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Algic Languages
The Algic languages (also Algonquian–Wiyot–Yurok or Algonquian–Ritwan) are an indigenous language family of North America. Most Algic languages belong to the Algonquian subfamily, dispersed over a broad area from the Rocky Mountains to Atlantic Canada. The other Algic languages are the Yurok and Wiyot of northwestern California, which, despite their geographic proximity, are not closely related. All these languages descend from Proto-Algic, a second-order proto-language estimated to have been spoken about 7,000 years ago and reconstructed using the reconstructed Proto-Algonquian language and the Wiyot and Yurok languages. History The term ''Algic'' was first coined by Henry Schoolcraft in his ''Algic Researches'', published in 1839. Schoolcraft defined the term as "derived from the words Allegheny and Atlantic, in reference to the indigenous people anciently located in this geographical area." Schoolcraft's terminology was not retained. The peoples he called " ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
North America
North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Caribbean Sea, and to the west and south by the Pacific Ocean. Because it is on the North American Tectonic Plate, Greenland is included as a part of North America geographically. North America covers an area of about , about 16.5% of Earth's land area and about 4.8% of its total surface. North America is the third-largest continent by area, following Asia and Africa, and the fourth by population after Asia, Africa, and Europe. In 2013, its population was estimated at nearly 579 million people in 23 independent states, or about 7.5% of the world's population. In human geography and in the English-speaking world outside the United States, particularly in Canada, "North America" and "North American" can refer to just Canada and the Uni ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edward Sapir
Edward Sapir (; January 26, 1884 – February 4, 1939) was an American Jewish anthropologist-linguist, who is widely considered to be one of the most important figures in the development of the discipline of linguistics in the United States. Sapir was born in German Pomerania, in what is now northern Poland. His family emigrated to the United States of America when he was a child. He studied Germanic linguistics at Columbia, where he came under the influence of Franz Boas, who inspired him to work on Native American languages. While finishing his Ph.D. he went to California to work with Alfred Kroeber documenting the indigenous languages there. He was employed by the Geological Survey of Canada for fifteen years, where he came into his own as one of the most significant linguists in North America, the other being Leonard Bloomfield. He was offered a professorship at the University of Chicago, and stayed for several years continuing to work for the professionalization of the disci ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wakashan Languages
Wakashan is a family of languages spoken in British Columbia around and on Vancouver Island, and in the northwestern corner of the Olympic Peninsula of Washington state, on the south side of the Strait of Juan de Fuca. As is typical of the Northwest Coast, Wakashan languages have large consonant inventories—the consonants often occurring in complex clusters. Classification Family division The Wakashan language family consists of seven languages: I. Northern Wakashan (Kwakiutlan) languages : 1. Haisla (also known as Xaʼislak'ala, X̌àh̓isl̩ak̓ala or Haisla-Henaksiala, with two dialects, spoken by the Haisla) – about 200 speakers (2005) ::* C̓imo'c̓a/Cʼimaucʼa (Kitimaat/Kitamat) - X̄a'islak̓ala dialect (spoken by the Haisla/x̣àʼisəla) ::* Gitlo'p (Kitlope) - X̄enaksialak̓ala dialect (spoken by the Henaaksiala/X̄enaksiala) : 2. Kwak'wala (also known as Kwakiutl and Lekwala / Liq̓ʷala, with four dialects, spoken by and Kwakwaka'wakw or Northern Kwa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Amur River
The Amur (russian: река́ Аму́р, ), or Heilong Jiang (, "Black Dragon River", ), is the world's tenth longest river, forming the border between the Russian Far East and Northeastern China (Inner Manchuria). The Amur proper is long, and has a drainage basin of . ''mizu'' ("water") in Japanese. The name "Amur" may have evolved from a root word for water, coupled with a size modifier for "Big Water". Its ancient Chinese names were ''Yushui'', ''Wanshui'' and ''Heishui'', formed from variants to ''shui'', meaning "water".The fishes of the Amur River:updated check-list and zoogeography'' The modern Chinese name for the river, ''Heilong Jiang'' means "Black Dragon River", while the Manchurian name ''Sahaliyan Ula'', the Mongolian names " Amar mörön " (Cyrillic: Амар мөрөн) originates from the name " Amar " meaning to rest and ''Khar mörön'' (Cyrillic: Хар мөрөн) mean Black River. Course The river rises in the hills in the western part of Northeas ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sakhalin
Sakhalin ( rus, Сахали́н, r=Sakhalín, p=səxɐˈlʲin; ja, 樺太 ''Karafuto''; zh, c=, p=Kùyèdǎo, s=库页岛, t=庫頁島; Manchu: ᠰᠠᡥᠠᠯᡳᠶᠠᠨ, ''Sahaliyan''; Orok: Бугата на̄, ''Bugata nā''; Nivkh: Yh-mif) is the largest island of Russia. It is north of the Japanese archipelago, and is administered as part of the Sakhalin Oblast. Sakhalin is situated in the Pacific Ocean, sandwiched between the Sea of Okhotsk to the east and the Sea of Japan to the west. It is located just off Khabarovsk Krai, and is north of Hokkaido in Japan. The island has a population of roughly 500,000, the majority of which are Russians. The indigenous peoples of the island are the Ainu, Oroks, and Nivkhs, who are now present in very small numbers. The Island's name is derived from the Manchu word ''Sahaliyan'' (ᠰᠠᡥᠠᠯᡳᠶᠠᠨ). Sakhalin was once part of China during the Qing dynasty, although Chinese control was relaxed at times. Sakh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nivkh Language
Nivkh (; occasionally also Nivkhic; self-designation: Нивхгу диф, ''Nivxgu dif'', ), or Gilyak (), or Amuric, is a small language family, often portrayed as a language isolate, of two or three mutually unintelligible languages spoken by the Nivkh people in Outer Manchuria, in the basin of the Amgun (a tributary of the Amur), along the lower reaches of the Amur itself, and on the northern half of Sakhalin. "Gilyak" is the Russian rendering of terms derived from the Tungusic "Gileke" and Manchu-Chinese "Gilemi" (Gilimi, Gilyami) for culturally similar peoples of the Amur River region, and was applied principally to the Nivkh in Western literature. The population of ethnic Nivkhs has been reasonably stable over the past century, with 4,549 Nivkhs counted in 1897 and 4,673 in 1989. However, the number of native speakers of the Nivkh language among these dropped from 100% to 23.3% in the same period, so by the 1989 census there were only 1,079 first-language speakers left. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sergei Nikolaev (linguist)
