguean family are Amusgo, Chiapanec-Mangue, Chinanteco, Mixteco, Otomi-Pame, Popolocan and Zapotec.Totonac (Totonacan) family is distributed in east-central Mexico and includes two branches: Totonac and Tepehua. The Totonac family includes about a dozen languages.Mihye-soke family (Mixe-Zoque) is widespread in southern Mexico and includes about two dozen languages. The two main branches of this family are the Miche and the Soke.Mayan family (Mayan) The largest family of the south of Mexico, Guatemala and Belize. There are currently between 50 and 80 Mayan languages.Cm . MAYAN LANGUAGES.Misumalpan (Misumalpan) family includes four languages, located in El Salvador, Nicaragua and Honduras. Perhaps this family is genetically related to the Chibchan (see below ). Chibchanskaya (Chibchan) language family is transitional between the languages of Mesoamerica and South America. Related languages are spoken in Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Venezuela and Colombia. The Chibchan family includes 24 languages.

The further families under consideration are strictly South American, although some of them have peripheral representatives in Central America.

Arawakan (Arawakan), or Maipurean, family is distributed throughout almost all of South America, a number of Central American countries down to Guatemala, and all the islands of the Caribbean, including Cuba. The center of gravity of this family, however, is in the western Amazon. The Arawak family consists of five main branches: central, eastern, northern (including the Caribbean, Interior and Wapishana groups), southern (including the Bolivia-Paran, Campa and Purus groups) and western.Caribbean(Ká riban) the main family of northern South America. (We emphasize that the Caribbean group mentioned in the previous paragraph does not refer to this family, but to the Arawakan. This homonymy arose due to the fact thatá Ribi peoples from the mainland conquered the Arawak peoples of the islands and in some cases transferred their self-name to them. TOá The Ribi family includes 43 languages.

In western Amazonia (roughly the same place as the Arawak family) the languages are found

Tucanoan (Tuká noan) family. This family includes 14 languages.

The Andean region contains languages

Quechuan(Quechuan) and Aymaran (Aymaran) families. The great languages of South America, Quechua and Aymara, belong to these families. The Quechuan family includes several Quechua languages, which in other terminology are called dialects(cm. QUECHUA).Aymaran family, or Khaki (Jaquí ), consists of two languages, one of which is Aymaraá (cm. AIMAR Á).Many experts suggest that these two families are related and form the Kechumara macrofamily; other linguists explain the similarities by borrowings.

Located in the southern foothills of the Andes

Panoan (Panoan) family. It is divided into eight branches, named according to geography (eastern, north-central, etc.), and includes 28 languages.

There is a family in eastern Brazil

same (Je), which includes 13 languages. There is a hypothesis that languagessame together with 12 more small families (from 1 to 4 languages each) form a macrofamilymacro. TO macro include, in particular, the Chiquitano language, the Bororoan family, the Mashakali family, the Caraj languagesá and etc.

Along the periphery of the macro-area, i.e. actually distributed throughout Brazil and surrounding areas

Tupian(Tup ian ) macrofamily. It includes about 37 languages. The Tupian macrofamily includes the core Tupi-Guarani family, which consists of eight branches: Guaranian, Guarayu, Tupian proper, Tapirape, Cayabi, Parintintin, Camayura and Tukunyape. The Guarani branch includes, in particular, one of the great South American languages - the Paraguayan Guarani language(cm. GUARANI).In addition to the Tupi-Guarani languages, the Tupi union includes eight more separate languages (their genetic status has not been definitively established).Sociolinguistic information. American Indian languages are extremely diverse in their sociolinguistic characteristics. The current state of Indian languages developed under the conditions of European colonization and subsequent existence as languages of ethnic minorities. Nevertheless, in the current state, reflexes of the social and demographic situation that took place in the pre-colonial period are clearly visible. There are many individual differences in the modern sociolinguistic status of Indian languages, but there are features common to entire areas. In this sense, it is convenient to consider North America, Mesoamerica and South America each separately.

20th centuries disappeared completely (as a result of genocide, epidemics, assimilation) or survived as ethnic groups, but lost their language. According to the data of A. Goddard (based, in turn, on information from M. Krauss, B. Grimes, and others), 46 Indian and Eskimo-Aleut languages have been preserved in North America, which continue to be acquired by a fairly large number of children as native languages. In addition, there are 91 languages that are spoken by a fairly large number of adults, and 72 languages that only a few older people speak. Another 120 or so languages that were somehow recorded have disappeared. Almost all North American Indians speak English (or French or Spanish). In the last one or two decades, vigorous efforts have been made by Indians and linguists in a number of places in the United States and Canada to revive indigenous languages.

The populous Mayan and Aztec empires were destroyed by the conquistadors, but the descendants of these empires number in the hundreds of thousands. These are the Masahua languages (250-400 thousand, Oto-Manguean family, Mexico), Eastern Huastec Nahuatl (more than 400 thousand, Uto-Aztecan family, Mexico), Mayan Qeqchi languages (280 thousand, Guatemala), West-central Quiche ( more than 350 thousand, Guatemala), Yucatecan (500 thousand, Mexico). The average number of Mesoamerican speakers is an order of magnitude higher than in North America.

In South America, the linguistic situation is extremely polarized. On the one hand, the vast majority of languages have a very small number of speakers - several thousand, hundreds or even tens of people. Many languages have disappeared, and this process is not slowing down. Thus, in most of the largest language families, from a quarter to half of the languages have already become extinct. However, the population speaking indigenous languages is estimated at between 11 and 15 million people. This is due to the fact that several South American languages became interethnic for entire groups of Indian tribes, and subsequently a means of self-identification for Indians (regardless of their specific ethnic origin) or even entire countries. As a result, Indian languages acquired official status in a number of states.

(cm. QUECHUA; AYMARA; GUARANI).Typological features. For all the genetic diversity of the languages of the Americas, it is clear that very few generalizations can be made about the structural features of these languages. Most often, as a constitutive feature of the “American” language type,polysynthetism , i.e. a large number of morphemes per word on average (compared to the interlingual “standard”). Polysynthetism is a characteristic not of any words, but only of verbs. The essence of this grammatical phenomenon is that many meanings, often expressed in the languages of the world as part of names and functional parts of speech, are expressed in polysynthetic languages as part of a verb. The result is long verb forms containing many morphemes, and other parts of the sentence are not as obligatory as in European-style languages (Boas spoke of the “word-sentence” in North American languages). Sapir gave the following example of a verb form from the Californian Yana language (Sapir 1929/Sapir 1993: 414): yabanaumawildjigummaha"nigi "let us, each [of us], indeed move westward across the stream." The structure of this form is: ya-(several .people.move); banauma- (all); wil- (through); dji- (to.west); gumma- (really); ha"- (let); nigi (we). In the Iroquois Mohawk language, the word ionsahahnekúntsienhte means “he scooped up water again” (an example from the work of M. Mitun). The morphemic analysis of this word is as follows: i- (through); ons- (again); a- (past); ha- (masculine unit agent); hnek- (liquid);ó ntsien- (get.water); ht- (causative); e" (precision).

Most of the largest language families in North America have a pronounced tendency towards polysyntheticism: Na-Dene, Algonquian, Iroquoian, Siouan, Caddoan, Mayan. Some other families, especially in the western and southern parts of the continent, are closer to the typological average and are characterized by moderate synthetism. Polysynthesis is also characteristic of many languages of South America.

