Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-68c7f8b79f-r8tb2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-01-02T04:27:07.306Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

11 - Indigenous Languages

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 December 2025

Ilan Stavans
Affiliation:
Amherst College, Massachusetts
Get access

Summary

The wide-ranging conversation in this chapter between Ilan Stavans and Mark Turin terminological and definitional questions – such as what and who is Indigenous – the status and importance of linguistic diversity in North America and South Asia, and the role of missionaries in early dictionary work. Turin and Stavans discuss complex questions of colonialism, migration and settlement, Indigenous sovereignty in language work, and the powerful space that dictionaries occupy in language reclamation and revitalization projects. Turin offers ethnographic examples and cultural vignettes from his three decades of collaborative work with the Thangmi-speaking community of eastern Nepal, whose Indigenous Tibeto-Burman language he documented and for which he helped develop an orthography.

Information

Type
Chapter
Information
Conversations on Dictionaries
The Universe in a Book
, pp. 132 - 144
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2025

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Book purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Suggested Readings

Alexander-Bakkerus, Astrid, Rodríguez, Rebeca Fernández, Zack, Liesbeth, and Zwartjes, Otto, eds. “Missionary Linguistic Studies from Mesoamerica to Patagonia.” In Missionary Linguistic Studies from Mesoamerica to Patagonia. Leiden: Brill, 2020.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chelliah, Shobhana L., and de Reuse, Willem. “Lexicography in Fieldwork.” In Handbook of Descriptive Linguistic Fieldwork, 227–49. Dordrecht: Springer, 2010.Google Scholar
Dietrich, Wolf. “The Lexicography of Indigenous Languages in South America.” In International Handbook of Modern Lexis and Lexicography, edited by Hanks, Patrick and de Schryver, Gilles- Maurice, 117. Berlin: Springer, 2014. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-45369-4_91-1Google Scholar
Fernández Rodríguez, Rebeca, and Regúnaga, María Alejandra. “Patagonian Lexicography (Sixteenth–Eighteenth Centuries).” In Missionary Linguistic Studies from Mesoamerica to Patagonia, edited by Alexander-Bakkerus, Astrid, Rodríguez, Rebeca Fernández, Zack, Liesbeth, and Zwartjes, Otto, 236–59. Leiden: Brill, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004427006_009Google Scholar
Frawley, William, Hill, Kenneth C., and Munro, Pamela, eds. Making Dictionaries: Preserving Indigenous Languages of the Americas. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002.Google Scholar
Garrett, Andrew. “Online Dictionaries for Language Revitalization.” In The Routledge Handbook of Language Revitalization, edited by Hinton, Leanne, Huss, Leena, and Roche, Gerald, 197206. New York: Routledge, 2018.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hernández, Esther. Lexicografía hispano-amerindia 1550–1800: Catálogo descriptivo de los vocabularios del español y las lenguas indígenas americanas. Lingüística misionera 9. Madrid: Iberoamericana, 2018. https://doi.org/10.31819/9783954877591CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hill, Deborah. “One Community’s Post-Conflict Response to a Dictionary Project.” Language Documentation and Conservation 6 (2012): 273–81.Google Scholar
Hinton, Leanne, and Weigel, William F.. “A Dictionary for Whom? Tensions between Academic and Non-Academic Functions of Bilingual Dictionaries.” In Making Dictionaries: Preserving Indigenous Languages of the Americas, edited by Frawley, William, Hill, Kenneth C., and Munro, Pamela, 155–70. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002.Google Scholar
Mosel, Ulrike. “Lexicography in Endangered Language Communities.” In The Cambridge Handbook of Endangered Languages, edited by Austin, Peter K. and Sallabank, Julia, 337–53. Cambridge Handbooks in Language and Linguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011.Google Scholar
Rice, Keren, and Saxon, Leslie. “Issues of Standardization and Community in Aboriginal Language Lexicography.” In Making Dictionaries: Preserving Indigenous Languages of the Americas, edited by Frawley, William, Hill, Kenneth C., and Munro, Pamela, 125–54. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002.Google Scholar
Rice, SallyLexicography.” In The Languages and Linguistics of Indigenous North America: A Comprehensive Guide, edited by Dagostino, Carmen, Mithun, Marianne, and Rice, Keren, 479–96. The World of Linguistics (WOL), 13.1. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton, 2023.Google Scholar
Schreyer, Christine, and Turin, Mark, eds. “Indigenous Lexicography (Special Issue).” Dictionaries: Journal of the Dictionary Society of North America 44, no. 2 (2023): 15. https://doi.org/10.1353/dic.2023.a915062CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sear, Victoria and Turin, Mark. “Locating Criticality in the Lexicography of Historically Marginalized Languages.” History of Humanities 6, no. 1 (2021): 237–59. https://doi.org/10.1086/713266CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Trotter, Bailey, Schreyer, Christine, and Turin, Mark. “An Open-Access Toolkit for Collaborative, Community-Informed Dictionaries.” Dictionaries: Journal of the Dictionary Society of North America 44, no. 2 (2023): 161–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Turin, Mark. “Indigenous Language Resurgence and the Living Earth Community.” In Living Earth Community: Multiple Ways of Being and Knowing, edited by Mickey, Sam, Tucker, Mary Evelyn, and Grim, John, 171–84. Cambridge: Open Book Publishers, 2020.Google Scholar
Turin, Mark. “Recognizing Authority and Respecting Expertise in Language Work.” In Rethinking Pseudonyms in Ethnography, edited by McGranahan, Carole and Weiss, Erica, American Ethnologist website, December 13, 2021. https://americanethnologist.org/panel/pages/features/collections/rethinking-pseudonyms-in-ethnography/recognizing-authority-and-respecting-expertise-in-language-work/Google Scholar
Warner, Natasha, Butler, Lynnika, and Luna-Costillas, Quirina. “Making a Dictionary for Community Use in Language Revitalization: The Case of Mutsun.” International Journal of Lexicography 19, no. 3 (2006): 257–85. https://doi.org/10.1093/ijl/ecl014CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wörterbücher / Dictionaries / Dictionnaires: Ein internationales Handbuch zur Lexikographie / An international encyclopedia of Lexicography / Encyclopédie internationale de lexicographie. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton, 2008. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110124217.3CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zwartjes, Otto, Marín, Ramón Arzápalo, and Smith-Stark, Thomas C., eds. Missionary Linguistics IV / Lingüística Misionera IV: Lexicography. Studies in the History of the Language Sciences 114. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2009.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Accessibility standard: WCAG 2.2 AAA

