In:Language Contact and Change in the Americas: Studies in honor of Marianne Mithun
Edited by Andrea L. Berez-Kroeker, Diane M. Hintz and Carmen Dagostino
[Studies in Language Companion Series 173] 2016
► pp. 107–138
Contact and semantic shift in extreme language endangerment
Ahtna riverine directionals in a cardinal world
Published online: 19 April 2016
https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.173.06kro
https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.173.06kro
This paper examines the effects of contact with English on the directional system of Ahtna, an endangered Athabascan language of Alaska. The Ahtna directionals reference direction and location in the geographic landscape, but contact with the dominant English system is causing changes in lexicon and possibly the replacement of the entire semantic basis of directional reckoning in Ahtna. I present conversational evidence showing that the conflation of the Ahtna concept of upriver with the English concept of north is leading to the breakdown of the entire Ahtna cognitive directional basis. Although Ahtna is so endangered that we are not likely to witness the full replacement of its directional system, we can still see the processes of contact-induced change at work.
Keywords: Ahtna, contact, directionals, endangerment
References (19)
Berez, Andrea L. 2011a. Directional Reference, Discourse, and Landscape in Ahtna. PhD dissertation, University of California, Santa Barbara.
. 2011b. Prosody as a genre-distinguishing feature in Ahtna: A quantitative approach. Functions of Language 18(2): 210-236.
. 2014. Directionals, episodic structure, and geographic information systems: Area/punctual distinctions in Ahtna travel narration. Linguistic Vanguard 1(1).
Berez-Kroeker, Andrea L. To Appear. Directional reference in discourse and narrative: Comparing indigenous and non-indigenous genres in Ahtna. In Language, Landscape and Toponymy in Alaska and Beyond, Gary Holton & Tom Thornton (eds). Fairbanks AK: Alaska Native Language Center.
Busch, John. 2000. Finding Your Way through a Story: Direction Terms in Gwich’in Narrative. MA thesis, University of Alaska Fairbanks.
Du Bois, John W. 2006. Representing discourse. Ms, University of California, Santa Barbara.
Du Bois, John W., Cumming, Susanna, Schuetze-Coburn, Stephan, & Paolino, Danae. 1992. Santa Barbara Papers in Linguistics, Vol. 4: Discourse Transcription. Santa Barbara CA: University of California, Santa Barbara Department of Linguistics.
Heine, Bernd & Kuteva, Tania. 2005. Language Contact and Grammatical Change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
. 1989. Some principles of Alaskan Athabaskan geographic knowledge. In General and Amerindian Ethnolinguistics, in Remembrance of Stanley Newman, Mary R. Key & Henry M. Hoenigswald (eds), 129-150. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
. 1996a. Names as signs: The distribution of ‘stream’ and ‘mountain’ in Alaskan Athabaskan languages. In Athabaskan Language Studies: Essays in Honor of Robert W. Young, Eloise Jelinek, Sally Midgette, Keren Rice, & Leslie Saxon (eds), 443-475. Albuquerque NM: University of New Mexico Press.
. 1996b. A preliminary view of hydronymic districts in northern Athabaskan prehistory. Names 44(4): 253-271.
(ed.). 2010. Ahtna Athabaskan Travel Narratives: A Demonstration of Shared Geographic Knowledge among Alaska Athabascans, Told by Jim McKinley, Frank Stickwan, Jake Tansy, Katie John, and Adam Sanford. Fairbanks AK: Alaska Native Language Center.
Leer, Jeff. 1989. Directional systems in Athapaskan and Na-Dene. In Athapaskan Linguistics: Current Perspectives on a Language Family, Eung-Do Cook & Keren D. Rice (eds), 575-622. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Levinson, Stephen C. 2003. Space in Language and Cognition: Explorations in Cognitive Diversity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.