One of the main aspects of polysynthetism is the presence of indicators of arguments in the verb; such are the morpheme -nigi "we" in Yana and ha- "he" in Mohawk. These indicators encode not only the internal features of the arguments themselves (person, number, gender), but also their role in predication (agent, patient, etc.). Thus, role meanings, which in languages like Russian are expressed by cases as part of names, are expressed in polysynthetic languages as part of the verb. J. Nichols formulated an important typological opposition between vertex/dependent marking: if in a language like Russian, role relationships are marked on dependent elements (names), then in a language like Mohawk on the vertex element (verb). Indicators of arguments in a verb are traditionally interpreted in American studies as pronouns incorporated into the verb. To describe this phenomenon, Jelinek proposed the concept of “pronominal arguments”: in languages of this type, the true arguments of the verb are not independent nominal word forms, but associated pronominal morphemes as part of the verb. Nominal word forms in this case are considered as “adjuncts” to pronominal arguments. Many Indian languages are characterized by the incorporation into the verb of not only pronominal morphemes, but also nominal roots, especially corresponding to the semantic roles of patient and place.

Using the material of Indian languages, an active sentence construction was discovered for the first time. Activity a phenomenon alternative to ergativity and accusativity

(cm . LINGUISTIC TYPOLOGY).In an active construction, both agent and patient are encoded regardless of the transitivity of the verb. The active model is characteristic, in particular, of such language families as Pomoan, Siouan, Caddoan, Iroquois, Muskogean, Keres, etc. in North America, and for the Tupian languages in South America. The concept of active languages, which belongs to G.A. Klimov, is largely based on these Indian languages.

Indian languages significantly influenced the development of word order typology. Studies of basic word order routinely cite data from South American languages to illustrate rare orders. Yes, in

á in the Ribi language of Khishkaryana, according to the description of D. Derbyshire, the basic order is “object predicate subject” (very rare in the languages of the world). The material of Indian languages also played a big role in the development of the typology of pragmatic word order. For example, R. Tomlin and R. Rhodes found that in Ojibwa Algonquian the most neutral order is the opposite of that common in European languages: thematic information comes after non-thematic information. M. Mitun, relying on the material of polysynthetic languages with pronominal arguments, proposed not to consider the basic order as a universally applicable characteristic; indeed, if noun phrases are merely appendices to pronominal arguments, then their order should hardly be considered an important characteristic of the language.

Another feature of a number of Indian languages is the opposition between the proximal (near) and obviative (distant) third person. The most famous system of this type is found in the Algonquian languages. Noun phrases are explicitly marked as referring to a proximate or obviative person; this choice is made on discursive grounds; a person known or close to the speaker is usually chosen as proximate. Further, on the basis of the difference between two third persons in a number of Indian languages, the grammatical category of inverse is built. Thus, in Algonquian languages there is a personal hierarchy: 1st, 2nd person > 3rd proximate person > 3rd obviative person. In transitive predications, the agent may be higher than the patient in this hierarchy, and then the verb is marked as a direct form, and if the agent is lower than the patient, then the verb is marked as inverse.

Andrey Kibrik LITERATURE Berezkin Yu.E., Borodatova A.A., Istomin A.A., Kibrik A.A.Indian languages . In the book: American ethnology. Study guide (in print)
Klimov G.A. Typology of active languages . M., 1977

Native American languages are often divided into 3 parts: North America (USA, Canada), Mesoamerica (Mexico and Central America) and South America. The variety of Indian languages is great; it is difficult to indicate their exact number and compile an exhaustive list. First, the modern and pre-colonization language pictures differ significantly. It is estimated that before European colonization there were about 400 languages in North America, and at the beginning of the 21st century there were just over 200 of them left. Many languages disappeared before they were recorded. There are blank spots on the language maps of America, about which no information can be obtained. On the other hand, languages such as the Quechuan languages have greatly expanded the territorial and ethnic base of their distribution over the past centuries. Secondly, many languages, especially in Mesoamerica and South America, are poorly documented. Thirdly, in many cases the problem of distinguishing between language and dialect has not been resolved.

The linguistic situation in the regions of distribution of Indian languages varies. North America is dominated by small language groups of several thousand or even hundreds of people. There are only a few languages spoken by tens of thousands of people, including Navajo, Dakota, Cree, Ojibwa, and Cherokee. Many Indian tribes in the 18th-20th centuries disappeared completely or survived as ethnic groups but lost their language; There are about 120 such extinct languages. According to the data of American researchers I. Goddard, M. Krauss, B. Grimes and others, 46 indigenous languages have survived, which are acquired by a fairly large number of children as native languages. A fairly large number of adults speak 91 languages, while only a few older people speak 72 languages. In the late 20th and early 21st centuries, in parts of the United States and Canada, Native American activists and linguists have made vigorous efforts to revive indigenous languages. It is impossible to say that the process of dying languages has been stopped, but in a number of cases it has been inhibited and there is a chance for linguistic revival.

In Mesoamerica there are a number of languages whose speakers number in the hundreds of thousands: the Oto-Manga language Masaua (250-400 thousand) and the Uto-Aztec language Huastec Nahuatl (about 1 million) in Mexico, the Mayan languages - Qeqchi (420 thousand people) and Quiche (more than 1 million) in Guatemala, Yucatecan (500 thousand) in Mexico. The average number of speakers of a single Mesoamerican language is at least an order of magnitude higher than in North America. However, the social status of Indian languages in Mesoamerica is quite low.

South America is characterized by a polarized linguistic situation. On the one hand, most languages, as in North America, have a very small number of speakers: a few thousand, hundreds or even tens of people. Many languages have disappeared (in most major language families, between a quarter and half of the languages have already become extinct), and this process continues. At the same time, over 20 million people speak indigenous languages. Several South American languages have become interethnic languages, a means of self-identification for Indians (regardless of their specific ethnic origin) or even entire countries. In a number of states, Indian languages acquired official status (Quechua, Aymara, Guarani).

Due to the enormous diversity of American languages, the term “Indian languages” is very relative; the expression “Native American languages” is sometimes used instead. In the latter case, consideration includes not only the Indian languages themselves, but also the Eskimo-Aleut languages.

The total number of speakers of Indian languages, according to estimates at the beginning of the 21st century, is over 32 million people, including about 21 million in South America, over 10 million in Mesoamerica, and over 500 thousand people in North America.

The American linguist R. Austerlitz made the observation that in America the number of genealogical unities, on average per unit area (the so-called genealogical density), is significantly higher than in Eurasia. According to the American researcher J. Nichols (1990, 1992), the genealogical density in Eurasia is about 1.3, while in North America it is 6.6, in Mesoamerica it is 28.0, and in South America it is 13.6. In America there are areas with particularly high genealogical density - the so-called closed language zones. Thus, in California and on the Northwest coast of North America, sandwiched between the mountains and the ocean, genealogical density reaches record values (in California - 34.1). On the contrary, the center of North America (Great Plains) is a so-called extended zone, only a few families are common there over a fairly large area, the genealogical density is 2.5.

The largest genealogical groups of Indian languages are listed below in the order in which they are located from north to south. No distinction is made between living and dead languages; the number of languages indicated is as close as possible to the situation before colonization.

North America. In total, there are 34 known families in North America, 20 isolated languages and about 7 unclassified ones. Na-Dené languages include Tlingit, Eyak and Athabaskan languages (about 40), distributed in Alaska and western Canada, the Pacific coast of the United States (Washington, Oregon and northern California) and the Southwestern North America. The South Athabaskan (Apache) languages are closely related, including the largest number of speakers in North America - Navajo. E. Sapir attributed Haida to the Na-Dene languages, but after repeated testing this hypothesis was rejected by most experts, and Haida is considered an isolate. A hypothesis is being developed about the genealogical connections of the Na-Dene with the languages of Eurasia, in particular with the Yeniseian languages.

Salish languages (over 20) are widely distributed in southwestern Canada and the northwestern United States. Their external genealogical connections have not been proven. In the west of their range is the territory of the Chimacum languages (2), and in the east - the Kutenai isolate.

The area of the Wakash languages (6) is in western Canada and the USA, on the coast of British Columbia and on Vancouver Island.

