The Survey of California and Other Indian Languages (originally the Survey of California Indian Languages) at the

University of California at Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant uni ...

documents, catalogs, and archives the

indigenous languages of the Americas Over a thousand indigenous languages are spoken by the Indigenous peoples of the Americas. These languages cannot all be demonstrated to be related to each other and are classified into a hundred or so language families (including a large num ...

. The survey also hosts events related to

language revitalization Language revitalization, also referred to as language revival or reversing language shift, is an attempt to halt or reverse the decline of a language or to revive an extinct one. Those involved can include linguists, cultural or community groups, o ...

and preservation.

Origins

The Survey was started as a pilot project by Berkeley

linguistics Linguistics is the science, scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure ...

professor Murray Emeneau and

Mary Haas Mary Rosamond Haas (January 23, 1910 – May 17, 1996) was an American linguist who specialized in North American Indian languages, Thai, and historical linguistics. She served as president of the Linguistic Society of America. She was elected ...

in 1953. It was established with an official budget on January 1, 1953. Haas was a particular influence on the early working culture of the Survey. One student, Brent D. Galloway, recalled how several of Haas' students had used a

Natchez Natchez may refer to: Places * Natchez, Alabama, United States * Natchez, Indiana, United States * Natchez, Louisiana, United States * Natchez, Mississippi, a city in southwestern Mississippi, United States * Grand Village of the Natchez, a site o ...

greeting, ''wanhetahnú·ʼis'', and that "the tradition had apparently continued for over twenty years." (Haas' first publication had been on Natchez.) The first project was a study of the

Karuk language Karuk or Karok ( kyh, Araráhih or kyh, Ararahih'uripih) is the traditional language of the Karuk people in the region surrounding the Klamath River, in Northwestern California. The name ‘Karuk’ is derived from the Karuk word ''káruk'', ...

William Bright William O. Bright (August 13, 1928 – October 15, 2006) was an American linguist and toponymist who specialized in Native American and South Asian languages and descriptive linguistics. Biography Bright earned a bachelor's degree in lingui ...

, then a graduate student. Since its founding 80 doctoral dissertations have been written under the auspices of the Survey.

Publications

The Survey published a series of "Reports" beginning in 1981, covering a variety of topics related to languages of California as well as Native American languages elsewhere. Some volumes were standalone works such as dictionaries, others were collections of varied articles. Beginning in 1976 the Survey began publishing the proceedings of Hokan–Penutian Workshop, which addressed the proposed

Hokan The Hokan language family is a hypothetical grouping of a dozen small language families that were spoken mainly in California, Arizona and Baja California. Etymology The name ''Hokan'' is loosely based on the word for "two" in the various Hokan ...

and

Penutian Penutian is a proposed grouping of language families that includes many Native American languages of western North America, predominantly spoken at one time in British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, and California. The existence of a Penutian s ...

language families. Both resources are available online. In 2011, a grant from the

National Endowment for the Humanities The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) is an independent federal agency of the U.S. government, established by thNational Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act of 1965(), dedicated to supporting research, education, preserv ...

made it possible to merge online resources from the Survey of California and Other Indian Languages and the Berkeley Language Center (BLC) into a single website, the California Language Archive.

Directors

In addition to Haas, the Survey has been directed by Wallace Chafe and

Leanne Hinton Leanne Hinton (born 28 September 1941) is an American linguist and emerita professor of linguistics at the University of California at Berkeley. Education and career Hinton received her PhD in 1977 from UC San Diego, with a dissertation entitle ...

. The current director is Andrew Garrett.

References

External links

Survey of California and Other Indian Languages
* {{Populations of Native California Groups + Indigenous languages of the North American Southwest University of California, Berkeley Extinct languages of North America Native American language revitalization Linguistics organizations Research projects 1953 establishments in California

Origins

Publications

Directors

See also

References

External links