Letters from bloomfield to Michelson and Sapir

C. F. Hockett
Cornell University
Summary

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.

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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
(1887–1949) Language. New York: Holt 1933.Google Scholar
(1887–1949) The Menomini Language. Edited by C. F. Hockett. New Haven and London: Yale University Press 1962.Google Scholar
(1887–1949) “Notes on the Fox Language,” IJAL 3.219–332 (1925), 4.181–219 (1927).Google Scholar
(1887–1949) “On the Sound System of Central Algonquian,” Language 1.130–156 (1925) DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Boas, Franz
(1858–1942; Lg 19.198 1942; AA 43:3 part 2 1943; PoL 2.122–39).Google Scholar
Bolling, George Melville
(1871–1963; Lg 40.329–36 1964).Google Scholar
Collitz, Hermann
(1955–1935; Lg 11.286–7 1935; PoL 2.74–77).Google Scholar
Cuoq, Jean-André
. Materials on Algonquin (Ojibwa dialect), published in 1890s.Google Scholar
Finck, Franz Nikolaus
(1867–1910; PoL 2.278–83). Lehrbuch des Dialekts der deutschen Zigeuner. Marburg, W.G. Elwert 1903.Google Scholar
(1867–1910; PoL 2.278–83). Die Sprachstämme des Erdkreises. Leipzig, B.G. Teubner 1909.Google Scholar
Hoffman, Walter James
(1846–1899; AA 2.187–88 1900) The Menominee. Bureau of American Ethnology Annual Report no. 14 1896.Google Scholar
IJAL = Intern. Journ. Amer. Ling. = International Journal of American Linguistics
Jespersen, Jens Otto Harry
(1860–1943; PoL 2.148–73).Google Scholar
Jones, William
(?-1909; AA 11.137–39 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 10.387–8 1934; AA 38.101–11 1936).Google Scholar
Les langues du monde
see Meillet.
Lawe, Jerome
A Menominee, Bloomfield’s most reliable guide in the language.
Leskien, August
(1840–1915; PoL 1.469–73).Google Scholar
Lg = Language
Journal of the Linguistic Society of America.
Meillet, Antoine
(1866–1936; PoL 2.201–49).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 14.314 1938; AA 41.281–85 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. 2v. Bloomington and London: Indiana University Press 1966.Google Scholar
Prokosch, Eduard
(1876–1938; Lg 14.310–13 1938).Google Scholar
Sapir, Edward
(1884–1939; Lg 15.132–5 1939; AA 41.465–77 1939; PoL 2.489–92). “The Grammarian and his Language,” American Mercury 1:2.149–55 (1924).Google Scholar
(1884–1939; Lg 15.132–5 1939; AA 41.465–77 1939; PoL 2.489–92). “Sound Patterns in Language,” Language 1.137–51 (1925).Google Scholar
(1884–1939; Lg 15.132–5 1939; AA 41.465–77 1939; PoL 2.489–92). The Southern Paiute Language. Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Vol. 65 (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 2.87–110). 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 28.275–86 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 2.182–87).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 28.417–34 1952; PoL 2.365–84).Google Scholar
Wackernagel, Jacob
(1852–1938; PoL 2.52–55).Google Scholar
Weiss, Albert Paul
(1879–1931; Lg 7.219–21 1931).Google Scholar