The main part of the Algian languages are Algonquian languages (about 30), the territory of which is almost the entire east and center of Canada, as well as the area around the Great Lakes (except for the area of the Iroquoian languages) and the northern part of the Atlantic coast of the United States (as far as the state of North Carolina in the south). Some Algonquian languages (Blackfoot, Cheyenne, Arapaho) spread particularly far west into the Great Plains. According to some researchers, the now extinct Beothuk language (Newfoundland) could belong to the Algonquian languages. In addition to Algonquian, the Alg family includes the Wiyot and Yurok languages of northern California, sometimes called Ritwan. Numerous previously proposed external connections of the Alg family are hypothetical.

Sioux languages (Siouan; about 20) are compactly distributed throughout the main part of the Great Plains, and also have several enclaves on the Atlantic coast and in the southeast of North America. Within them, the largest group is the languages of the Mississippi Valley, which include the Dakota dialects. The Siouan languages are probably related to the Iroquoian and Caddoan languages. Other previously proposed amalgamations of Siouan languages are considered unproven or erroneous; The Yuchi language is classified as an isolate.

The area of the Iroquois languages (about 12) is the region of the Great Lakes Erie, Huron and Ontario and along the St. Lawrence River, as well as further south - the Atlantic coast of the United States (northern group), even further to the southwest the Cherokee language is widespread.

The Caddoan languages (5) have a number of enclaves stretched in a chain from north to south in the area of the Great Plains. Their relationship with the Iroquois languages is considered practically proven.

The range of the Muskogean languages (about 7) is a compact region in southeastern North America (east of the lower Mississippi, including Florida). The hypothesis of M. Haas (USA) about their unification with 4 other languages of the same area (Natchez, Atakapa, Chitimasha and Tunica) into the so-called Gulf macrofamily is considered untenable in modern linguistics; these 4 languages are considered as isolates.

The Kiowataan languages include the Kiowa language (central Great Plains) and 6 languages in the North American Southwest representing the Pueblo culture (along with the Keres languages, the Uto-Astecan Hopi languages, and the Zuni isolate).

The identification of the so-called macrofamily of Penutian languages, proposed at the beginning of the 20th century by Californian anthropologists A.L. Kroeber and R. Dixon, is extremely problematic and is not recognized by most experts. Within this association, the most likely genealogical connections are between the Klamath and Molala languages (both in Oregon) and the Sahaptin languages (Oregon, Washington) [the so-called Penutian languages of the Plateau (4 languages)]. A plausible genealogical connection also exists between the Miwok (7 languages) and Costanoan (8 languages) languages [forming the so-called Utian family (northern California)]. The Penutian languages also included 9 more families: Tsimshian (2 languages), Shinuk (3 languages), Alsey (2 languages), Siuslau language, Kus (2 languages), Takelma-Kalapuyan (3 languages), Vintuan (2 languages), Mayduan (3 languages) and Yokuts (at least 6 languages). E. Sapir also included in the Penutian macrofamily the Cayuse language (Oregon) and the so-called Mexican Penutian languages - the Mihe-Soke family of languages and the Huave language.

Cochimi-Yuman languages (border region between the United States and Mexico) combine the Cochimi languages (area - the middle part of Baja California) and Yuman (about 10 languages; western Arizona, southern California and northern Baja California). The latter were previously classified as part of the so-called macrofamily of Khokan languages. In modern linguistics, the Kochimi-Yuman languages are considered as the core of this hypothetical unification. The most likely genealogical connections of the Cochimi-Yuman languages are with the Pomoan languages (about 7 languages), common in northern California. According to modern ideas, the Khokan association is even less reliable than the Penutian one; in addition to those already mentioned, it previously included 8 independent families: the Seri language, the Washo language, the Salin language (2 languages), the Yana languages (4 languages), the Palainihan language (2 languages), the Shastani language (4 languages), the Chimariko language, and the Karok language. E. Sapir also included the Esselen language, the now extinct Chumash family, and two languages of the Yuki (Yuki-Wappo) family, previously represented in California, among the Hokan languages.

Uto-Aztec languages (60) are common in the Great Basin, California, and northwestern and central Mexico (including Astec languages). There are approximately 22 languages in the United States. The Comanche language is native to the southern Great Plains. Numerous external connections of the Uto-Astek languages proposed in the linguistic literature are unreliable. The Cochimi-Yuman and Juto-Astecan families are transitional between North America and Mesoamerica.

Another 17 isolated or unclassified languages and small families were distributed throughout the southern periphery of North America: in northern Florida - the Timucuan family; along the northern Gulf Coast - Calusa, Tunica, Natchez, Chitimasha, Adai, Atakapa, Karankawa, Tonkawa, Aranama; further to the southeast - Cotonama, Coawiltec, Solano, Naolan, Kinigua, Maratino; in the very south of the California peninsula lived speakers of languages of the Guaicuri family (8).

In addition to the Cochimi-Yuman and Uto-Astecan families, 9 more families and 3 isolates are represented in Mesoamerica. Otomangaic languages (over 150) are common in central and southern Mexico. They include the Subtiaba-Tlapanecan languages, which were previously considered separately.

The Totonac languages (about 10) are represented in east-central Mexico and include two branches - Totonac and Tepehua.

The Miche-Soque languages (southern Mexico) comprise approximately 12 languages; 2 main branches - mihe and soke.

Maya languages (Mayan) - the largest family of southern Mexico, Guatemala and Belize; According to different classifications, it includes from 30 to 80 languages.

In addition, 4 small families are represented in Mesoamerica - Xincan (Xinca), Tequizlatec (Oaxacochontal), Lencan and Jicac (Toll), and 3 isolates - Tarasco (Purepecha), Cuitlatec and Huave.

Chibchan languages (24) are a transitional family between Mesoamerica and South America. Its range is Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Venezuela and Colombia. Perhaps the languages of the small Misumalpan family (4 languages; territory of El Salvador, Nicaragua and Honduras) are genealogically related to them.

Further, the families in question are distributed almost entirely in South America, although some of them have peripheral representatives in Central America. In total, 48 families, 47 isolates, and over 80 unclassified languages are known in South America. The area of the Arawakan languages (Maipur; 65) is a significant part of South America, a number of Central American countries, and previously also the islands of the Caribbean Sea; their ancestral territory is the western Amazon. Tucanoan languages (15-25), Chapacuran languages (9), Arawanese (8 languages), Puinavian (5 languages), Dyapanese (Katukinian; 5 languages), Tiniguanese, Otomacian families, 3 isolates and several unclassified languages are common in western Amazonia.

Caribbean languages (25-40) are represented in northern South America. There are also Yanomaman (4 languages), Saliva and Guahib families, 2 isolates and several unclassified languages.

In northwestern South America, the Barbacoan (8 languages), Chocoan (5 languages), Hirahara (3 languages), Timotean (3 languages) families, 4 isolates and several unclassified languages are widespread.

In the northern foothills of the Andes (Ecuador, Peru, Venezuela and southern Colombia) the Bora-Huitot languages (10), Jivarian (4 languages), Yaguan (Peba), Cavapan, Sapar families and 9 isolates are represented.

The Andes region is an area of Quechuan languages (several dozen) and languages of the Aymaran (Khaki) family (3 languages, including Aymara). Many experts suggest that these languages are related and form the Kechumara macrofamily, but other linguists explain the similarities by borrowings. Also represented in the Andes are the Sechura-Catacao (3 languages), Uru-Chipaya and Cholon families and 5 isolates.

The southern foothills of the Andes (northern Bolivia, eastern Peru and western Brazil) are the territory of the Pano-Tacan languages (33; include 2 branches - Panoan and Tacan), the Chon family (3 languages) and isolates of Yuracare and Moseten.

In northeastern Brazil, Amerindian languages disappeared so quickly that only about 8 unclassified languages survive.

