Incorporations into Tewa Language and Culture

Summary

This is an abstract from the "From Collaboration to Partnership in Pojoaque, New Mexico" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Linguistic acculturation during the Columbian exchange traditionally focused on loan words from European languages into Native American languages, privileging European culture. Southwestern studies in particular have presented lists of Spanish words in native garb, with little discussion other than possible borrowing strata, based on how well the loans fit the local sound pattern. We deconstruct this, considering total production of Tewa linguistic artifacts during the 1600s that refer Spanish concepts, comparing native materials (calques; coined words) versus loans from Spanish. We compare the Tewa situation with other communities of the Rio Grande culture area, and with peripheral speech communities (Zuni, Hopi). Between 50% to 75% of the attested lexical artifacts of acculturation were created using Native lexical resources. Tewas and other native peopl, not passive recipients of European culture, exercised agency in adapting to and naming the benefits (largely dietary) and impositions (religion; government) of European culture.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)   •
• From Collaboration to Partnership in Pojoaque, New Mexico

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 22904