Date: 10-Jul-2010
From: John Stevens <stevensjuncw.edu>
Subject: Entre las Lenguas Indígenas, la Sociolingüística y el Español
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Announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/20/20-4398.html
EDITOR: Islas, MarthaTITLE: Entre las Lenguas Indígenas, la Sociolingüística y el EspañolSUBTITLE: Estudios en Homenaje a Yolanda LastraSERIES: LINCOM Studies in Native American Linguistics 62PUBLISHER: LINCOM GmbHYEAR: 2009
John J. Stevens, Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures, University ofNorth Carolina Wilmington
SUMMARY
In this edited volume, Martha Islas has compiled a remarkable collection ofpreviously unpublished studies in honor of the renowned Mexican linguist YolandaLastra. The collection includes contributions from a variety of internationalresearchers working within the three main linguistic subdisciplines in whichLastra has distinguished herself - indigenous languages, Spanish, andsociolinguistics. All of the chapters are written in Spanish, except for JaneHill's study of loan words in the Mesoamerican maize complex and Kenneth Hill'spaper on Hopi phonology, both of which appear in English.
Part I of the book contains a short introduction by the editor as well as abackground chapter entitled ''Lingüística descriptiva y lingüística social en laobra de Yolanda Lastra: historia de un compromiso científico'' in which PedroMartín Butragueño presents a biographical sketch of Professor Lastra's academicformation, teaching, research, and important contributions, especially in thearea of the descriptive linguistics of the indigenous languages of Mexico. Theremaining 20 chapters are divided into three sections that correspond to theresearch areas in which Lastra has been the most active: Part II IndigenousLanguages, Part III Spanish Language Studies, and Part IV Sociolinguistics.
Part II - Indigenous Languages - begins with William Bright's ''Topónimosamerindios en México y los Estados Unidos'' in which the author discusses placenames of Mexican origin and the methodology employed in the elaboration of twoetymological dictionaries in which he was involved: ''Native American PlaceNames of the United States'' (Bright, 2004) and ''El Proyecto 'Toponimia Indígenade México' [TIM]'' (Lastra, Bright, & Guzmán Betancourt, 2003). DorisBartholomew, in ''El apócope en los verbos del otomí: la morfofonémica delplural,'' uses Classical Otomí as the point of departure for the examination ofapocope innovations in modern dialects of Otomí in four regions of Mexico: theMezquital Valley (Hidalgo), Jiquipilco (Mexico), the Sierra Oriental of Hidalgo,and Ixtenco (Tlaxcala). In the chapter ''Ancient loan words in the Mesoamericanmaize complex,'' Jane H. Hill explores the three temporal levels of loan wordexchange proposed for the domain of the maize plant in Mesoamerica, criticallyreviewing published accounts in order to clarify the three levels and suggestsome new lines of investigation. Kenneth C. Hill, in ''On underlying vowelclusters in Hopi,'' presents phonological phenomena that support the claim forunderlying vowel sequences in that language. In ''El cuento del honorableFundidor Sagrado que hace imágenes,'' Katherine Voigtlander and ArtemisaEchegoyen perform a linguistic analysis of an Otomí story whose origin may havebeen motivated by the need to explain how the native Mexicans were conquered bythe Spaniards. Francisco Barriga Puente, in ''La influencia del español en lossistemas de numeración mesoamericanos durante la colonia,'' examines the impacton the number systems of the native peoples of Mesoamerica as a result of theintense contact between indigenous languages and Spanish during the colonialperiod. Martha Islas, in her chapter entitled ''Los sistemas fonológicos delyuto-azteca del sur y los universales del lenguaje,'' surveys the phonologicalinventories of the southern branch of the Uto-Aztecan languages in order to seehow these systems compare to the statistical patterns most often reported forlanguages throughout the world. In ''Contacto lingüístico y dialectología.Estructuras comparativas en purépecha,'' Claudine Chamoreau uses comparativestructures in different varieties of Purépecha to show that phenomena related tolinguistic contact can have relevance for the dialectological study of alanguage. Thomas C. Smith Stark and Fermín Tapia García, in ''La formación desustantivos plurales en el amuzgo,'' present a system of rules and features thatgovern pluralization in Amuzgo, proposing that any practical dictionary of thislanguage should include the plural form as part of any given noun's lexicalentry. This section ends with Dora Pellicer's ''Yolanda Lastra y los cuentosotomíes,'' a study in which the author highlights the role of reported speech andrepetition in two oral narratives featuring animal characters (''El conejo y elcoyote'' and ''El burro y el puerco'') recorded in the field by Lastra herself andwhich appear in her book ''Unidad y diversidad de la lengua'' (2001).