Why this information is here

This section outlines the accessibility features of this content - including support for screen readers, full keyboard navigation and high-contrast display options. This may not be relevant for you.

Accessibility Information

The PDF of this book complies with version 2.2 of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), offering more comprehensive accessibility measures for a broad range of users and attains the highest (AAA) level of WCAG compliance, optimising the user experience by meeting the most extensive accessibility guidelines.

Content Navigation

Table of contents navigation
Allows you to navigate directly to chapters, sections, or non‐text items through a linked table of contents, reducing the need for extensive scrolling.
Index navigation
Provides an interactive index, letting you go straight to where a term or subject appears in the text without manual searching.

Reading Order & Textual Equivalents

Single logical reading order
You will encounter all content (including footnotes, captions, etc.) in a clear, sequential flow, making it easier to follow with assistive tools like screen readers.
Short alternative textual descriptions
You get concise descriptions (for images, charts, or media clips), ensuring you do not miss crucial information when visual or audio elements are not accessible.

Visual Accessibility

Use of colour is not sole means of conveying information
You will still understand key ideas or prompts without relying solely on colour, which is especially helpful if you have colour vision deficiencies.
Use of high contrast between text and background colour
You benefit from high‐contrast text, which improves legibility if you have low vision or if you are reading in less‐than‐ideal lighting conditions.

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

  • Indigenous Languages
  • Edited by Ilan Stavans, Amherst College, Massachusetts
  • Book: Conversations on Dictionaries
  • Online publication: 25 December 2025
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009392433.012
Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

  • Indigenous Languages
  • Edited by Ilan Stavans, Amherst College, Massachusetts
  • Book: Conversations on Dictionaries
  • Online publication: 25 December 2025
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009392433.012
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Indigenous Languages
  • Edited by Ilan Stavans, Amherst College, Massachusetts
  • Book: Conversations on Dictionaries
  • Online publication: 25 December 2025
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009392433.012
Available formats
×