Document Type

Book Review

Publication Date

6-2001

Keywords

Amazonian languages

Abstract

Building upon the best tradition of missionary-inspired descriptive linguistic work fostered in connection with Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL) activities, editors Desmond Derbyshire and Geoffrey Pullum launched HAL during the mid1980s as a means of attracting scholarly attention to one of the world's most persistently ignored linguistic areas. With the appearance of Vol. 4, HAL coverage of the Amazon now increases to three typological studies, four historical-comparative analyses, and ten grammatical descriptions of languages belonging to eight different genetic groupings. Unfortunately, this tally barely begins to approach exhaustive coverage of the region, since the rain forests of South America are home to at least 300 languages divided among about 20 families and two dozen isolates. Nevertheless, given the spate of new publications on Amazonian languages over the past decade, many by linguists with SIL affiliation or who were inspired by exposure to earlier volumes of HAL, the series has clearly achieved the goal of drawing the serious attention of a growing number of linguists to the Amazon.

Publication Title

Language

Volume

77

Issue

23

First Page

360

Last Page

363

Subjects - Topical (LCSH)

Indians of South America--Brazil--Languages; Amazon River Region--Languages

Geographic Coverage

Amazon River Region--Languages; Brazil

Genre/Form

reviews (documents)

Type

Text

Language

English

Format

application/pdf

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