Kirjahaku

Nuckolls studies the occurrence of sound-symbolic words - words that bear resemblance to phenomena they attempt to describe - in an Ecuadorian dialect of Quechua, a major South American language. She explores how the speakers describe everyday experience and how sound-symbolism is integral to their way of thinking and speaking.

Using the intriguing stories and words of a Quechua-speaking woman named Luisa Cadena from the Pastaza Province of Ecuador, Janis B. Nuckolls reveals a complex language system in which ideophony, dialogue, and perspective are all at the core of cultural and grammatical communications amongAmazonian Quechua speakers. This book is a fascinating look at ideophones?words that communicate succinctly through imitative sound qualities. They are at the core of Quechua speakers’ discourse?both linguistic and cultural?because theyallow agency and reaction to substances and entities as well as beings. Nuckolls shows that LuisaCadena’s utterances give every individual, major or minor, a voice in her narrative. Sometimes as subtleas a barely felt movement or unintelligible sound, the language supports an amazingly wide variety of voices. Cadena’s narratives and commentaries on everyday events reveal that sound imitation through ideophones, representations of dialogues between humans and nonhumans, and grammatical distinctions between aspeaking self and an other are all part of a language system that allows for the possibility of sharedaffects, intentions, moral values, and meaningful, communicative interactions between humans and nonhumans.

In Introduction to Amazonian Quichua Language and Life: Grammar, Culture, and Discourse Patterns from Pastaza and Upper Napo Seakers, Janis B. Nuckolls and Tod D. Swanson discuss two varieties of Quichua, an indigenous Ecuadorian language. Drawing on their linguistic and anthropological knowledge, extensive fieldwork, and personal relationships with generations of speakers from Pastaza and Napo communities, the authors open a door into worlds of intimate meaning that knowledge of Quichua makes accessible. Nuckolls and Swanson link grammatical lessons with examples of naturally occurring discourse, traditional narratives, conversations, songs, and personal experiences to teach readers about the languages’ structures and discourse patterns and speakers’ sensory depictions, ecological aesthetics, and emotional perspectives.

In Amazonian Quichua Language and Life: Introduction to Grammar, Ecology, and Discourse from Pastaza and Upper Napo, Janis B. Nuckolls and Tod D. Swanson discuss two varieties of Quichua, an indigenous Ecuadorian language. Drawing on their linguistic and anthropological knowledge, extensive fieldwork, and personal relationships with generations of speakers from Pastaza and Napo communities, the authors open a door into worlds of intimate meaning that knowledge of Quichua makes accessible. Nuckolls and Swanson link grammatical lessons with examples of naturally occurring discourse, traditional narratives, conversations, songs, and personal experiences to teach readers about the languages’ structures and discourse patterns and speakers’ sensory depictions, ecological aesthetics, and emotional perspectives.