James Fenimore Cooper on the Languages of the Americans: A Note on the Author's Footnotes

2011 ◽  
Vol 66 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-68 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lance Schachterle
Keyword(s):  
Native American ◽  
Best Practices ◽  
New World ◽  
American English ◽  
James Fenimore Cooper ◽  
Charles Brockden Brown ◽  
Life Forms ◽  
Sufficient Evidence ◽  
John Adams ◽  
Noah Webster

Lance Schachterle, "James Fenimore Cooper on the Languages of the Americans: A Note on the Author's Footnotes" (pp. 37–68) James Fenimore Cooper scattered observations about the formation of a distinctive American language throughout such social analyses as Notions of the Americans (1828), Gleanings from Europe: England (1837) and The American Democrat (1838), arguing the need for Americans to establish mental independence from England in matters of language as well as politics and social structure. And many of the footnotes he added to his novels reinforce this message. "Twenty millions of people not only can make a word, but they can make a language, if it be needed," Cooper wrote in a burst of enthusiasm at the end of a footnote justifying Americanisms in his novel Satanstoe (1845). In this essay I investigate these authorial footnotes for evidence of words that Cooper defended as Americanisms necessary to comprehend the new topography and life-forms that Europeans were finding in the New World. Cooper found such words not only among older usages in English, but also in French, Dutch, and especially Native American adoptions—and even in some neologisms of his own. Unlike Charles Brockden Brown and John Adams, Cooper never advocated for a select elite like an academy to oversee the formation of the American language. The best practices among people like himself, "educated gentlemen of the middle states"—not the nasal tones and artificial rules of New Englanders like Noah Webster—would regulate the amelioration of American english. But he realized in the end that "the twenty millions…can make a language"; as he observed in Notions of the Americans, "when words once get fairly into use, their triumph affords a sufficient evidence of merit to entitle them to patronage."

Word Wars

2021 ◽  
pp. 219-230
Author(s):  
Ralph Keyes
Keyword(s):  
Great Britain ◽  
English Language ◽  
New World ◽  
Daniel Defoe ◽  
Jonathan Swift ◽  
John Adams ◽  
New Words ◽  
Mother Country ◽  
Noah Webster ◽  
The Many

Pitched battles have long been fought between neology advocates and those who think we have enough words already. Centuries ago language purists such as Daniel Defoe and Jonathan Swift railed against the many new words they thought were defiling the English language. Britons and Americans subsequently squabbled fiercely over Americanisms, the neologisms that settlers began to create soon after they arrived in the New World (e.g., foothill, skunk, eel grass). Jefferson’s coinage belittle raised particular hackles in the mother country. Jefferson – a self- proclaimed “friend to neology” – joined John Adams, Noah Webster and others in defending the coinage-rich American version of English that they thought was integral to establishing a sense of independence from the mother country. Guardians of the King’s English in Great Britain considered this attitude impudent. Protecting their national franchise and sense of ethnic privilege proved to be integral to that guardianship.

Developments in the Archaeology of Nuclear America, 1935-60

1961 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 46-55 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gordon R. Willey
Keyword(s):  
Native American ◽  
New World ◽  
Ethnic Identification ◽  
Origins Of Agriculture ◽  
Old World ◽  
The Andes ◽  
Culture Process

AbstractArchaeological developments in the zone extending from Mesoamerica to the Andes are summarized in terms of the following topics: early man, the origins of agriculture, the interrelationships of the Nuclear American cultures, the ethnic identification of archaeological complexes, horizonal and tradition formulations, the place of Nuclear America in the hemisphere, relationships between the New World and the Old World, the rise of native American civilizations, and main trends since 1935. These trends include increasing chronological control, greater awareness of context, growing interest in culture process, and more clarity and precision in definitions.

scholarly journals The acoustic characteristics of non-native American English vowels

Linguistica ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 57 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-72
Author(s):  
Biljana Čubrović
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Native American ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
American English ◽  
The United States ◽  
Vowel Quality ◽  
Acoustic Characteristics ◽  
Language Background ◽  
English Vowels ◽  
Native Speech

This study aims at discussing the phonetic property of vowel quality in English, as exercised by both native speakers of General American English (AE) and non-native speakers of General American English of Serbian language background, all residents of the United States. Ten Serbian male speakers and four native male speakers of AE are recorded in separate experiments and their speech analyzed acoustically for any significant phonetic differences, looking into a set of monosyllabic English words representing nine vowels of AE. The general aim of the experiments is to evaluate the phonetic characteristics of AE vowels, with particular attention to F1 and F2 values, investigate which vowels differ most in the two groups of participants, and provide some explanations for these variations. A single most important observation that is the result of this vowel study is an evident merger of three pairs of vowels in the non-native speech: /i ɪ/, /u ʊ/, and /ɛ æ/.

