New World Babel : languages and nations in early America / Edward G. Gray.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Gray, Edward G., 1964-2023, author.

Series:

Princeton legacy library

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Indians of North America--Languages.

Indians of North America.

Language and languages--Philosophy.

Language and languages.

Language and culture.

North America--Languages--History.

North America.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (200 pages).

Edition:

Core Textbook

Place of Publication:

Princeton, New Jersey : Princeton University Press, [1999]

Language Note:

English

Summary:

New World Babel is an innovative cultural and intellectual history of the languages spoken by the native peoples of North America from the earliest era of European conquest through the beginning of the nineteenth century. By focusing on different aspects of the Euro-American response to indigenous speech, Edward Gray illuminates the ways in which Europeans' changing understanding of "language" shaped their relations with Native Americans. The work also brings to light something no other historian has treated in any sustained fashion: early America was a place of enormous linguistic diversity, with acute social and cultural problems associated with multilingualism.Beginning with the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and using rarely seen first-hand accounts of colonial missionaries and administrators, the author shows that European explorers and colonists generally regarded American-Indian languages, like all languages, as a divine endowment that bore only a superficial relationship to the distinct cultures of speakers. By relating these accounts to thinkers like Locke, Adam Smith, Jefferson, and others who sought to incorporate their findings into a broader picture of human development, he demonstrates how, during the eighteenth century, this perception gave way to the notion that language was a human innovation, and, as such, reflected the apparent social and intellectual differences of the world's peoples.The book is divided into six chronological chapters, each focusing on different aspects of the Euro-American response to indigenous languages. New World Babel will fascinate historians, anthropologists, and linguists--anyone interested in the history of literacy, print culture, and early ethnological thought.Originally published in 1999.The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Illustrations

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Chapter I. New World Babel

Chapter II. Language and Conversion

Chapter III. The Burden of Translation

Chapter IV. The Savage Word

Chapter V. Science of the Vanished

Chapter VI. An American Poetics

Conclusion

Select Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references (pages [169]-179) and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 08. Jul 2019)

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

0-691-63277-4

0-691-60344-8

1-4008-6496-8

OCLC:

889252887