Handbook of Middle American Indians. Volume 5: Linguistics

"This volume 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. Numerous authorities have contributed to it. William Bright
provides an annotated selection of descriptive materials covering this
four-hundred-year period. Maria Teresa Fernandez de Miranda presents a
critical review of published attempts at reconstruction of earlier
stages in the development of Middle American language families. Morris
Swadesh brings lexicostatistical techniques to bear on the
classification of the languages in such families. Robert E. Longacre
recounts the application of techniques for comparing languages within
such families, for the purpose of reconstructing the earlier stages in
each subfamily and for arriving at an inventory of the linguistic
elements present in those earlier stages. Sarah C. Cud presents an
evaluation of the attempts to correlate, both synchronically and
diachronically, the distribution of indigenous linguistic features as
evidenced in modern dialect surveys with the distribution of
socio-cultural features as revealed by anthropological studies of
indigenous culture and social organization.
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