Part III - Spanish Language Studies - proceeds with María Ángeles SolerArechalde's ''Nombres de institución y geográficos. Cuestiones de concordancia''in which the author considers how semantic, syntactic, and pragmatic factors caninteract in the variability of the form number agreement takes in Spanish nounsreferring to institutions and geographical places. Josefina García Fajardo, in''El modal 'dizque': estructura dinámica de sus valores semánticos,'' examinesthe various meanings the modal 'dizque' was found to have in 20th century Mexicoand assesses the possible correlation between the dynamic structure of thesemeanings and those revealed in earlier stages of the Spanish language. In ''Apropósito del conocimiento femenino del vocabulario del fútbol en el 'Léxico delhabla culta de México,''' Elizabeth Luna Traill analyzes lexical data from LopeBlanch's (1978) corpus to show how women in Mexico City reveal a change overtime towards a greater understanding of the game of football (soccer) asreflected in knowledge of its specialized vocabulary. Karen Dakin, in ''Delyutoazteca al *'-hta-' del náhuatl - y al 'itacate' y el 'taco' del españolpopular: una contribución en homenaje a tres intereses lingüísticos de YolandaLastra,'' analyzes the sequence '-ht-' in Nahuatl and presents evidence thatshows that the word 'taco' likely derives from Nahuatl 'itacate' and not fromsome Spanish source as previously proposed. In ''Las paradojas emanadas de laslenguas en contacto: el caso de una familia mazahua,'' Rebeca Barriga Villanuevainvestigates the impact of Mazahua on the Spanish of four generations of afamily from Portes Gil, Mexico.
Part IV – Sociolinguistics - continues with Una Canger's ''Learning a SecondLanguage First 'revisitado,''' which explores the reasons why Nahuatl survives inthe Mexican village of Coatepec de los Costales despite the fact that the localchildren don't speak it. In ''¿Qué elegiría usted, el español, el guaraní o elinglés?'' Anita Herzfeld discusses Paraguay's special case of Spanish/Guaranínational bilingualism and reports the results of a survey designed to assessattitudes towards Spanish, Guaraní, and English. Claudia Parodi, in ''El españoly las lenguas indígenas: primeros contactos,'' explores the beginning of thelinguistic and cultural indianization of the Spaniards in the New World asrevealed in indigenous borrowings and semantic extensions of Spanish inColumbus's' ''Diario del descubrimiento'' (Alvar, 1976). In ''El cuento'interactivo,' vehículo de educación e identidad,'' Martha C. Muntzel discussesthe use of indigenous stories in the development of language and individualidentity, proposing the use of the 'interactive story' as a teaching methodologyin linguistic and cultural revitalization programs. Finally, Bárbara Cifuentesand José Luis Moctezuma, in ''Un acercamiento al multilingüismo en México através de los censos,'' analyze census data in order to identify trends inMexico's dynamic multilingualism.
EVALUATION
The studies contained in this volume address a variety of topics, ranging fromlanguages in contact to phonology, lexicology, morphology, syntax, textanalysis, and sociolinguistics. All of the contributions are extremely wellwritten and appropriately documented with supporting references. The individualarticles would serve very well as supplementary reading material in specializedcourses such as the history of the Spanish language, the linguistics of thenative languages of Mexico, and the sociolinguistics of Latin America. Graduatestudents looking for a dissertation topic may find this collection particularlyvaluable because many of the papers pose intriguing questions and/or proposeareas suitable for future doctoral research.
Although the book does include an introductory section, this is mostly a reviewof Yolanda Lastra's curriculum vitae. The volume would have benefitted from amore complete introduction that served to orient the reader to its contents andthat gave a rationale for the placement of the individual chapters into theirrespective sections, since many of the topics and subfields overlap and theclassification of the studies is not always immediately apparent. The booklacks a subject index, which would have been a useful feature for quicklylocating information in a collection of this nature. The inclusion of shortbiographical sketches describing the specialization and research interests ofeach of the contributors would also have been helpful for readers interested incontacting an author in order to pose follow-up questions and/or pursue aparticular line of research.
The admiration, respect, and gratitude of students, colleagues, and friends aremanifest throughout this festschrift dedicated to Yolanda Lastra. Thiswide-ranging compilation of studies encompassing the fields of Americanindigenous languages, Spanish language studies, and sociolinguistics will nodoubt prove to be a valuable resource, not only for instructors and students,but also for researchers working in these areas of specialization.
REFERENCES
Alvar, M. [Ed.] (1976). Diario del descubrimiento. Madrid: Cabildo Insular deGran Canaria.
Bright, W. (2004). Native American place names of the United States. Norman:University of Oklahoma Press.
Lastra, Y., Bright, W., & Guzmán Betancourt, I. (2003). El proyecto 'Toponimiaindígena de México' [TIM]. SSILA [Society for the Study of the IndigenousLanguages of the Americas Newsletter], 22,(1), 6-7.
Lastra, Y. (2001). Unidad y diversidad de la lengua. Relatos otomíes. México:Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México [Instituto de InvestigacionesAntropológicas].
Lope Blanch, J. M. (1978). Léxico del habla culta de México. México: UniversidadNacional Autónoma de México.
ABOUT THE REVIEWER
John J. Stevens is Associate Professor of Spanish in the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures at the University of North Carolina Wilmington, where he teaches courses in Spanish language and Hispanic linguistics. His research interests include sociolinguistic variation and the acquisition of Spanish as a second language.
Page Updated: 10-Jul-2010
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