Prasun (Wasi, Paruni) has long had a reputation for being the most aberrant of the Nuristani group of Indo-European languages. Only after the publication of a considerable number of Prasun texts in 2016 as volume 80 in this series has it been possible to analyze the language based on the solid foundation of a large text corpus. Georg Buddruss collected the source texts in the Prasun Valley in 1956 and 1970. That edition comprises texts in several dialectal varieties of Prasun.
The present volume is the outcome of extensive work on this text corpus. It is the first comprehensive grammar of Prasun as well as the most detailed description of any Nuristani language yet published. Among the topics addressed in this volume are: morphology, verbal categories, subordination, relative clauses, mirativity, verbal particles, and the complicated system of directional morphemes. This grammatical analysis is amply supported by quotations from the text volume. This book is a major contribution to studies of Nuristani and other languages of the Hindukush-Karakoram region.
Prasun (Wasi) is the most aberrant of the Nuristani languages, part of the Indo-Iranian branch of Indo-European languages. It is spoken in the Prasun Valley of the Pech River in northeast Afghanistan. Prasun is a non-literary, unwritten language, and it varies from village to village. Materialien zur Prasun-Sprache des Afghanischen Hindukusch is the fruit of many years of work by Georg Buddruss, assisted in the last few years by Almuth Degener. The texts, in prose and a few songs, were collected by Buddruss in 1956 and 1970. Included are all the texts collected, along with a German translation, a glossary, lists of numbers, place and personal names, and the Prasun calendar system. The volume also includes a brief Introduction in English. A second volume to come will contain an extensive grammar.
Apart from its linguistic value, the present book is also very important as it includes many “Kafiri” myths, still known in 1956, from the time before the forced Islamization in 1895. The ancient pagan religion has survived only in the texts and in some customs described in this book.
Spoken in the middle hills of Nepal, Gurung is a Tibeto-Burmese language spread along the southern slopes of the Himalayas. The Nepalese Gurung recitations known as pe or pe-da lu-da form a diverse group of oral narratives and invocations, thought to exemplify ritual utterances from the origin of Bon. The pe are performed by a medicine man or shaman, in collaboration with a priest, to promote health and prosperity, and to help with illness and bereavement. They work occasionally with Lamaist practitioners.
This two-volume set includes an analytical introduction, 13,000 lines of annotated transcriptions with interlinear gloss for 92 pe, and a synopsis of a further 49 items representing over 4,000 lines. The material was collected between 1979 and 1992. The introduction outlines the formal properties of pe: structure, metrics, style, figurative language, metaphor, and implicit meanings. This is followed by an overview of patterns of thought in pe, their ontologies, divinities, cosmological order, journeys, use of reported speech, action during discourse, the meanings of the lexical items, and a study of the methods of learning the pe. Appended is a catalog of pe and color plate illustrations. Field recordings of the transcribed pe are included on an accompanying DVD.
Spoken in the middle hills of Nepal, Gurung is a Tibeto-Burmese language spread along the southern slopes of the Himalayas. The Nepalese Gurung recitations known as pe or pe-da lu-da form a diverse group of oral narratives and invocations, thought to exemplify ritual utterances from the origin of Bon. The pe are performed by a medicine man or shaman, in collaboration with a priest, to promote health and prosperity, and to help with illness and bereavement. They work occasionally with Lamaist practitioners.
This two-volume set includes an analytical introduction, 13,000 lines of annotated transcriptions with interlinear gloss for 92 pe, and a synopsis of a further 49 items representing over 4,000 lines. The material was collected between 1979 and 1992. The introduction outlines the formal properties of pe: structure, metrics, style, figurative language, metaphor, and implicit meanings. This is followed by an overview of patterns of thought in pe, their ontologies, divinities, cosmological order, journeys, use of reported speech, action during discourse, the meanings of the lexical items, and a study of the methods of learning the pe. Appended is a catalog of pe and color plate illustrations. Field recordings of the transcribed pe are included on an accompanying DVD.
The German Romantic theologian and philosopher Schleiermacher wrote, "The virtuosity (or special calling) of a person is at the same time the melody of that person's life, and it remains a simple, meager series of notes unless religion, with its endlessly rich variety, accompanies it with all notes and raises the simple song to a full-voiced, glorious harmony." It is around this melody that Jaroslav Pelikan, a great theologian of our own day, weaves the polyphonic threads of philosophy, theology, morals, history, and personality to create a singular portrait of his life and work.
