Excerpt from International Journal of American Linguistics, Vol. 1: 1917-1920
The International Journal Of American Linguistics will be devoted to the study of American aboriginal languages. It seems fitting to state briefly a few of the problems that confront us in this field of research.
It is not necessary to set forth the fragmentary character of our knowledge of the languages spoken by the American aborigines. This has been well done for North America by Dr. Pliny Earle Goddard, 1 and it is not saying too much if we claim that for most of the native languages of Central and South America the field is practically terra incognita. We have vocabularies; but, excepting the old missionary grammars, there is very little systematic work. Even where we have grammars, we have no bodies of aboriginal texts.
The methods of collection have been considerably improved of late years, but nevertheless much remains to be done. While until about 1880 investigators confined themselves to the collection of vocabularies and brief grammatical notes, it has become more and more evident that large masses of texts are needed in order to elucidate the structure of the languages.
The labors of Stephen R.Riggs, James Owen Dorsey, and Albert S. Gatschet marked a new era in the development of linguistic work. Besides these, should be mentioned the Library of Aboriginal Literature, edited and published by Daniel G. Brinton, which contains largely older material of a similar character. During the following decades, texts were published on a quite extended scale, but largely brought together by the same methods. They were obtained by 1 Anthropology in North America (New York, G. E. Stechert Co., 1915), pp. 182 tt set. dictation from a few informants, and taken down verbatim by the recorder. In later years the example of James Owen Dorsey, who published texts written by natives, has been adapted to the recording of aboriginal literature; and quite a number of collections of folk-lore have been published in Indian languages, the originals of which have been written by the natives themselves.
Marked differences in stylistic character exist between tales thus recorded and those written by investigators who are not in perfect command of the language, who often have to acquire it by means of the collected text material. The slowness of dictation that is necessary for recording texts makes it difficult for the narrator to employ that freedom of diction that belongs to the well-told tale, and consequently an unnatural simplicity of syntax prevails in most of the dictated texts. When, on the other hand, a native has once acquired ease in the use of the written language, the stylistic form becomes more natural, and refinements of expression are found that are often lost in slow dictation.
Nevertheless the writing of single individuals cannot replace the dictated record, because the individual characteristics of the writer become too prominent, and may give a false impression in regard to syntactic and stylistic traits; even the variability of grammatical form may be obscured by the onesidedness of such records. Whenever it is possible to train several writers, many of these difficulties may be overcome. Where a native alphabet exists, as among the Cherokee, Fox, and Cree, and where for this reason many persons write with ease, a serviceable variety of stylistic and syntactic expression may be secured.
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