Nancy H. Hornberger (ed.), Indigenous literacies in the Americas: Language planning from the bottom up. (Contributions to the sociology of language, 75.) Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 1997. Pp. 394.

Abstract

This book is an important step in the literature of literacy – both for its rich and multi-faceted information and analyses, and for its approach. It deals with efforts to develop alphabetic literacies in traditionally unwritten languages that were already present in the Americas at the time of the arrival of the Europeans in the 15th century. Three complementary areas of scholarship are concerned: language planning and bilingual education; literacy studies, especially “new literacy” studies, with their emphasis on multiple literacies and their local meaning; and Native American studies, in particular the exploration of Native American ways of knowing. A broad array of case studies is offered in a three-part arrangement: North America (5 papers: Yup'ik [2], Navajo, Hualapai, Cochití); Meso-America (four papers: the CELIAC project in Mexico [2], Nuu Savi, a Mixtec language in Mexico, Mayan in Guatemala); and South America (7 papers: Quechua in Peru [3], bilingual education in Ecuador [2], Quechua in Ecuador and Bolivia, Guaraní in Bolivia). The book has an introduction and conclusion by Hornberger, and an afterword by Brian V. Street.