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California Indian Languages by Victor Golla (review)

California Indian Languages by Victor Golla (review) Book Reviews California Indian Languages. VICTOR GOLLA. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2011. Pp. vii + 380. $57.50 (cloth). Reviewed by Catherine A. Callaghan, Ohio State University “Anyone who has paid the slightest attention to the aboriginal languages of California knows that there were a lot of them.” This is the lead sentence to page 1 of the intro- duction to this excellent and comprehensive book. Its scope is far greater than its title suggests. By “California,” Victor Golla means “the California area.” Geographically, this comprises those languages spoken from approximately 31¬ 30N N in Baja California to 43¬ N in south-central Oregon–a region considerably larger than California, since it includes all those language families which may have had a toehold in the state, such as Takelma, usually considered an Oregon language. This was one of the most linguistically complex regions in the world, encompassing an area nearly a thousand miles long and sometimes more than two hundred miles wide where at least seventy-eight mutually unintelligible languages were spoken. This number represents nearly a third of the languages of North America north of Mesoamerica. Part 1, “Introduction: Defining California as a Sociolinguistic Area,” focuses on the http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Anthropological Linguistics University of Nebraska Press

California Indian Languages by Victor Golla (review)

Callaghan, Catherine A.
Anthropological Linguistics , Volume 55 (3) – Aug 21, 2014
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Publisher
University of Nebraska Press
ISSN
1944-6527

Abstract

Book Reviews California Indian Languages. VICTOR GOLLA. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2011. Pp. vii + 380. $57.50 (cloth). Reviewed by Catherine A. Callaghan, Ohio State University “Anyone who has paid the slightest attention to the aboriginal languages of California knows that there were a lot of them.” This is the lead sentence to page 1 of the intro- duction to this excellent and comprehensive book. Its scope is far greater than its title suggests. By “California,” Victor Golla means “the California area.” Geographically, this comprises those languages spoken from approximately 31¬ 30N N in Baja California to 43¬ N in south-central Oregon–a region considerably larger than California, since it includes all those language families which may have had a toehold in the state, such as Takelma, usually considered an Oregon language. This was one of the most linguistically complex regions in the world, encompassing an area nearly a thousand miles long and sometimes more than two hundred miles wide where at least seventy-eight mutually unintelligible languages were spoken. This number represents nearly a third of the languages of North America north of Mesoamerica. Part 1, “Introduction: Defining California as a Sociolinguistic Area,” focuses on the

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Anthropological Linguistics – University of Nebraska Press

Published: Aug 21, 2014

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