Karin Michelson – författare

American linguistics has a tradition of finding unique and important insights from studies of Native American languages, often leading to innovations in current theories. At the same time, research on Native languages has been enhanced by the perspectives of modern theory. This book extends this tradition by presenting original analyses of aspects of six Native languages of Canada-Algonquin, Athapaskan, Eskimo, Iroquoian, Salishan, and Siouan.Addressing problems relevant to phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics, the authors make both descriptive and theoretical contributions by presenting data that has not been previously published or treated from the viewpoint of contemporary theory.

Glimpses of Oneida Life is a remarkable compilation of modern stories of community life at the Oneida Nation of the Thames Settlement and the surrounding area. With topics ranging from work experiences and Oneida customs to pranks, humorous encounters, and ghost stories, these fifty-two unscripted narrations and conversations in Oneida represent a rare collection of first-hand Iroquoian reflections on aspects of daily life and culture not found in print elsewhere.Each text is presented in Oneida with both an interlinear, word-by-word translation and a more colloquial translation in English. The book also contains a grammatical sketch of the Oneida language by Karin Michelson, co-author of the Oneida-English/English-Oneida Dictionary, that describes how words are structured and combined into larger linguistic structures, thus allowing Glimpses to be used as a teaching text as well.The engrossing tales in Glimpses of Oneida Life will be a valuable resource for linguists and language learners, a useful source for those studying the history and culture of Iroquois people in the twentieth-century, and an entertaining read for anyone interested in everyday First Nations life in southern Ontario.

This dictionary provides a record of the Kanien’kéha (Mohawk) language as spoken by fluent first- and second-language speakers at the Kanien’kéha Mohawk Territory outside of Montréal, Canada.The Kanien’kéha language has been written since the 1600s, and these dictionary entries include citations from published, archival, and informal writings from the seventeenth century onwards. These citations are a legacy of the substantial documents of missionary scholars and several informal vocabulary lists written by Kanien’kéha speakers, among others. The introduction to the dictionary provides a description of the organization and orthography of the historical works so that they can be used in the future by those studying and learning the language.A Dictionary of Kanien’kéha (Mohawk) with Connections to the Past allows scholars and students to learn the meaning, composition, and etymology of words in a language known for its particularly complex word structure. The organization of the entries, according to noun and verb roots, highlights the remarkable potential and adaptability of the language to express traditional concepts, as well as innovations that have resulted from contact with other customs and languages that have become part of the contemporary culture of the Kanien’kehá:ka.