Table of Contents

1: Language in Space and Time; 2: Modern World Languages; 3: The Genesis of Classic Languages; 4: Language Structure in the Early Local Stage; 5: Out of Animal Cries into Language; 6: The Origin of Vocabulary; 7: The Progress of Babel

About the Author

Morris Swadesh (1909-1967) initiated or was associated with the introduction of many new approaches in scientific linguistics, including phonemics, glottochronology, and new concepts of language evolution. At the time of his death, he was research professor at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. Joel F. Sherzer is a professor in the Departments of Anthropology and Archeology at the University of Texas at Austin. He is the author, editor, or compiler of many books, including Stories, Myths, Chants, and Songs of the Kuna Indians, Speech Play and Verbal Art, and Verbal Art in San Blas: Kuna Culture through its Discourse. Dell Hymes is Commonwealth Professor of Anthropology, Emeritus at the University of Virginia. He is the author of many works, including Now I Know Only So Far: Essays in Ethnopoetics and Ethnography, Linguistics, Inequality: Essays in Education, 1978-1994.