The same languages (at least 13) are represented mainly in Brazil. There is a hypothesis of a macrofamily of macro-same languages, which unites, in addition to the same languages, another 12-13 small families (from 1 to 4 languages), including Kamakan, Boror, Mashakali, Botokud, Purian, Karirian, Karaja, Chiquitano, Rikbaktsa and etc.

Along the periphery of the macro-area (throughout Brazil and in adjacent countries, including the northern part of Argentina), Tupian languages (more than 70) are widespread. Their core consists of the Tupi-Guarani languages, which include one of the great languages of South America - Paraguayan Guarani. Tupi-Guarani includes the once widely used but now dead Tupinamba (Old Tupi) language, or Lingua Geral (“common language”). The Tupian association includes, in addition to Tupi-Guarani, 8 more separate languages, the genealogical status of which has not been definitively established. In addition, in Central Amazonia (Brazil, northern Argentina, Bolivia) the Nambiquarian (5 languages), Murano (4 languages), Jabutian (3 languages) families, 7 isolates and several unclassified languages are represented.

In the Chaco region (northern Argentina, southern Bolivia, Paraguay) the most common languages are Guaicuru languages (7 languages), Matacoan languages (4 to 7 languages), Mascoan languages (4), Samucian and Charruan families and 2 isolates. According to some assumptions, they form a single macrofamily.

In the very south of South America (southern Chile and Argentina) the Huarpean family is represented, with 5 isolates (Araucanian, Alakaluf, Yamana, Chono and Puelche).

As a result of interaction between unrelated Indian languages, as well as between the languages of Indians and Europeans, a number of contact languages arose in the Americas. For example, in the 17th century, at the mouth of the St. Lawrence River, a Basque-Algonquian pidgin was formed, which was used by the Mi'kmaq Indians (see Algonquin) and the Basque fishermen who crossed the Atlantic. In the 19th century, based on the Shinook language, the so-called Shinook jargon spread widely on the Northwest coast of North America (from Oregon to Alaska), which was used by both Indians of different tribes and Europeans. In the 1st half of the 19th century, a mixed Michif language emerged (and now exists in Saskatchewan, Manitoba and North Dakota), which combines the nominal grammar of the French language and the verbal grammar of the Algonquian Cree language. Among the Prairie Indians (who spoke Sioux, Algonquian and other languages), sign language was common and was used in interethnic communication.

The dominant opinion is that the prehistoric human settlement of America occurred from Siberia and the Pacific region through Beringia - the zone of the modern Bering Strait. The question of the chronology of the settlement of America is debatable (see Indians). From a linguistic point of view, the hypothesis that the earliest human penetration into America occurred 12 thousand years ago seems unlikely. To explain the enormous genealogical diversity of Indian languages, it is necessary to postulate a much earlier date of settlement of the Americas, as well as the possibility of numerous waves of migration from Asia.

Given the genealogical diversity of Indian languages, few generalizations can be made about their structural features. Polysyntheticism is usually called a constitutive feature of the American language type. Many meanings, often expressed in the languages of the world as part of names and functional parts of speech, are expressed in polysynthetic Indian languages as part of a verb. Long verbal forms appear, containing many morphemes, and other components of the sentence are not as obligatory as in European-type languages (F. Boas spoke about the “word-sentence” in North American languages). For example, the structure of the verb form yabanaumawildjigummaha'nigi 'may we, each [of us], really move west across the stream' (E. Sapir's example) from the Californian Yana language is: ua 'several people move' -banauma- 'all' - wil- 'through' -dji- 'to the west' -gumma- 'really' -ha'- 'let' -nigi 'we'. The morphemic analysis of the word ionsahahnekôntsienhte' from the Iroquoian Mohawk language, meaning 'he scooped up water again' (example by M. Mitun), is as follows: i- 'through' -ons- 'again' -a (past tense) -ha- 'he' - hnek- 'liquid' -ôntsien- 'get water' -ht- (causative) -e' (point action). Most of the largest language families of North America and Mesoamerica have a pronounced tendency towards polysynthetism: Na-de-Né, Algonquian, Iroquoian, Siouan, Caddoan, Mayan, etc. Some other families, especially in the western and southern parts of the continent, are characterized by moderate synthetism. Polysynthesis is also characteristic of many languages of South America. One of the main polysynthetic features characteristic of Indian languages is the presence of pronominal markers in the verb; for example, -nigi ‘we’ in Yana and -ha- ‘he’ in Mohawk. This phenomenon can also be considered as the so-called vertex marking - the designation of the relationship between a predicate and its arguments at the vertex, that is, in the verb. Many Indian languages are characterized by the incorporation into the verb of not only pronominal morphemes, but also nominal roots - especially those corresponding to the semantic roles of patient, instrument and place.

Using the material of Indian languages, an active sentence construction was discovered for the first time. It is typical for such families as Pomoan, Siouan, Caddoan, Iroquoian, Muskogean, Keres, etc. in North America, and for the Tupian languages in South America. The concept of active languages is largely based on these Indian languages.

G. A. Klimova.

Data from Indian languages significantly influenced the development of word order typology. In studies of basic word order, facts from South American languages are often cited to illustrate rare orders. Thus, in the Caribbean language Khishkaryana, according to D. Derbyshire (USA), the basic order “object + predicate + subject” is presented, which is very rare in the languages of the world. The material of Indian languages also played a big role in the development of the typology of pragmatic word order. For example, R. Tomlin and R. Rhodes (USA) found that in the Algonquian Ojibwa language the most neutral order, in contrast to what is common in European languages, is the following of thematic information after non-thematic information (see Actual sentence division).

A number of Indian languages present a contrast between proximal (near) and obviative (distant) third persons. The most famous system of this type is in the Algonquian languages. Noun phrases are explicitly marked as referring to a proximate or obviative person; a person known or close to the speaker is usually chosen as proximate. Based on the difference between two third persons, the grammatical category of inverse is built in a number of Indian languages. Thus, in Algonquian languages there is a personal hierarchy: 1st, 2nd person > 3rd proximate person > 3rd obviative person. If in a transitive sentence the agent is higher than the patient in this hierarchy, then the verb is marked as a direct form, and if the agent is lower than the patient, then the verb is marked as inverse.

Before the Spanish conquest, a number of Indian peoples had their own writing systems: the Aztecs used pictography (see Aztec writing); The Mayans had a highly developed logosyllabic system, derived from earlier writings of Mesoamerica, the only fully functional writing system that was obviously not related in origin to the writings of Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia (see Mayan writing). In the 1st quarter of the 19th century, a Cherokee Indian known as Sequoyah invented an original syllabary writing system for his language, some of the characters of which superficially resemble letters of the Latin alphabet. In the mid-19th century, the American missionary J. Evans invented an original syllabary for the Cree language, which was later applied to other languages of the region (Algonquian, Athabascan and Eskimo) and is still partially used (see Canadian syllabary). The writing systems for the vast majority of Indian languages are based on the Latin alphabet. In some cases these systems are used in practical spelling, but for most Indian languages they are used only for scientific purposes.

