VIII.

Classification

Scholars classify languages into families according to their origins. For example, English, German, Russian, Greek, Hindi, and many other languages of Europe and Asia belong to the Indo-European language family because they all descend from a single language known as Proto-Indo-European. Classifying Native American languages into families presents a number of challenges because so little written documentation exists for many of the languages. As a result, experts must infer much of what is known about the early development and characteristics of these languages from modern information.

The first general classification was suggested in 1891 by American geologist and explorer John Wesley Powell. On the basis of superficial similarities he noticed among vocabularies, he proposed that the languages of North America constituted 58 independent families. At the same time, American anthropologist Daniel Brinton proposed 80 families for South America. These two classifications of language families form the basis of subsequent classifications.

In 1929 American linguist and anthropologist Edward Sapir tentatively proposed classifying these language families into 6 large groups in North America and 15 in Middle America. In 1987 American linguist Joseph Greenberg hypothesized that the indigenous languages of the Americas could be grouped into 3 superfamilies: Eskimo-Aleut (now called Inuit-Aleut or Eskimaleut), Na-Dené, and Amerind. The postulated Amerind superfamily was said to contain the majority of Native American languages and be divided into 11 branches. However, nearly all specialists reject Greenberg’s classification.

As linguists learn more about Native American languages, they can better distinguish between similarities in vocabulary and grammar that result from borrowings and similarities that are the consequences of a common ancestral language. The classification most linguists endorse today places about 55 independent language families in North America, 15 in Middle America, and about 115 in South America.