|
Nebraska
Press Series 3
|
The Miami-Illinois Language
David J. Costa, Cloth: 2003,
xxi, 566, CIP.LC 2002114304 ISBN : 0-8032-1514-2
|
 |
For more information
or to purchase this book, you can also visit the
University
of Nebraska Press
The Miami-Illinois Language reconstructs
the language spoken by the Miami and the Illinois Native
Americans. During the latter half of the seventeenth
century both Native communities lived in the region
to the south of Lake Michigan in present-day Illinois
and Indiana. The French and Indian War, followed in
the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries by
massive influxes of white settlers into the Ohio River
Valley, proved disastrous for both Native groups. Reduced
in number by warfare and disease, the Illinois (now
called the Peorias) along with half of the Miamis relocated
first to Kansas and then to northeast Oklahoma, while
the other half of the Miamis remained in northern Indiana.
The Miami and the Illinois Native Americans
speak closely related dialects of a language of the
Algonquian language family. Linguist David J. Costa
reconstructs key elements of their language from available
historical sources, close textual analysis of surviving
stories, and comparison with related Algonquian languages.
The result is the first overview of the Miami-Illinois
language.
David J. Costa works as a professional
linguist in Native language revitalization and lives
in northern California.
Back
to Nebraska Press Series 3
|
