This project supports a linguistic anthropologist who will identify and explain cross-language patterns in ways Native American languages have named new objects or concepts encountered in contact situations. At least 100 Indians languages will be surveyed for words of 50 items of Occidental culture (e.g., chair, cow, week, clock). Such words are either loanwoards (e.g., from Spanish into Indian languages) or manufactured from native vocabulary. The hypothesis is that languages that are heavy adopters of loans for these items have histories involving significant bilingualism, while languages that show considerable use of native terms do not have such histories. This research is important because understanding of how languages adopt new concepts and words for new objects advances our basic understanding of language as a human element.