The limits of power: the political ecology of the Spanish Empire in the Greater Southwest

Antiquity ◽  
1992 ◽  
Vol 66 (250) ◽  
pp. 153-171 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas E. Sheridan
Keyword(s):  
Native American ◽  
Native Americans ◽  
Political Ecology ◽  
Land Tenure ◽  
New World ◽  
Spanish Empire ◽  
The Political ◽  
Epidemic Disease ◽  
Spanish Conquest ◽  
History Of

The Spanish conquest of the Americas was one of the most dramatic cultural and biological transformations in the history of the world. Small groups of conquistadores toppled enormous empires. Millions of Native Americans died from epidemic disease. Old World animals and plants revolutionized Native American societies, while New World crops fundamentally altered the diet and land-tenure of peasants across Europe. In the words of historian Alfred Crosby (1972: 3),The two worlds, which God had cast asunder, were reunited, and the two worlds, which were so very different, began on that day [I1 October 14921 to become alike.

An Introduction to the Archaeology of Francophone Communities in the Americas

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth M. Scott
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Native American ◽  
New World ◽  
Colonial Period ◽  
Archaeological Research ◽  
Treaty Of Versailles ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
French Colonial ◽  
Successive Generations ◽  
Ancien Régime

This chapter provides a historical and geographical background and situates the volume’s contributions in the context of previous archaeological research into the French in the New World. The chapter discusses the ways in which French settlers made their presence felt on the landscape and on Native groups through a wide range of settlement types, economic and social networks, and successive generations of habitation. The chapter reviews both the well-studied French colonial period and the lesser known post-Conquest period, after the Treaty of Versailles and after the ancien régime fell, during which communities of Francophone peoples (ethnic French, Native American, and African) continued to live in the New World.

Catholics in Colonial America (1500–1700)

2020 ◽  
pp. 325-355
Author(s):  
David W. Kling
Keyword(s):  
Native American ◽  
North America ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
New World ◽  
Colonial America ◽  
Military Conflict ◽  
Attitudes And Practices ◽  
Alta California ◽  
Full Knowledge ◽  
The Caribbean

Conversionary efforts in the New World mirrored attitudes and practices in the Old. Christendom remained as much a project in the New as in the Old, and thus religious differences remained as problematic in the Americas as they did in Europe. Images of military conflict—combat, battle, and victory—language familiar on the Continent—infused the outlook of early modern Catholic missionaries, whereas Spanish and French missionaries in the New World often had the arm of the state to protect them and, all too often, to coerce the natives. This chapter selectively examines initial missionary efforts in a variety of locations—Spanish missionary outreach in the Caribbean, Peru, and Alta California and French missions in North America. The depth of Native American conversions was as varied as the methods used to produce them. On a superficial level, conversion meant a transfer of loyalty or allegiance, often without a full knowledge of what that transfer entailed. Or, with defeat, conversion might represent a conscious acknowledgment of the more powerful Christian God over weaker traditional deities.

Black on Red: Late-Nineteenth and Early-Twentieth-Century New World Black Interpretative Uses of Native American Political Experience

2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 324-351 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jane Anna Gordon ◽  
Keisha Lindsay
Keyword(s):  
Native American ◽  
Native Americans ◽  
New World ◽  
Black Writers ◽  
The Political ◽  
Shared Experience ◽  
Race And Gender ◽  
Political Experience ◽  
Political Implications ◽  
And Gender

AbstractIn an effort to address the dearth of literature regarding how African American political theorists have historically interpreted the meaning of Native political experience to make sense of their own, we chart what four influential New World Black writers, from the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, say about Native Americans. While there is some diversity among the particular interpretive foci of these historical works, each generally invokes Native Americans as having a shared experience of oppression with Blacks that warrants resistance; being crushed by circumstances in which African-descended people have survived and thrived; exemplifying oppression that has no redemptive power; providing evidence of the ongoing possibility of Black extinction; and as racially inferior to Blacks and thus in need of Black ladies’ supposedly civilizing qualities. This paper uses these historical Africana perspectives on Indigenous and Black relations to explore the political implications of forging individual and shared identities at the intersection of race and gender.