Sergei Lvovich Nikolaev (russian: Серге́й Льво́вич Никола́ев; born 25 December 1954) is a Soviet and Russian linguist, specialist in comparative historical linguistics, Slavic accentology and dialectology. He is the author of a number of books and articles on Indo-European studies, accentology, and Slavic dialectology. Nikolaev is Doctor Nauk in Philological Sciences. He is also a major figure in the Moscow School of Comparative Linguistics. Biography Nikolaev graduated from the philological faculty of Tver State University and Moscow State University. Since 1986, he has worked at the Institute for Slavic and Balkan studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Since 1987, he has been the head of regular dialectological expeditions in the area of East Slavic subdialects. In 1992, he received a doctoral degree with a dissertation comprising the totality of his works, and now heads the group of Slavic glottogenesis. Contribution to linguistics Ser ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Truman Michelson
Truman Michelson (August 11, 1879 – July 26, 1938) was a linguist and anthropologist who worked from 1910 until his death for the Bureau of American Ethnology at the Smithsonian Institution. He also held a position as ethnologist at George Washington University from 1917 until 1932. Michelson studied Indo-European historical linguistics at Harvard University, completing his doctoral degree in 1904, with further study at the Universities of Leipzig and Bonn in 1904-1905, followed by study with Franz Boas. Soon after joining the Bureau of American Ethnology, Michelson began an extensive program of field research on North American Indian languages. Much of Michelson's research focused on languages of the Algonquian family. Bibliographies of his publications are available in Boas (1938), Cooper (1939), and Pentland and Wolfart (1982). He was the author of an early influential study classifying the Algonquian languages, although extensive further research has entirely superseded M ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Columbia River
The Columbia River ( Upper Chinook: ' or '; Sahaptin: ''Nch’i-Wàna'' or ''Nchi wana''; Sinixt dialect'' '') is the largest river in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. The river rises in the Rocky Mountains of British Columbia, Canada. It flows northwest and then south into the U.S. state of Washington, then turns west to form most of the border between Washington and the state of Oregon before emptying into the Pacific Ocean. The river is long, and its largest tributary is the Snake River. Its drainage basin is roughly the size of France and extends into seven US states and a Canadian province. The fourth-largest river in the United States by volume, the Columbia has the greatest flow of any North American river entering the Pacific. The Columbia has the 36th greatest discharge of any river in the world. The Columbia and its tributaries have been central to the region's culture and economy for thousands of years. They have been used for transportation sinc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lake Superior
Lake Superior in central North America is the largest freshwater lake in the world by surface areaThe Caspian Sea is the largest lake, but is saline, not freshwater. and the third-largest by volume, holding 10% of the world's surface fresh water. The northern and westernmost of the Great Lakes of North America, it straddles the Canada–United States border with the province of Ontario to the north and east, and the states of Minnesota to the northwest and Wisconsin and Michigan to the south. It drains into Lake Huron via St. Marys River, then through the lower Great Lakes to the St. Lawrence River and the Atlantic Ocean. Name The Ojibwe name for the lake is ''gichi-gami'' (in syllabics: , pronounced ''gitchi-gami'' or ''kitchi-gami'' in different dialects), meaning "great sea". Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote this name as "Gitche Gumee" in the poem ''The Song of Hiawatha'', as did Gordon Lightfoot in his song " The Wreck of the ''Edmund Fitzgerald''". According to ot ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Urheimat
In historical linguistics, the homeland or ''Urheimat'' (, from German '' ur-'' "original" and ''Heimat'', home) of a proto-language is the region in which it was spoken before splitting into different daughter languages. A proto-language is the reconstructed or historically-attested parent language of a group of languages that are genetically related. Depending on the age of the language family under consideration, its homeland may be known with near-certainty (in the case of historical or near-historical migrations) or it may be very uncertain (in the case of deep prehistory). Next to internal linguistic evidence, the reconstruction of a prehistoric homeland makes use of a variety of disciplines, including archaeology and archaeogenetics. Methods There are several methods to determine the homeland of a given language family. One method is based on the vocabulary that can be reconstructed for the proto-language. This vocabulary – especially terms for flora and fauna – can pr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Northwestern United States
The Northwestern United States, also known as the American Northwest or simply the Northwest, is an informal geographic region of the United States. The region consistently includes the states of Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana and Wyoming. Some sources include Southeast Alaska in the Northwest. The related but distinct term "Pacific Northwest" generally excludes areas from the Rockies eastward, whereas the term " Inland Northwest" excludes areas east of the Cascades. The Northwestern United States is a subportion of the Western United States (which is, itself, even more ambiguous). In contrast, states included in the neighboring regions (Southwestern United States and Great Plains) and Utah are not simultaneously considered part of both regions. Like the southwestern United States, the Northwest definition has moved westward over time. The current area includes the old Oregon Territory (created in 1848–Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and areas in Montana west of the Conti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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