Languages of the Pre-Columbian Antilles

Languages of the Pre-Columbian Antilles

Languages of the Pre-Columbian Antilles

Languages of the Pre-Columbian Antilles

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Overview

A linguistic analysis supporting a new model of the colonization of the Antilles before 1492

This work formulates a testable hypothesis of the origins and migration patterns of the aboriginal peoples of the Greater Antilles (Cuba, Jamaica, Hispaniola, and Puerto Rico), the Lucayan Islands (the Commonwealth of the Bahamas and the Crown Colony of the Turks and Caicos), the Virgin Islands, and the northernmost of the Leeward Islands, prior to European contact. Using archaeological data as corroboration, the authors synthesize evidence that has been available in scattered locales for more than 500 years but which has never before been correlated and critically examined.

Within any well-defined geographical area (such as these islands), the linguistic expectation and norm is that people speaking the same or closely related language will intermarry, and, by participating in a common gene pool, will show similar socioeconomic and cultural traits, as well as common artifact preferences. From an archaeological perspective, the converse is deducible: artifact inventories of a well-defined sociogeographical area are likely to have been created by speakers of the same or closely related language or languages.

Languages of the Pre-Columbian Antilles presents information based on these assumptions. The data is scant—scattered words and phrases in Spanish explorers' journals, local place names written on maps or in missionary records—but the collaboration of the authors, one a linguist and the other an archaeologist, has tied the linguistics to the ground wherever possible and allowed the construction of a framework with which to understand the relationships, movements, and settlement patterns of Caribbean peoples before Columbus arrived.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780817381912
Publisher: University of Alabama Press
Publication date: 07/21/2008
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Pages: 176
File size: 6 MB

About the Author

Julian Granberry is Language Coordinator with Native American Language Services in Florida and author of numerous publications, including A Grammar and Dictionary of the Timucua Language. Gary S. Vescelius was the second Territorial Archaeologist of the U.S. Virgin Islands before his death in 1982.

Table of Contents

Contents List of Figures and Tables 000 Preface 000 1. The Pre-Columbian Antilles: An Overview of Research and Sources 000 2. The Languages of the Greater Antilles: A Documentary View 000 3. Anomalous Non-Taíno Language Data from the Greater Antilles 000 4. The Primary Archaeological Correlates of Language Data from the Greater Antilles and Their Outliers 000 5. Languages of the Greater Antilles: A Working Hypothesis 000 6. The Languages of the Lesser Antilles and Their Archaeological Correlates 000 7. The Toponymic Method and the Derivation of Taíno Morphemes (with a Note on Macorís and Ciboney Toponyms) 000 8. Toponyms and the Settlement of the Lucayan Islands: A Methodological Test 000 9. Some Principles of Taíno Grammar 000 10. A Short Lexicon of Taíno Morphemes and Lexical Forms 000 11. Antillean Languages: An Afterview 000 References 000 Index 000

Library of Congress Subject Headings for this publication: Indians of the West Indies Antilles, Greater Languages, Taino language Antilles, Greater
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