scholarly journals MP011: Using GRADE-based recommendations for analgesia and antiemetics in electronic order sets to influence physician behaviour towards best practice and cost-savings

CJEM ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 18 (S1) ◽  
pp. S69-S70
Author(s):  
R.J. Hartmann ◽  
E. Lang ◽  
T. Rich ◽  
B. Ford ◽  
K. Lonergan ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Best Practices ◽  
Working Group ◽  
Cost Savings ◽  
Sufficient Evidence ◽  
New Order ◽  
Order Entry ◽  
Physician Behaviour ◽  
Order Sets ◽  
Electronic Order ◽  
Order Set

Introduction: The addition of computerized physician order entry (CPOE) to Emergency Departments in recent years has led to speculation over potential benefits and pitfalls. Recent studies have shown benefits to CPOE, though there lacks sufficient evidence on how it could change physician behaviour. Physician practices are known to be difficult to change, with getting evidence into daily practice being the main challenge of knowledge translation. Our study aims were to determine if well-designed electronic order sets for CPOE improved MD practices. Methods: The Calgary Zone Pain Management in the Emergency Department Working Group relied on a GRADE-based literature review for identifying best practices for analgesia and antiemetics, resulting in soft changes to the dedicated analgesia and antiemetic electronic order set noting working group preference, and emphasizing hydromorphone over morphine, as well as 4 mg ondansetron over 8 mg. The new electronic order set was started in the only Calgary Region order entry system on December 11th, 2014. Data was collected from July 2014 - May 2015. A Yates chi-squared analysis was completed on all orders in a category, as well as the subgroups of ED staff and residents, and orders placed using the new order set. Results: A total of 100460 orders were analyzed. The use of hydromorphone increased significantly across all 4 EDs. IV hydromorphone use increased (5.82% of all opioid orders up to 26.93%, P<0.0001) with a reciprocal decline in IV morphine (67.81% of all opioid orders down to 46.56%, P<0.0001). Similar effects were observed with ondansetron 4 mg IV orders increasing (1.37% of all ondansetron orders to 18.64%, P<0.0001) with a decrease in 8 mg dosing (15.75% of all ondansetron orders to 7.23%, P<0.0001). These results were replicated to a lesser degree in the non-ED staff and non-order set subgroups. Implementation of the new order set resulted in an increase of its use (37.64% of all opioid orders up to 49.29%, P<0.0001). Finally, a cost-savings analysis was completed showing a projected annual savings of $185,676.52 on medications alone. Conclusion: This data supports the manipulation of electronic order sets to help shape physician behaviour towards best practices. This provides another strong argument towards the benefits of CPOE, and can help maintain best practices in Emergency Medicine.

scholarly journals An Acoustic Investigation of Pakistani and American English Vowels

2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 115
Author(s):  
Abdul Malik Abbasi ◽  
Mansoor Ahmed Channa ◽  
Stephen John ◽  
Masood Akhter Memon ◽  
Rabia Anwar
Keyword(s):  
Native American ◽  
Physical Properties ◽  
Speech Processing ◽  
Acoustic Analysis ◽  
American English ◽  
Vowel Duration ◽  
Acoustic Measurements ◽  
Computer Laboratory ◽  
Minimal Pairs ◽  
English Vowels

Acoustic analysis tests the hypothesis that the physical properties of Pakistani English (PaKE) vowels differ in terms of acoustic measurements of Native American English speakers. The present paper aims to document the physical behavior of English vowels produced by PaKE learners. The major goal of this paper is to measure the production of sound frequencies coupled with vowel duration. The primary aim of this paper is to explore the different frequencies and duration of the vowels involved in articulation of PaKE. English vowels selected for this purpose are: /æ/, /ɛ/, /ɪ/, /ɒ/ and /ə/. Total ten samplings were obtained from the department of computer science at Sindh Madressatul Islam University, Karachi. The study was based on the analysis of 500 (10×5×10=500) voice samples. Five vowel minimal pairs were selected and written in a carrier phrase [I say CVC now]. Ten speakers (5 male & five female) recorded their 500 voice samples using Praat speech processing tool and a high-quality microphone on laptop in a computer laboratory with no background sound. Three parameters were considered for the analysis of PaKE vowels i.e., duration of five vowels, fundamental frequency (F1 and F2). It was hypothesized that the properties of PaKE vowels are different from that of English native speakers. The hypothesis was accepted since the acoustic measurements of PaKE and English Native American speakers’ physical properties of sounds were discovered different.

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