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A Susquehannock, from John Smith's Generall Historie (1624).

The American Language Reprint Series

Dedicated to the preservation of early Native American linguistic records

"This series provides easy access to valuable documentation for linguists working on Algonquian, Iroquoian, and (Mississippi Valley) Siouan languages. ... A laudable and welcome initiative by a seemingly inexhaustible and enthusiastic compiler."   —The International Journal of American Linguistics

Main Features

• Introduction to the ALR series


• Complete Catalog of the ALR series


• ALR Supplement series

"From the time of first European contact to the emergence of modern, scientific linguistics at the end of the nineteenth century, the native languages of North America were described by numerous observers with a variety of backgrounds and interests. These early descriptions, sometimes unfairly denigrated as merely prescientific, preserve important information on many languages and dialects. A number of them show deep insights into the workings of the languages and lay the foundation for later studies."
—Ives Goddard, The Description of the Native Languages of North America Before Boas.

The American Language Reprint (ALR) series aims to compile the various word-lists, vocabularies and phrase books which were collected in the early years of North American settlement. The series begins with the languages and dialects of the Eastern Woodlands, with a primary emphasis on the Eastern Algonquian and Iroquoian families. We hope to progressively extend the geographical scope of the project to form a comprehensive linguistic record of native North America prior to the advent of modern linguistics.

Each ALR volume takes an original word-list and alphabetizes the words in two sections, from the native language to English and vice-versa. The original orthographies are preserved exactly as they occur, complete with all diacritics and special characters used by the original authors. Some of these vocabularies have been edited and annotated by some of the most prominent linguists of the last two centuries: Daniel Brinton, J. Dyneley Prince, and others.

Supplemental Information

• American Languages in New France The first volume in our Annals of Colonial North America series


• Table of Numerals from early Native American Vocabularies


• Map of the Atlantic coastal Languages (gif, 17k)


• Map of The Indian Tribes of North America (Eastern portion) (jpeg, 140k) From Albert Gallatin's "A synopsis of the Indian Tribes of North America", 1836.
   

Web Links of Interest

• The Society for the Study of the Indigenous Languages of the Americas:SSILA


• Ethnologue Language Family Index: Algic


• Ethnologue Language Family Index: Iroquoian


• Native American Languages


• Delaware (Lenape) Tribe of Indians: Common Words and Phrases in Lenape
   
• Massinahigan Series: Brief Accounts of Early Native America
   

Last Modified: 3/30/24

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