Essays in Algonquian, Catawban and Siouan Linguistics in Memory of Frank T Siebert, Jr

John Steckley teaches in the Human Studies Program at Humber College in
Toronto. He is the author of Beyond Their Years: Five Native Women’s
Stories.

This work, as the title states, is dedicated to the linguistic scholar
Frank T. Siebert Jr. Siebert was an unusual anthropological linguist in
that his work was directed at the bigger picture of the history and
culture of the people he was studying. Although a meticulous scholar, he
did not bog the reader down with linguistic minutiae.

Siebert was also unusual as a linguist in that he studied languages
from more than one family. The 11 articles in this collection reflect
that diversity by looking at Algonquian, Siouan, and Catawban languages
(the last two are sometimes linked together as Siouan-Catawban), just as
Siebert himself did.

Such prominent figures as Ives Goddard of the Smithsonian and
Iroquoianist Blair A. Rudes are among the impressive list of
contributing scholars. The articles for the most part consist of
extremely detailed and densely written linguistic analysis, so their
target audience is clearly other linguists rather than general readers
or scholars from related disciplines. The exception to this rule is J.
Peter Denny’s relatively accessible “Archaeological Signs of Eastern
Algonquian.”

In his introduction to The Original Home of the Proto-Algonquian
People, Siebert made this telling observation: “The conviction exists
that the study of American Indian languages has contributed little
information to advance our knowledge of prehistory beyond linguistic
classification into stocks. This impression is not without
justification, since the archaeologist and ethnohistorian desire more
elaborate information and look to linguistics as a science for
substantial contributions that go further than mere classification.”
As a collection of purely linguistic essays, this collection is
admirable; by the multidisciplinary standard set by Siebert, however, it
falls below the mark.