The first evidence from Europeans about the Indian languages of North and South America began to appear immediately after the start of colonization. European travelers, starting with H. Columbus, compiled small lists of words. One of the interesting early publications is a dictionary of the Iroquois language from the St. Lawrence River, compiled with the help of Indians captured by J. Cartier and brought to France; it is assumed that F. Rabelais took part in the creation of the dictionary (published in 1545). Missionaries played a major role in the study of Indian languages; for example, the Spanish Jesuit Domingo Agustin Vaez in the 1560s described the Guale language, common on the coast of Georgia and subsequently extinct. The missionary tradition of studying Indian languages is also important for modern Indian studies (the activities of the Summer Institute of Linguistics in the Americas). Public figures were also interested in Indian languages. T. Jefferson organized the work of compiling dictionaries of various languages in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, partly on the advice of the Russian Empress Catherine II. The actual linguistic study of North American languages began in the 19th century. In 1838, P. S. Duponceau (USA) drew attention to the typological similarity of many of them - namely, their polysyntheticism. K. W. von Humboldt studied a number of Indian languages; his grammar of the Nahuatl language is most widely known. The work of J. W. Powell played a major role in the cataloging and documentation of Indian languages. A qualitatively new stage is associated with the activities of F. Boas, who at the end of the 19th - first half of the 20th century studied and described dozens of Indian languages of different families, laid down the American anthropological and linguistic tradition based on the recording and study of texts, and trained a number of famous linguists - Americanists (A. Kroeber, L. Frachtenberg, A. Finney, etc.). Boas' student E. Sapir is the founder of scientific research into many language families of North America, both synchronic-structural and comparative-historical. He trained linguists who made a great contribution to the study of Indian languages (B. Whorf, M. Swadesh, H. Heuer, M. Haas, C. F. Woeglin and many others). American and Canadian linguists and scientists from other countries are studying Indian languages. The languages of Mesoamerica and South America are less well documented than those of North America. This is partly due to the lack of a tradition of studying indigenous languages in Latin American linguistics. Only a few South American linguists (for example, A. Rodriguez in Brazil) were engaged in the study of Indian languages in the 20th century. However, in modern science this situation is gradually changing for the better. Researchers of Native American languages are united in a professional association - the Society for the Study of Native Languages of America.

Russian travelers and scientists left an important mark in the study of Indian languages during Russian America [N. P. Rezanov, L. F. Radlov, F. P. Wrangel, L. A. Zagoskin, I. E. Veniaminov (Innokenty), P. S. Kostromitinov, etc. I.

The authors of the first genealogical classifications of Indian languages were American researchers A. Gallaten (1848) and D. H. Trumbull (1876). A truly comprehensive and highly influential classification of 1891 is due to D. W. Powell and his staff at the Bureau of American Ethnology. It identifies 58 language families in North America, many of which have retained their status in the modern classification. In 1891, another important classification appeared, belonging to D. Brinton (USA); a number of important terms were introduced in it (especially the “Uto-Astec family”). In addition, it included the languages of not only North but also South America. Later classifications of North American languages were based on Powell's classification, and South American languages on Brinton's.

After the publication of Powell's classification, attempts began to reduce the number of North American families. A. Kroeber and R. Dixon radically reduced the number of California families and, in particular, postulated the unions of the “hoca” and “penuti”. The reductionist tendency of the early 20th century was most clearly manifested in the well-known classification of E. Sapir (1921, 1929), in which the languages of North America were united into 6 macrofamilies: Eskimo-Aleut, Algonquian-Wakash, Na-Dene, Penutian, Hokan-Siwan and Astec-Tanoan. Sapir considered his classification as a preliminary hypothesis, but subsequently it was absolutized and reproduced many times without proper reservations. As a result, researchers have received the erroneous impression that the Algonquian-Wakashan and Hokan-Siouan associations are established language families. In fact, in the 1920s, none of Sapir's associations had adequate work in the field of comparative studies and reconstruction. The reality of the Eskimo-Aleut family was later confirmed by such work, and the remaining 5 Sapirian macrofamilies were revised or even rejected by most specialists. Sapir's classification, like a number of later hypotheses about distant kinship, has only historical significance.

Since the 1960s, conservative classifications have dominated, including only reliably proven language families. The book The Native Languages of America (eds. L. Campbell and M. Mithun, USA; 1979) presents a list of 62 language families (including some families of Mesoamerica) between which there is no certain relationship. About half of them are genealogically isolated single languages. The 1979 concept is based on a qualitatively new level of knowledge about most North American languages: in the 1960-1970s, detailed comparative historical work was carried out on all nuclear families of North America, and the documentation of languages has increased significantly. In the 17th volume (“Languages”) of the fundamental “Handbook of North American Indians” (ed. I. Goddard, 1996), a “consensus classification” was published, which, with minor changes, repeats the 1979 classification and also includes 62 language families.

The first detailed classification of South American languages was proposed in 1935 by the Czech linguist C. Loukotka. Includes 113 language families. Subsequently, much work on the classification of Amazonian languages was carried out by A. Rodriguez. One of the most modern classifications belongs to T. Kaufman (USA; 1990, 1994); it contains 118 families, of which 64 are isolated languages. According to the classification of L. Campbell (1997), there are 145 language families in South America.

J. Greenberg proposed in 1987 to unite all Indian languages, except Na-Dene, into a single macrofamily - the so-called Amerindian. However, the vast majority of experts were skeptical about this hypothesis and the methodology behind it for “mass comparison” of languages. Therefore, the term "Amerind languages" is not recommended for use.

Lit.: Klimov G. A. Typology of active languages. M., 1977; The languages of Native America. Historical and comparative assessment / Eds. Campbell L., Mithun M. Austin, 1979; Suärez J. A. The Mesoamerican Indian languages. Camb., 1983; Kaufman T. Language history in South America: What we know and how to know more // Amazonian linguistics: Studies in Lowland South American languages / Ed. Payne D. Austin, 1990; idem. The native languages of South America // Atlas of the world’s languages / Eds. Mosley S., Asher R. E. L., 1994; Handbook of North American Indians. Wash., 1996. Vol. 17: Languages/Ed. Goddard I.; Campbell L. American Indian languages: The historical linguistics of Native America. N. Y.; Oxf., 1997; The Amazonian languages/Eds. Dixon R. M. W., Aikhenvald A. Y. Camb., 1997; Mithun M. The languages of Native North America. Camb., 1999; Adelaar W. F. N., Muysken R. S. The languages of the Andes. Camb., 2004.

The content of the article

INDIAN LANGUAGES, the general name for the languages of the Indians - the indigenous peoples of North and South America who lived on these continents before and after the arrival of European colonialists. The Indians usually do not include one of the groups of indigenous inhabitants of America - the Eskimo-Aleut peoples, who live not only in America, but also in Chukotka and the Commander Islands (Russian Federation). The Eskimos are very different from their Indian neighbors in physical appearance. However, the racial diversity of the Indians of North and South America is also extremely large, so the non-inclusion of Eskimos and Aleuts among the Indians is motivated mainly by tradition.

2) Ethnic identity: very similar (or even identical) idioms may be used by groups that perceive themselves as different ethnic groups; such idioms can be considered different languages.

3) Social attributes: An idiom that is very close to a certain language may have certain social attributes (for example, statehood), which makes it considered a special language.

4) Tradition: similar situations can be viewed differently simply due to tradition.

From a physical-geographical point of view, America is usually divided into North and South. From the political – to the North (including Canada, the USA and Mexico), Central and South. From an anthropological and linguistic point of view, America is traditionally divided into three parts: North America, Mesoamerica and South America. The northern and southern borders of Mesoamerica are understood differently - sometimes in terms of modern political divisions (then, for example, the northern border of Mesoamerica is the border of Mexico and the United States), and sometimes in terms of pre-colonial cultures (then Mesoamerica is the sphere of influence of the Aztec and Mayan civilizations ).

Classifications of Indian languages.

The history of the classification of North American languages goes back more than one and a half centuries. The forerunner of the genetic classification of North American languages was P. Duponceau, who drew attention to the typological similarity of many of these languages (1838), namely their polysyntheticism. The authors of the first actual genetic classifications were A. Gallatin (1848) and J. Trumbull (1876). But it was the classification named after John Wesley Powell that was truly comprehensive and very influential. Major Powell (1834–1902) was an explorer and naturalist who worked for the Bureau of American Ethnology. In the classification prepared by Powell and his associates, 58 language families of North America were identified (1891). Many of the families he identified have retained their status in the modern classification. In the same 1891, another important classification of American languages appeared, belonging to Daniel Brinton (1891), who introduced a number of important terms (for example, “Uto-Aztecan family”). In addition, Brinton's classification included the languages of not only North but also South America. Later classifications of North American languages were based on Powell's classification, and those of South American languages were based on Brinton's.

