Hierarchy American Indian/Alaska Native Languages in Use Today: Process Description

Hierarchy American Indian/Alaska Native Languages in Use Today: Process Description

(From the vocabulary submission spreadsheet documentation.)

Submitted by Pavla Frazier

11/16/01(Corrected 11/20/01: George Huggins’ eMail address; added P. Frazier email address)
Contacts:

*Victor Golla, the Secretary for the Society for the Study of Indigenous

Languages of the Americas [e-mail].

*George Huggins, Indian Health Service liaison, Database Administrator for RPMS, the IHS information system. George is familiar with the project, and similar efforts. He was on a race/ethnicity work group with Gib Parrish, Dan Pollock, and Daisy West (BIA), back in '99.

[e-mail])

Pavla Frazier [e-mail]

This hierarchy is the result of an effort to most fully represent American Indian/Alaska Native languages currently in use today for use by Health Level Seven. Permission has been obtained from the necessary parties for the use of information by Health Level Seven- see below. The need for representation of American Indian/Alaska Native languages was confirmed by conversations with James McCain of the Indian Health Service and Mead Walker of Health Level Seven. Other participants in this endeavor include Shelby Zwick of the Indian Health Service along with Norman Daoust, Stan Huff and Nancy Orvis of Health Level Seven. Several sources were used in developing this hierarchy, beginning with a list found by Shelby Zwick. Listing indigenous languages currently spoken (1) in the United States, the list was based on the Ethnologue (2). When comparing the original list with background information provided by the Ethnologue, it seemed wise to cross-reference information to yet another credible source. Several linguists assisted in the search for resources, including Victor Golla, Secretary for the Society for the Study of the Indigenous Languages of the Americas (3), who indicated that Ives Goddard would be an excellent resource. Dr. Goddard encouraged reference to the Consensus Classification of the Native Languages of North America from Smithsonian's Handbook of North American Indians, which in fact was edited by Ives Goddard (4).

Validation regarding which languages to include/exclude was obtained via correspondence from Ives Goddard and Victor Golla, with additional approval of the final list by James McCain, of the Indian Health Service. The final product of this endeavor has been made available to those named in this document and is based on the Consensus Classification of the Native Languages of North America and the Ethnologue. Descriptions of languages found in the Ethnologue served to illuminate areas of overlap or apparent differences between these two sources. Therefore, the final hierarchy consists mainly of names from the Smithsonian's Handbook of North American Indians, whereas synonyms were, for the most part, obtained from the Ethnologue. Because dialects and synonyms are not distinguished in Smithsonian`s table, dialects were not incorporated, when possible. At times, depending on cross-reference between the two primary sources, overlap or difference, names came from the Ethnologue and synonyms came from the Smithsonian work.

1.Estes, James. “How Many Indigenous Languages are Spoken in the United States? By How Many Speakers?” National Clearinghouse for Bilingual Education.

http://www.ncbe.gwu.edu/ askncbe / faqs/20natlang.htm

2. ETHNOLOGUE Languages of the World, Fourteenth Edition. Barbara F. Grimes, Editor. Consulting Editors: Richard S. Pittman & Joseph E. Grimes, 2000. SIL International. http://www.sil.org/ethnologue/countries/USA.html

3. Golla,Victor, Secretary The Society for the Study of the Indigenous Languages of the Americas Box 555, Arcata, California 95518 USA. [e-mail]; http://www.ssila.org

4. Sturtevant, William C. General editor; Ives Goddard, Volume Editor (Editor of Languages, Vol. 17) of the Smithsonian's Handbook of North American Indians. Smithsonian, 1996. [e-mail]