Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald Bücher

A leading expert draws on a lifetime of fieldwork to reveal the mysteries and magic of language.

Focusing on Amazonia's diverse linguistic landscape, the book presents a comprehensive comparison of over 300 languages, highlighting their unique features and characteristics. It delves into the cultures of the speakers, enriched by engaging anecdotes from the author's fieldwork. This work serves as both an essential reference for scholars and an approachable introduction for those interested in linguistics and anthropology.

This book explores the principles of writing comprehensive reference grammars for diverse languages. Alexandra Aikhenvald discusses data collection, analysis, and typological parameters, emphasizing the connection between grammar, society, and culture. It includes a glossary and guidance for studying linguistic phenomena, making it a valuable resource for students and teachers.

Every society thrives on stories, legends and myths. This volume explores the linguistic devices employed in the astoundingly rich narrative traditions in the tropical hot-spots of linguistic and cultural diversity, and the ways in which cultural changes and new means of communication affect narrative genres and structures. It focusses on linguistic and cultural facets of the narratives in the areas of linguistic diversity across the tropics and surrounding areas — New Guinea, Northern Australia, Siberia, and also the Tibeto-Burman region. The introduction brings together the recurrent themes in the grammar and the substance of the narratives. The twelve contributions to the volume address grammatical forms and categories deployed in organizing the narrative and interweaving the protagonists and the narrator. These include quotations, person of the narrator and the protagonist, mirativity, demonstratives, and clause chaining. The contributors also address the kinds of narratives told, their organization and evolution in time and space, under the impact of post-colonial experience and new means of communication via social media. The volume highlights the importance of documenting narrative tradition across indigenous languages.