Numerous reasons can be cited by scholars concerning lexical problems that face anyone embarking upon such an enterprise as that of preparing a Basque-English dictionary. First, "euskera," a term given to this ancient tongue, is both written and spoken today as it was millennia ago. Second, Basque, as a result, has not been subjected to…

Drawing on phonological, grammatical, and usage data collected during personal interviews and taped sessions, this paper seeks to determine whether and how persons of Finnish descent, collectively or individually by generation, constitute dialect islands within the local dialect area (Marquette, Michigan), and their effect upon one another. The…

Speakers of West Flemish dialect in switching to standard Netherlandic must choose between two sets of supra-regional lexical items: the Netherlandic and the non-Netherlandic alternative. A study was carried out in July and August 1974 to determine whether it can be stated that the supra-regional language is moving towards Netherlandic. Thirteen…

Analyzes the speech of three speakers of Linxian Chinese, indicating the dialect's features and the problems involved in communication between speakers of Linxian and speakers of Putonghua (or Standard Mandarin). (Author/AM)

Examines the nature of language diversity in the small, isolated community of Ocracoke Island, North Carolina, where a lone African American family has resided for over 130 years. (57 references) (Author/CK)

An overview of contemporary Hispanic dialectology, focusing on phonological phenomena, syntax, classification schemes, and bilingual communities, demonstrates that dialectology has long ceased to be the collection of innumerable surface deviations. It is suggested that dialectology is a theoretical discipline searching for universal principles to…

The linguistic embedding, transition, and actuation of the obliteration of the gerund ending "-e" in the West Flemish dialect of Bruges is examined. The study shows that deflection (loss of inflections) started in the fourteenth century and is almost complete today. (33 references) (Author/LB)

This is a supplementary dictionary of the Spanish spoken by Chicanos in the states of Texas, California, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and Florida. The nearly 8,000 entries represent a compilation of Chicano words and phrases not typically found in standard dictionaries. Items are listed alphabetically in Spanish, followed by an English…

This report is intended as a preliminary survey of the problems in the collection and sociological analysis of student slang. Dealing with the notion that every speaker handles a variety of registers and tends to choose among them in accordance with the particular social situation in which he finds himself, this study isolates some of the…

This volume consists of the following ten papers, which were presented at the second Hokan-Yuman Languages Workshop, held at the University of California at San Diego in June 1976: (1) "The Havasupai Writing System," by Rena Crook, Leanne Hinton, and Nancy Stenson; (2) "The Upland Yuman Numeral System," by Martha B. Kendall;…

This volume presents principles and models for describing language variation, and introduces a time-based, dynamic framework for linguistic description. The book first summarizes some of the problems of grammatical description encountered from Saussure through the present and then outlines possibilities for new descriptions of language which take…

Discusses the Puerto Rican dialect and its peculiar placement of subject pronouns. Notes the linguistic variety in the dialect as well as its use of verbs connotating mental and communicative activity and constructions of relativity. These distinctions give rise to the functional hypothesis to account for the peculiarities of Spanish in the…

Two major theories trace the origins of black English to African influence or British Isles influence. According to the African origin theory, black English was created through pidginization, creolization, and decreolization as Africans came into contact with Europeans through the slave trade. The second theory holds that most black English…

A three-year research project which will collect information on the grammar of British dialects is described. The project is part of a larger study of syntactic variation, undertaken to gain insight into the causes of and solutions to linguistic conflict in school. Information is to be gathered in selected schools from the speech of students 11-16…

Both a theoretical framework and some practical suggestions are included in this book intended to help educators improve the teaching of writing to high school students who are native speakers of nonstandard English dialects. The first chapter includes a brief background on the problem of writing in American schools, with special focus on the…