Soon after the publication of Powell's classification, attempts were made to reduce the number of North American language families. Californian anthropologists A. Kroeber and R. Dixon radically reduced the number of language families in California, in particular they postulated the associations of “Hoca” and “Penuti”. Reductionist trend of the early 20th century. found its culmination in the widely known classification of E. Sapir (1921, 1929). This classification included only six macrofamilies (stocks) of North American languages: Eskimo-Aleut, Algonquian-Wakashan, Na-Dene, Penutian, Hokan-Siouan and Aztec-Tanoan. Sapir considered this classification as a preliminary hypothesis, but later it was reproduced without the necessary reservations. As a result, the impression was that Algonquian-Wakashan or Hokan-Siwan associations are the same recognized associations of the New World as, say, the Indo-European or Uralic languages in Eurasia. The reality of the Eskimo-Aleut family was later confirmed, and the remaining five Sapirian macrofamilies were revised or rejected by most specialists.

The contrast between linguists prone to lumping and splitting remains in American studies to this day. Beginning in the 1960s, the second of these trends began to gain strength; its manifesto was the book Native languages of the Americas(eds. L. Campbell and M. Mithun, 1979). This book takes the most conservative approach possible, listing 62 language families (including some Mesoamerican families) that have no identifiable relationship. More than half of these families represent genetically isolated single languages. This concept is based on a qualitatively new level of knowledge about most North American languages compared to Sapir's time: during the 1960s and 1970s, detailed comparative historical work was carried out on all nuclear families in North America. This work has continued actively over the past two decades. "Consensus Classification" was published in Volume 17 ( Languages) fundamental Handbook of North American Indians(ed. A. Goddard, 1996). This classification, with minor modifications, repeats the 1979 classification, also representing 62 genetic families.

Linguistic diversity and linguistic and geographical features of America.

American linguist R. Austerlitz formulated an extremely important observation: America is characterized by a much higher genetic density than Eurasia. The genetic density of a particular territory is the number of genetic associations represented in this territory, divided by the area of this territory. The area of North America is several times smaller than the area of Eurasia, and the number of language families in America, on the contrary, is much greater. This idea was developed in more detail by J. Nichols (1990, 1992); According to her data, the genetic density of Eurasia is about 1.3, while in North America it is 6.6, in Mesoamerica – 28.0, and in South America – 13.6. Moreover, there are areas in America with particularly high genetic density. These are, in particular, California and the northwestern coast of the United States. This area is an example of a "closed linguistic zone" with high linguistic diversity. Confined zones usually occur under specific geographic conditions; factors contributing to their occurrence are ocean coasts, mountains, other insurmountable obstacles, as well as favorable climatic conditions. California and the northwest coast, sandwiched between the mountains and the ocean, fit these criteria perfectly; It is not surprising that genetic density here reaches record levels (in California - 34.1). On the contrary, the center of North America (the area of the Great Plains) is an “extended zone”, only a few families are common there, occupying a fairly large area, the genetic density is 2.5.

The settlement of America and the prehistory of Indian languages.

The settlement of America occurred through Beringia, the area of the modern Bering Strait. However, the question of the time of settlement remains debatable. One point of view, based on archaeological evidence and dominant for a long time, is that the main prehistoric population migrated to America 12-20 thousand years ago. Recently, more and more evidence has been accumulating about a completely different scenario. Among this evidence there is also linguistic evidence. Thus, J. Nichols believes that the extreme linguistic diversity of America can be explained in two ways. If we adhere to the hypothesis of one wave of migration, then at least 50 thousand years must have passed since this wave to achieve the current level of genetic diversity. If we insist on a later start of migration, then the existing diversity can only be explained by a series of migrations; in the latter case, we have to assume that genetic diversity was transferred from the Old World to the New. It is most likely that both are true, i.e. that the settlement of America began very early and occurred in waves. In addition, archaeological, genetic and linguistic evidence suggests that the bulk of the proto-American population migrated not from the depths of Eurasia, but from the Pacific region.

Major families of Indian languages.

The largest language families in America are listed below. We will consider them, gradually moving from north to south. In this case, we will not make a distinction between living and dead languages.

Family on the Dene

(Na-Dene) includes the Tlingit and Eyak-Athabascan languages. The latter are divided into the Eyak language and the rather compact Athabaskan (Athabaskan ~ Athapaskan) family, which includes about 30 languages. Athabascan languages are spoken in three areas. Firstly, they occupy one massif of inland Alaska and almost the entire western part of Canada. The ancestral homeland of the Athabaskans is located in this area. The second Athabascan habitat is the Pacific: these are several enclaves in the states of Washington, Oregon and northern California. Third Area languages are common in the southwestern United States. The South Athabascan languages, otherwise called Apache, are closely related. These include the most numerous North American language in terms of number of speakers – Navajo ( cm. NAVAJO). Sapir attributed the Haida language to Na-Dene, but after repeated testing this hypothesis was rejected by most experts, and today Haida is considered an isolate.

Salish

(Salishan) family is distributed compactly in southwestern Canada and northwestern USA. This family contains about 23 languages and is divided into five groups - continental and four coastal: Central Salish, Tsamos, Bella Coola and Tillamook. To date, there are no proven external connections of the Salish family.

Vakash family

(Wakashan) is common on the coast of British Columbia and on Vancouver Island. It includes two branches - northern (Kwakiutl) and southern (Nutkan). Each branch includes three languages.

Algskaya

(Algic) family consists of three branches. One of them is the traditionally distinguished Algonquian family, distributed in the center and east of the continent. The other two branches are the Wiyot and Yurok languages, located in a completely different area - in northern California. The relationship of the Wiyot and Yurok languages (sometimes called Ritwan) with the Algonquian languages has long been questioned, but is now recognized by many experts. The question of the ancestral home of the Alg family - in the west, in the center or in the east of the continent - remains open. The Algonquian family includes about 30 languages and occupies almost all of eastern and central Canada, as well as the entire region around the Great Lakes (except Iroquoian territory, see below) and the northern part of the Atlantic coast of the United States (as far as North Carolina in the south). Among the Algonquian languages, a compact group of closely related Eastern Algonquian languages stands out. Other languages hardly form groups within the Algonquian family, but come directly from the common Algonquian “root”. Some Algonquian languages—Blackfoot, Cheyenne, Arapaho—spread particularly far west into the prairie region.

Siouan

(Siouan) family includes about two dozen languages and occupies a compact spot of the main part of the prairie range, as well as several enclaves on the Atlantic coast and in the southeastern United States. The Catawba and Wahkon languages (southeastern United States) are now considered to be a distant group of the Siouan family. The remaining Siouan languages are divided into four groups - the southeastern, Mississippi Valley, upper Missouri and Mandan groups. The largest group is the Mississippi group, which in turn is divided into four subgroups - Dhegiha, Chiwere, Winnebago and Dakota ( cm. DAKOTA). The Siouan languages are probably related to the Iroquoian and Caddoan languages. Other previously proposed Siouan family affiliations are considered unproven or erroneous; The Yuchi language is considered an isolate.

Iroquois

(Iroquoian) family has about 12 languages. The Iroquoian family has a binary structure: the southern group consists of one Cherokee language, all other languages are included in the northern group. Northern languages are common in the area of Lakes Erie, Huron and Ontario and along the St. Lawrence River, as well as further south on the Atlantic coast of the United States. Cherokee is even further to the southwest.

Caddoan

(Caddoan) family includes five languages that occupy a chain of north-south enclaves in the prairie area. The Caddo language is further removed from the other Caddoan languages than they are from each other. The kinship of the Caddoan and Iroquois families is now considered practically proven.

