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Vol. 59, no. 3 (Fall 2017)

Contents

Abstracts

Why Tséhootsooí Does Not Equal “Kit Carson Drive”: Reflections on Navajo Place Names and the Inequalities of Language

Anthony K. Webster
University of Texas at Austin

Abstract. This article reflects on the controversy in the Navajo Nation of changing the name of Kit Carson Drive to the Navajo place name Tséhootsooí. I outline the structure and use of traditional Navajo place names and then show that Navajo place names have had a renaissance in signage for shopping centers and elsewhere. I then detail the controversy over a proposal to change a street name in Fort Defiance. Place names are not neutral, but fully implicated in concerns about who has and does not have the right (and power) to name. In debates about linguistic relativity, questions of the inequalities of language need to be engaged.

Betoi-Jirara, Sáliban, and Hodɨ: Relationships among Three Linguistic Lineages of the Mid-Orinoco Region

Raoul Zamponi
Macerata, Italy

Abstract. A significant number of lexical and grammatical similarities exist among three linguistic lineages of the mid-Orinoco region in Venezuela usually regarded as independent: Betoi-Jirara, an extinct isolate, the small Sáliban family, and Hodɨ, an isolate still actively spoken. While a genealogical connection of Sáliban and Hodɨ appears unfounded—the similarities here gathered are better attributed to contact than to genetic inheritance—a distant genealogical relationship between Betoi-Jirara and the Sáliban languages seems plausible, although the evidence is not conclusive. Perhaps due to the meagerness of the Betoi-Jirara corpus, the Betoi-Sáliban lexical resemblances are not particularly numerous, while several of their structural similarities seem to be mid-Orinoco regional traits or the result of contact.

Salish Words for ‘Black Bear’ and ‘Grizzly Bear’

Jan P. van Eijk
First Nations University of Canada

Abstract. Salish languages show a wide variety of names for ‘black bear’ and ‘grizzly bear’. A number of these are doubtless of great antiquity and some of them may go back to Proto-Salish. However, reconstruction of the protoforms seems problematic in light of inter-Salish and extra-Salish borrowing and of what appears to be extensive taboo-driven lexical replacement.

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