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Historiographia Linguistica
Vol. 14:1/2 (1987) ► pp.39–60

Letters from bloomfield to Michelson and Sapir

Editor
| Cornell University
Between 1919 and 1930, Leonard Bloomfield corresponded with the anthropologist Truman Michelson (1879–1938) concerning Algonquian linguistics, and between 1924 and 1925 with Edward Sapir (1884–1939), with regard to American Indian languages, linguistic theory, and Bloomfield’s appointment as field-worker for the Canadian Bureau of Mines. The surviving letters are enumerated and discussed, and non-technical portions of them are reproduced, for the light which they shed on three of Bloomfield’s professional concerns: his work in Algonquian; his move from Illinois to Ohio State in 1921 ; and the planning and founding of the Linguistic Society of America in 1924–25. They also afford a few glimpses of his (in general little known) personal life and attitudes.
Published online: 1 January 1987
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/hl.14.1-2.07hoc
References (51)
References
The following alphabetical list includes books, articles, and some of the people referred to in the foregoing (insofar as they are not already adequately identified), together with expansions of abbreviations and explanations of a few possibly puzzling terms. For people, birth and death dates are given when known, with references to sources of further information.
AA = American Anthropologist, Journal of the American Anthropological Association and affiliated societies.
Alford, Clarence Walworth (1868–1928), American historian, at the University of Illinois 1897–1920; editor of the Mississippi Valley Historical Review 1914–1923.Google Scholar
American Mercury, see Sapir.
Anthology = A Leonard Bloomfield Anthology, edited by C. F. Hockett. Bloomington and London: Indiana University Press, 1970.Google Scholar
APA = American Philological Association.
Baraga, Frederic. Materials on Ojibwa, published in 1870s and 1880s.Google Scholar
Bloomfield, Leonard (1887–1949). First German Book. Columbus: R.G. Adams & Co., 1923.Google Scholar
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(1887–1949). “On the Sound System of Central Algonquian,” Language 11.130–156 (1925). DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Boas, Franz (1858–1942; Lg 191.198, 1942; AA 431:3 part 21, 1943; PoL 21.122–39).Google Scholar
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Collitz, Hermann (1955–1935; Lg 111.286–7, 1935; PoL 21.74–77).Google Scholar
Cuoq, Jean-André. Materials on Algonquin (Ojibwa dialect), published in 1890s.Google Scholar
Finck, Franz Nikolaus (1867–1910; PoL 21.278–83). Lehrbuch des Dialekts der deutschen Zigeuner. Marburg, W.G. Elwert, 1903.Google Scholar
(1867–1910; PoL 21.278–83). Die Sprachstämme des Erdkreises. Leipzig, B.G. Teubner, 1909.Google Scholar
Hoffman, Walter James (1846–1899; AA 21.187–88, 1900). The Menominee. Bureau of American Ethnology Annual Report no. 141, 1896.Google Scholar
IJAL = Intern. Journ. Amer. Ling. = International Journal of American Linguistics.
Jespersen, Jens Otto Harry (1860–1943; PoL 21.148–73).Google Scholar
Jones, William (?-1909; AA 111.137–39, 1909). Of Fox Indian extraction. Trained by Boas; collected extensive Fox and Ojibwa material, mostly edited for posthumous publication by Michelson.Google Scholar
Jour. Wash. Acad. Sci. = Journal of the Washington [D.C.] Academy of Sciences.
Lacombe, Albert. Materials on Cree published in 1870s.
Laufer, Berthold (1874–1934; Lg 101.387–8, 1934; AA 381.101–11, 1936).Google Scholar
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Lawe, Jerome. A Menominee, Bloomfield’s most reliable guide in the language.
Leskien, August (1840–1915; PoL 11.469–73).Google Scholar
Lg = Language, Journal of the Linguistic Society of America.
Meillet, Antoine (1866–1936; PoL 21.201–49).Google Scholar
Meillet, Antoine and Marcel Cohen. Les langues du monde Paris: Hachette, 1924.Google Scholar
Menominee, Menomini. Bloomfield uses the first spelling in 1919, then shifts to the second, which is retained in all his publications. In the early 1970s it was determined that the Menominee themselves prefer the first, which is therefore now being restored in learned material.
Michelson, Truman (1879–1938; Lg 141.314, 1938; AA 411.281–85, 1939). The Owl Sacred Pack of the Fox Indians. Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 72 (1921), Washington, D.C.Google Scholar
MLA = Modern Language Association.
Morris, Mrs Alice Vanderbilt (1874-?), active in the international language movement in the 1920s.Google Scholar
Oldfather, William Abbott (1880–1945), in Department of Classics at the University of Illinois for many years; on editorial committee of U. of I. Studies in Language and Literature when Bloomfield’s Tagalog materials were published in 1917.Google Scholar
Pack = Owl Sacred Pack, see Michelson.
PCA = Primitive Central Algonquian (proto replaced primitive as the English equivalent of German Ur- only in the mid 1930s).Google Scholar
PoL = Thomas A. Sebeok, ed., Portraits of Linguists. 2v1. Bloomington and London: Indiana University Press, 1966.Google Scholar
Prokosch, Eduard (1876–1938; Lg 141.310–13, 1938).Google Scholar
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(1884–1939; Lg 151.132–5, 1939; AA 411.465–77, 1939; PoL 21.489–92). “Sound Patterns in Language,” Language 11.137–51 (1925).Google Scholar
(1884–1939; Lg 151.132–5, 1939; AA 411.465–77, 1939; PoL 21.489–92). The Southern Paiute Language. Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Vol. 651 (1930).Google Scholar
Satterlee, John V. (?-c1927). A Menominee, source of much of the information published by Skinner and of many of the texts taken down by Bloomfield.Google Scholar
Saussure, Ferdinand de (1857–1913; PoL 21.87–110). Cours de linguistique générale. Constructed posthumously from class notes by Charles Bally and Albert Sechehaye. Paris & Lausanne, Payot, 1916; 2d ed. 1922.Google Scholar
Skinner, Alanson Buck (1885–1925; AA 281.275–86, 1926). Various ethnographic studies of the Menominee and of other Central Algonquian and northern Siouan peoples, published 1913–1920 mainly in Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History and in Indian Notes and Monographs of the Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation.Google Scholar
Southern Paiute, see Sapir.
Streitberg, Wilhelm (1864–1925; PoL 21.182–87).Google Scholar
Streitberg volume = J. Friedrich and others, Stand und Aufgaben der Sprachwissenschaft; Festschrift für Wilhelm Streitberg. Heidelberg: Carl Winter’s Universitätsbuchhandlung, 1924.Google Scholar
Sturtevant, Edgar Howard (1875–1952; Lg 281.417–34, 1952; PoL 21.365–84).Google Scholar
Wackernagel, Jacob (1852–1938; PoL 21.52–55).Google Scholar
Weiss, Albert Paul (1879–1931; Lg 71.219–21, 1931).Google Scholar
Cited by (4)

Cited by four other publications

Silverstein, Michael
2003. Charles Francis Hockett (1916–2000). American Anthropologist 105:1 ► pp. 225 ff. DOI logo
Goddard, Ives
1987. Leonard Bloomfield’s descriptive and comparative studies of Algonquian. Historiographia Linguistica 14:1-2 ► pp. 179 ff. DOI logo
[no author supplied]
2020. Chapter 7. Edward Sapir. In Last Papers in Linguistic Historiography [Studies in the History of the Language Sciences, 128], ► pp. 164 ff. DOI logo
[no author supplied]
2021. Bibliographie. In Aux origines des sciences humaines, ► pp. 865 ff. DOI logo

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