This collection of original essays on the practice of linguistic fieldwork and language documentation by twelve leading field linguists considers the study of languages in a natural setting. Drawing on extensive research experience, the authors review those techniques that work best in practice, and discuss a variety of relevant topics, including the attitude of the linguist, the structure and content of the work session, the varied roles of native speakers, and the practical and personal challenges of doing research in an unfamiliar environment.

This pioneering and innovative morpho-phonological study focuses on the White Hmong language to infer similarities among other Southeast Asian languages. Following U.S. military involvement in Indo-China in 1975, many of the Hmong - an ethnic group originating in Southwestern China and Southeast Asia who were persecuted by the communist organization Pathet Lao - became refugees. A large portion of them originally resettled in the Upper-Midwestern United States, but the largest population of Hmong is now in Minnesota and California. Today, there are diasporic communities in countries around...