Book Description

Excerpt from Bibliography of the Eskimo Language A number of years ago the writer undertook the compilation of a bibliography of North American languages, and in the course of his work visited the principal public and private libraries of the United States, Canada, and Northern Mexico; carried on an extensive correspondence with librarians, missionaries, and generally with persons interested in the subject, and examined such printed authorities as were at hand. The results of these researches were embodied in a volume of which a limited number of copies were printed and distributed - an author's catalogue which included all the material at that time in his possession. Since its issue he has had an opportunity to visit the national libraries of England and France, as well as a number of private ones in both these countries, and a sufficient amount of new material has been collected to lead to the belief that a fairly complete catalogue of the works relating to each of the more important linguistic stocks of North America may be prepared. The first of such catalogues is the present; the second, which it is hoped to issue shortly, will be the Sionan. The people speaking the Eskimo language are more widely scattered, and, with perhaps two or three exceptions, cover a wider range of territory than those of any other of the linguistic stocks of North America. From Labrador, on the east, their habitations dot the coast line to the Aleutian Islands, on the west, and a dialect of the language is spoken on the coast of Northeastern Asia. As far north as the white man has gone remains of their deserted habitations are found, and southward they extend, on the east coast to latitude 50 and on the west coast to latitude 60 . Within this area a number of dialects are spoken, the principal of which will be found entered herein in their alphabetic order. Some difficulty has been encountered in deciding upon the claim of certain titles to admission into the bibliography. There are certain districts, notably in Alaska and Northeastern Asia, visited or inhabited by Eskimo or people closely allied to them and by other tribes not Eskimo. A vocabulary collected in such a district may be purely Eskimo, or purely not Eskimo, or a mixture containing words in different languages and dialects. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works."