When Columbus arrived in the Americas there were, it is believed, as many as 2,000 distinct, mutually unintelligible tongues spoken in the western hemisphere, encompassing the entire area from the Arctic Circle to Tierra del Fuego. This astonishing fact has generally escaped the attention of historians, in part because many of these indigenous languages have since become extinct. And yet the burden of overcoming America's language barriers was perhaps the one problem faced by all peoples of the New World in the early modern era: African slaves and Native Americans in the Lower Mississippi...
When Columbus arrived in the Americas there were, it is believed, as many as 2,000 distinct, mutually unintelligible tongues spoken in the western hem...
"Although the various essays focus on different sets of issues and perspectives, the unifying theme of linguistic or communicative interaction ties them together in complementary ways ... The editors and authors ... have done an excellent job of avoiding esoteric methodologies ... This is a very acceptable interdisciplinary book that will be essential for anyone interested in European and indigenous contacts in the colonial period." - H-Net Reviews (H-LatAm)
"This collection is a very welcome addition to scholarship on Native-European encounters in the New World ... Both the broad...
"Although the various essays focus on different sets of issues and perspectives, the unifying theme of linguistic or communicative interaction ties th...
