This volume, the fifth in the Handbook of Middle American Indians, presents a summary of work accomplished since the Spanish conquest in the contemporary description and historical reconstruction of the indigenous languages and language families of Mexico and Central America.
The essays include the following: undefinedInventory of Descriptive Materialsundefined by William Bright; undefinedInventory of Classificatory Materialsundefined by Maria Teresa Fernundefinedndez de Miranda, undefinedLexicostatistic Classificationundefined by Morris Swadesh, undefinedSystemic Comparison and Reconstructionundefined by Robert Longacre, and undefinedEnvironmental Correlational Studiesundefined by Sarah C. Gudschinsky.
Sketches of Classical Nahuatl by Stanley Newman, Classical Yucatec Maya by Norman A. McQuown, and Classical Quichundefined by Munro S. Edmonson provide working tools for tackling the voluminous early postconquest texts in these languages of late preconquest empires (Aztec, Maya, Quichundefined). Further sketches of Sierra Popoluca by Benjamin F. Elson, of Isthmus Zapotec by Velma B. Pickett, of Huautla de Jimundefinednez Mazatec by Eunice V. Pike, of Jiliapan Pame by Leonardo Manrique C., and of Huamelultec Chontal by Viola Waterhouseundefinedtogether with those of Nahuatl, Maya, and Quichundefinedundefinedprovide not only descriptive outlines of as many different linguistic structures but also linguistic representatives of seven structurally different families of Middle American languages. Miguel Lundefinedon-Portilla presents an outline of the relations between language and the culture of which it is a part and provides examples of some of these relations as revealed by contemporary research in indigenous Middle America.
The volume editor, Norman A. McQuown (1914undefined2005), was Professor of Anthropology at The University of Chicago. He formerly taught at Hunter College and served with the Mexican Department of Indian Affairs. He carried out fieldwork with Totonac, Huastec, Tzeltal-Tzotzil, Mame, and other tribes.
The Handbook of Middle American Indians was assembled and edited at the Middle American Research Institute of Tulane University with the assistance of grants from the National Science Foundation and under the sponsorship of the National Research Council Committee on Latin American Anthropology.
