This course is an introduction to linguistic perspectives on the languages native to the Americas (their nature and distribution, typological similarities and differences), with an emphasis on North America. The diverse languages of this region will be examined from the point of view of particular linguistic phenomena, such as phonology, morphology, and syntax; and in addition we will study their historical development and their place in culture, society, and thought.

Since this is the first offering of the course at the 200 level — years ago it was offered several times as a freshman seminar — some of the details will be worked out in collaboration with the students enrolled. In particular, the topics to be covered will partly depend on students' interests and previous exposure to linguistics. The results of this discussion will be reflected in regular updates to the schedule page.

Instructor: Gene Buckley
Meeting time: Tuesday & Thursday 12:00 – 1:30
Meeting place: Fisher-Bennett Hall, room 140

Readings

There is one textbook, available at the Penn Book Center (corner of 34th and Sansom Streets).

Shirley Silver and Wick R. Miller (1997), American Indian Languages: Cultural and Social Contexts, University of Arizona Press. For a description visit this page.

Numerous additional readings will be made available on the web; see the schedule page.

Requirements

There are four components to the course grade.

Participation

You should do the assigned readings given in the course outline before each meeting, and regular attendance is required. Questions and discussion will be encouraged in class. In many cases, the reading will be presented briefly by a student; all students are required to make at least one such presentation.

Language reports

Each student will "adopt" a particular language to examine from various perspectives throughout the semester. Rather than writing up the description of the language for the professor to read, students will instead edit a Wikipedia page about the language so that the fruits of these efforts will be shared by others. As you can see by following a few of the links on this page, a great many Wiki pages on Native American languages need such work.

Homework assignments

There will be frequent homework assignments (handed out Thursday, due the following Tuesday at the beginning of class). They give practice in applying the principles studied in class and in analyzing particular languages. They are graded on a scale of 0–10. When possible, the corrected assignments will be returned two days later in the next meeting. The lowest-scoring homework assignment for each student will automatically be dropped from the grade calculation, and as a result no extra credit assignments will be offered.

You are permitted to discuss the assignments with other students in the class, but you must write up independent answers and indicate the name(s) of the other student(s) on your assignment. Email submissions are not accepted without special reason and prior approval.

Final paper

Every student will write a term paper on a topic germane to the course. It is due when our class is otherwise scheduled for a final exam, which is Wednesday, May 7, at noon. We'll talk more about topics later in the term, but you can get started with these ideas.

The final grade for the course is determined according to the following percentages.