Choguita Rarámuri (Tarahumara) is a Uto-Aztecan language spoken in Northern Mexico of great typological, theoretical, and historical significance. This paper presents an overview and background of the Choguita Rarámuri language description and documentation project and provides a guide to the documentary collection emerging from this project. This…

Culturally appropriate means of conducting language research among American Indians is critical for maintaining cooperation and for increasing the depth of data collected. The apprentice-elder and fictive kinship models used in research with two Siouan-speaking tribes are discussed, as well as their practical applications, the importance of…

Academic fieldworkers in language-endangered communities must be able to undertake all aspects of linguistic work, elicit linguistic information from speakers, document naturally occurring speech data, present research results in a comprehensible manner to the community and to academia, and develop cooperative programs based on mutual trust.…

A White Mountain Apache (WMA) doctoral student collaborating with a non-Indian linguist on a grammar book project discusses the status of the WMA language; causes of WMA language shift; aspects of insider-outsider collaboration; implications for revitalization and maintenance of indigenous languages; and the responsibilities of individuals,…

Sociolinguistically oriented studies of the Chicano speech community cluster around two subject areas: (1) conversational code-switching, and (2) language loyalty and maintenance. Research representative of each of these areas is reviewed. It is felt that the large body of findings regarding the language use of the Chicanos have failed to take the…

Linguists working with endangered American Indian languages must realize that fieldwork is a cooperative venture, requiring that control be relinguished to the community. The relationship with the tribe must be negotiated, and linguists must return something concrete to the community in terms of language revival. Working in language teams that…