The Melody of Theology is really two books in one: a dictionary in which a reader can browse through piquant explorations of some of the most interesting topics in Christian theology, and an intellectual autobiography in which Jaroslav Pelikan has used those topics to give an account of the traditions to which he owes the formation of his own mind and spirit. As he says, "An intellectual autobiography in the format of a 'philosophical dictionary' permits the self-indulgence of employing the seeming objectivity of some eighty-two entries, arranged in the impersonal sequence of alphabetical order, to express a completely personal set of prejudices."
Among the large topics addressed in this volume are the Bible, Faith, Grace, Reformation and Renaissance, and Sin. Among the towering figures of religion and theology are Dante, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Erasmus, Gibbon, Martin Luther, Paul the Apostle, and Schleiermacher. Among the technical topics analyzed are Apocatastasis, Christian Creeds, the term "Ecumenical," Eschatology, Patristics, and the Trinity. The Melody of Theology belongs on the bookshelf of anyone who wants to study a history and tradition that precede us and will continue after us, and also of the reader who would like to make the acquaintance of a subtle analytic mind and a generous open heart.
The result of nearly two decades of intensive research by Norman Mack and his late wife, Beatrice Davidow Mack, Missouri’s Silver Age: Silversmiths of the 1800s is a comprehensive directory of nineteenth-century Missouri silversmiths, their works, and their identifying makers’ marks. Illustrated with over one hundred photographs, this exceptional reference for historians and silver collectors showcases the Macks’ three-hundred-piece collection of Missouri silver, which includes a representative sample by nearly every known Missouri silversmith and is housed at the Missouri Historical Society in St. Louis.
Featuring more than a hundred detailed biographies of the artisans and apprentices who created handmade silver in St. Louis and Missouri during the nineteenth century, Missouri’s Silver Age also contains extensive photographs of makers’ touchmarks and of the pieces themselves, which include bowls, dishes, spoons, and ladles, as well as other household utensils and decorative items. Arranged alphabetically, the biographies reveal all known details of the business activities and locations of the silversmiths. Collectively, the entries and the illustrations shed light on the growth of enterprise in Missouri, show the impact of the individual on the developing frontier economies of the Midwest, and reveal how the production, acquisition, and possession of material goods reflected the culture and values of Americans during the 1800s.
Mack provides a brief but thorough history of silversmithing in America for novice collectors and historians, detailing the various methods used in making silver and the range of styles that were popular, providing insight into the methods of training apprentices, and explaining the effects of mechanization on the trade. Augmenting this volume are an appendix by Jo Ann Griffin on how to care for old silver, a map of the silversmiths’ primary locations, and a helpful alphabetical appendix of the silversmiths that includes illustrations of their touchmarks.
Charles Andrew Hofling
Smithsonian-Utah Publications in American Indian Languages
Lyle Campbell and Ives Goddard
Linguistics
This is highly valuable dictionary of the Mopan (Mayan) language. In addition to its many entries, it also provides an introductory grammatical description, as well as general dictionary features such as parts of speech, examples, cross-references, variant forms, homophones, and indexes. The book also contains special sections on orthography and pronunciation unique to this important Mayan language, as well as translations into English and Spanish.
The dictionary has the merits well known from other dictionaries of indigenous languages of the Americas, preserving knowledge systems as they are encoded in vocabulary and providing valuable information for numerous fields, including Mayanists, Mesoamericanists, American Indian scholars, anthropologists, historians, linguists, students of Mayan hieroglyphic writing, and members of modern Mayan communities, among others.
This is the second book in the new Smithsonian-Utah Publications in American Indian Languages (SUPAIL) series, a joint venture of the University of Utah Press and the Smithsonian Institution.
My First Book of Sign, a full-color alphabet book, gives the signs for 150 of the words most frequently used by young children. The vocabulary comes from recognized word list sources such as the Dale List of 769 Easy Words. The proportion of word category choices (nouns, modifiers, and verbs) is based on early language acquisition research.
Readers do not have to know American Sign Language to enjoy My First Book of Sign; the book provides explanations of how to form each sign. This is a very special alphabet book appropriate for all children who are just beginning to read.
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