Muskogean

(Muskogean) family includes about 7 languages and occupies a compact region in the extreme southeastern United States - east of the lower Mississippi, including Florida. The hypothesis about the unification of the Muskogean languages with four other languages of the same area under the name of the Gulf macrofamily, proposed by M. Haas, has now been rejected; these four languages (Natchez, Atakapa, Chitimasha, and Tunica) are considered isolates.

Kiowa-Tanoan

(Kiowa-Tanoan) family includes the Kiowa language of the southern prairie region and three languages of the Southwestern United States representing the Pueblo culture (along with Keres languages, a Uto-Aztecan Hopi language, and a Zuni isolate).

The so-called “Penutian” macrofamily, proposed at the beginning of the 20th century. Kroeber and Dixon, is extremely problematic and as a whole is not recognized by specialists. Within the Penutian unification, the most encouraging connections are between the Klamath language, the Molala language (both in Oregon) and the Sahaptin languages (Oregon, Washington); this association is called the “Penutian languages of the Plateau” (4 languages). Another relationship that is considered as a reliable genetic connection within the framework of the “Penutian” association is the unity of the Miwok family (7 languages) and the Costanoan family (8 languages); This association is called the “Utian” family and is located in northern California. In total, the hypothetical “Penutian” association, in addition to the two already named, includes 9 more families: Tsimshian family (2 languages), Shinuk family (3 languages), Alsey family (2 languages), Siuslau language, Kus family (2 languages), Takelma -Kalapuyan family (3 languages), Vintuan family (2 languages), Maiduan family (3 languages) and Yokuts family (at least 6 languages). Sapir also attributed the Cayuse language (Oregon) and the “Mexican Penutian” family Mihe-Soke and the Huave language to the Penutian macrofamily.

Kochimi-Yumanskaya

(Cochim-Yuman) family is common in the border region between the United States and Mexico. The Cochimi languages are found in central Baja California, and the Yuman family of ten languages is found in western Arizona, southern California, and northern Baja California. The Yuman family was classified as a “Hokan” macrofamily. Now the Kochimi-Yuman family is considered as the core of this hypothetical association. The most likely genetic connections between the Cochimi-Yuman languages and the Pomoan languages spoken in northern California (the Pomoan family includes seven languages). According to modern ideas, the “Khokan” association is as unreliable as the Penutian one; in addition to those already mentioned, it includes 8 independent families: the Seri language, the Washo language, the Salin family (2 languages), the Yana languages, the Palainihan family (2 languages), the Shastani family (4 languages), the Chimariko language and the Karok language. Sapir also included Yakhik Esselen and the now extinct Chumash family, which included several languages, among the Khokan languages.

Uto-Aztecan

(Uto-Aztecan) family is the largest in the western United States and Mexico. There are about 22 Uto-Aztecan languages in the United States. These languages fall into five main groups: Nama, Tak, Tubatulabal, Hopi and Tepiman. A number of other groups are represented in Mexico, including the Aztec languages ( cm. AZTEC LANGUAGES). Uto-Aztecan languages occupy the entire Great Basin of the United States and large areas of northwestern and central Mexico. The Comanche language is common in the southern prairie region. Numerous external connections of the Uto-Aztecan languages proposed in the literature are unreliable.

The last two families examined are partly located in Mexico. Next we come to families that are represented exclusively in Mesoamerica.

Otomangean

(Otomanguean) family has many dozens of languages and is spoken primarily in central Mexico. The seven groups within the Otomanguean family are Amusgo, Chiapianec-Mangue, Chinanteco, Mixteco, Otomi-Pame, Popolocan and Zapotec.

Totonac

(Totonacan) family is distributed in east-central Mexico and includes two branches - Totonac and Tepehua. The Totonac family includes about a dozen languages.

Mihye-soke family

(Mixe-Zoque) is widespread in southern Mexico and includes about two dozen languages. The two main branches of this family are the Mihe and the Soke.

Mayan family

(Mayan) - the largest family of the south of Mexico, Guatemala and Belize. There are currently between 50 and 80 Mayan languages. Cm. MAYAN LANGUAGES.

Misumalpan

(Misumalpan) family includes four languages, located in El Salvador, Nicaragua and Honduras. Perhaps this family is genetically related to the Chibchan ( see below).

Chibchanskaya

(Chibchan) language family is transitional between the languages of Mesoamerica and South America. Related languages are spoken in Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Venezuela and Colombia. The Chibchan family includes 24 languages.

The further families under consideration are strictly South American, although some of them have peripheral representatives in Central America.

Arawakan

(Arawakan), or Maipurean, family is distributed throughout almost all of South America, a number of Central American countries down to Guatemala, and all the islands of the Caribbean, including Cuba. The center of gravity of this family, however, is in the western Amazon. The Arawak family consists of five main branches: central, eastern, northern (including the Caribbean, Interior and Wapishana groups), southern (including the Bolivia-Paran, Campa and Purus groups) and western.

Caribbean

(Káriban) - the main family of northern South America. (We emphasize that the Caribbean group mentioned in the previous paragraph does not refer to this family, but to the Arawakan. This homonymy arose due to the fact that the Caribbean peoples from the mainland conquered the Arawakan peoples of the islands and in some cases transferred their self-name to them. Caribbean the family includes 43 languages.

In western Amazonia (roughly the same place as the Arawak family) the languages are found Tucanoan(Tukánoan) families. This family includes 14 languages.

The Andean region contains languages Quechuan(Quechuan) and Aymaran(Aymaran) families. The great languages of South America, Quechua and Aymara, belong to these families. The Quechuan family includes several Quechua languages, which in other terminology are called dialects ( cm. QUECHUA). The Aymaran family, or Khaki (Jaquí), consists of two languages, one of which is Aymara ( cm. AYMARA). Many experts suggest that these two families are related and form the Kechumara macrofamily; other linguists explain the similarities by borrowings.

Located in the southern foothills of the Andes Panoan(Panoan) family. It is divided into eight branches, named according to geography (eastern, north-central, etc.), and includes 28 languages.

There is a family in eastern Brazil same(Je), which includes 13 languages. There is a hypothesis that languages same together with 12 more small families (from 1 to 4 languages each) form a macrofamily macro. TO macro include, in particular, the Chiquitano language, the Bororoan family, the Mashakali family, the Carajá languages, etc.

Along the periphery of the macro-area, i.e. actually distributed throughout Brazil and surrounding areas Tupian(Tupian) macrofamily. It includes about 37 languages. The Tupian macrofamily includes the core - the Tupi-Guarani family, which consists of eight branches: Guaranian, Guarayu, Tupian proper, Tapirape, Cayabi, Parintintin, Camayura and Tukunyape. The Guarani branch includes, in particular, one of the great South American languages - the Paraguayan Guarani language ( cm. GUARANI). In addition to the Tupi-Guarani languages, the Tupi union includes eight more separate languages (their genetic status has not been definitively established).

Sociolinguistic information.

American Indian languages are extremely diverse in their sociolinguistic characteristics. The current state of Indian languages developed under the conditions of European colonization and subsequent existence as languages of ethnic minorities. Nevertheless, in the current state, reflexes of the social and demographic situation that took place in the pre-colonial period are clearly visible. There are many individual differences in the modern sociolinguistic status of Indian languages, but there are features common to entire areas. In this sense, it is convenient to consider North America, Mesoamerica and South America each separately.

Despite the high linguistic genetic density of North America, population density during the pre-contact period was low. Most estimates of the Indian population before colonization are in the region of 1 million. Indian tribes, as a rule, did not number more than a few thousand people. This situation continues today: Indians represent very small minorities in the United States and Canada. However, there are several tribes, the number of which is measured in tens of thousands - Navajo, Dakota, Cree, Ojibwa, Cherokee. Many other tribes during the 18th–20th centuries. disappeared completely (as a result of genocide, epidemics, assimilation) or survived as ethnic groups, but lost their language. According to the data of A. Goddard (based, in turn, on information from M. Krauss, B. Grimes, and others), 46 Indian and Eskimo-Aleut languages have been preserved in North America, which continue to be acquired by a fairly large number of children as native languages. In addition, there are 91 languages that are spoken by a fairly large number of adults, and 72 languages that only a few older people speak. Another 120 or so languages that were somehow recorded have disappeared. Almost all North American Indians speak English (or French or Spanish). In the last one or two decades, vigorous efforts have been made by Indians and linguists in a number of places in the United States and Canada to revive indigenous languages.

The populous Mayan and Aztec empires were destroyed by the conquistadors, but the descendants of these empires number in the hundreds of thousands. These are the languages of Mazahua (250–400 thousand, Oto-Manguean family, Mexico), Eastern Huastec Nahuatl (more than 400 thousand, Uto-Aztecan family, Mexico), Mayan Qeqchi languages (280 thousand, Guatemala), West-central Quiche ( more than 350 thousand, Guatemala), Yucatecan (500 thousand, Mexico). The average number of Mesoamerican speakers is an order of magnitude higher than in North America.

In South America, the linguistic situation is extremely polarized. On the one hand, the vast majority of languages have a very small number of speakers - a few thousand, hundreds or even tens of people. Many languages have disappeared, and this process is not slowing down. Thus, in most of the largest language families, from a quarter to half of the languages have already become extinct. However, the population speaking indigenous languages is estimated at between 11 and 15 million people. This is due to the fact that several South American languages became interethnic for entire groups of Indian tribes, and subsequently - a means of self-identification for Indians (regardless of their specific ethnic origin) or even entire countries. As a result, in a number of states, Indian languages acquired official status ( cm. QUECHUA; AYMARA; GUARANI).

Typological features.

For all the genetic diversity of the languages of the Americas, it is clear that very few generalizations can be made about the structural features of these languages. Most often, as a constitutive feature of the “American” language type, polysynthetism, i.e. a large number of morphemes per word on average (compared to the interlingual “standard”). Polysynthetism is a characteristic not of any words, but only of verbs. The essence of this grammatical phenomenon is that many meanings, often expressed in the languages of the world as part of names and functional parts of speech, are expressed in polysynthetic languages as part of a verb. The result is long verb forms containing many morphemes, and other parts of the sentence are not as obligatory as in European-style languages (Boas spoke of the “word-sentence” in North American languages). Sapir gave the following example of a verb form from the Californian Yana language (Sapir 1929/Sapir 1993: 414): yabanaumawildjigummaha"nigi "let us, each [of us], indeed move westward across the stream." The structure of this form is: ya-(several .people.move); banauma- (all); wil- (through); dji- (to.west); gumma- (really); ha"- (let); nigi (we). In the Iroquois Mohawk language, the word ionsahahnekúntsienhte means “he scooped up water again” (an example from the work of M. Mitun). The morphemic analysis of this word is as follows: i- (through); ons- (again); a- (past); ha- (masculine unit of agent); hnek- (liquid); óntsien- (get.water); ht- (causative); e" (point).

Most of the largest language families in North America - Na-Dene, Algonquian, Iroquoian, Siouan, Caddoan, Mayan - have a pronounced tendency towards polysyntheticism. Some other families, especially in the western and southern parts of the continent, are closer to the typological average and are characterized by moderate synthetism. Polysynthesis is also characteristic of many languages of South America.

One of the main aspects of polysynthetism is the presence of argument indicators in the verb; such are the morpheme -nigi "we" in Yana and ha- "he" in Mohawk. These indicators encode not only the internal features of the arguments themselves (person, number, gender), but also their role in predication (agent, patient, etc.). Thus, role meanings, which in languages like Russian are expressed by cases as part of names, are expressed in polysynthetic languages as part of the verb. J. Nichols formulated an important typological opposition between vertex/dependent marking: if in a language like Russian, role relationships are marked on dependent elements (names), then in a language like Mohawk - on the vertex element (verb). Indicators of arguments in a verb are traditionally interpreted in American studies as pronouns incorporated into the verb. To describe this phenomenon, Jelinek proposed the concept of “pronominal arguments”: in languages of this type, the true arguments of the verb are not independent nominal word forms, but associated pronominal morphemes as part of the verb. Nominal word forms in this case are considered as “adjuncts” to pronominal arguments. Many Indian languages are characterized by the incorporation into the verb of not only pronominal morphemes, but also nominal roots - especially those corresponding to the semantic roles of patient and place.

Using the material of Indian languages, an active sentence construction was discovered for the first time. Activity is a phenomenon alternative to ergativity and accusativity ( cm. LINGUISTIC TYPOLOGY). In an active construction, both agent and patient are encoded regardless of the transitivity of the verb. The active model is characteristic, in particular, of such language families as Pomoan, Siouan, Caddoan, Iroquois, Muskogean, Keres, etc. in North America, and for the Tupian languages in South America. The concept of active languages, which belongs to G.A. Klimov, is largely based on these Indian languages.

Indian languages significantly influenced the development of word order typology. Studies of basic word order routinely cite data from South American languages to illustrate rare orders. Thus, in the Caribbean language of Khishkaryana, according to the description of D. Derbyshire, the basic order is “object - predicate - subject” (very rare in the languages of the world). The material of Indian languages also played a big role in the development of the typology of pragmatic word order. For example, R. Tomlin and R. Rhodes found that in Ojibwa Algonquian the most neutral order is the opposite of that common in European languages: thematic information comes after non-thematic information. M. Mitun, relying on the material of polysynthetic languages with pronominal arguments, proposed not to consider the basic order as a universally applicable characteristic; indeed, if noun phrases are merely appendices to pronominal arguments, then their order should hardly be considered an important characteristic of the language.

Another feature of a number of Indian languages is the opposition between the proximal (near) and obviative (distant) third person. The most famous system of this type is found in the Algonquian languages. Noun phrases are explicitly marked as referring to a proximate or obviative person; this choice is made on discursive grounds - a person known or close to the speaker is usually chosen as proximate. Further, on the basis of the difference between two third persons in a number of Indian languages, the grammatical category of inverse is built. Thus, in Algonquian languages there is a personal hierarchy: 1st, 2nd person > 3rd proximate person > 3rd obviative person. In transitive predications, the agent may be higher than the patient in this hierarchy, and then the verb is marked as a direct form, and if the agent is lower than the patient, then the verb is marked as inverse.

Andrey Kibrik

Literature:

Berezkin Yu.E., Borodatova A.A., Istomin A.A., Kibrik A.A. Indian languages. – In the book: American ethnology. Study guide (in print)
Klimov G.A. Typology of active languages. M., 1977

Indian languages. Indigenous languages ​​of North America What language do the Indians speak?

2. Were the Indians in the eastern United States different from the Indians in the west?

3. Where and how the Indians lived

4. What did they eat?

5. Could a non-Indian lead the tribe?

6. Who is the Kennewick Man?

7. What the Indians thought about the moon

8. When the Indians got bows and arrows

9. What languages ​​do the Indians speak?

10. How modern Indians live

Classifications of Indian languages.

Linguistic diversity and linguistic and geographical features of America.

The settlement of America and the prehistory of Indian languages.

Major families of Indian languages.

Family on the Dene

Salish

Vakash family

Algskaya

Siouan

Iroquois

Caddoan

Muskogean

Kiowa-Tanoan

Kochimi-Yumanskaya

Uto-Aztecan

Otomangean

Totonac

Mihye-soke family

Mayan family

Misumalpan

Chibchanskaya

Arawakan

Caribbean

Sociolinguistic information.

Typological features.

Indian languages. Indigenous languages of North America What language do the Indians speak?

9. What languages do the Indians speak?