This book, an extensively revised version of a 1992 dissertation from the University of Amsterdam, presents a wealth of information about the culture, documented history, and languages of the Canadian Métis – an ethnic group descended from French and other European fur traders and hunters and their Native American wives. The Métis live in several areas in the Canadian West, as well as parts of North Dakota, Montana, and further afield. This group has been a recognized and clearly constituted ethnic entity in the region since at least the mid-19th century. The focus throughout Bakker's book is on the nature and origin of Michif, the unique language that has brought the Métis (especially those who traditionally hunted buffalo and who came from the Red River of Saskatchewan) to the attention of students of intimate language contact. Michif has possibly been in existence as a language since the 1840s (p. 160), although actual attestations of linguistic material date only from the early 1970s.

The past two years have seen the publication of three books on linguistic practices among different Puerto Rican communities in the United States, and Zentella's book is one of the three. The other two are Urciuoli 1996 and Torres 1997. This sudden wealth within a particular disciplinary domain seemingly proves the first part of Gordon Lewis's (1963) pronouncement that Puerto Ricans are among the most researched peoples in the United States; but the sensitive ideological insights that guide Zentella's ethnography and analyses will certainly contribute to undermining the second part of his statement – that they are nonetheless the least understood. The books by Urciuoli and Torres are likewise valuable in this sense; but obviously, they are not under review here. Her documentation of the uses of language among Puerto Ricans in a New York City barrio greatly enhances our understanding of the Puerto Rican experience, as its meaning and place within “mainstream” US society is defined and contested through struggles over linguistic ideologies and practices.

In this book, W&S-E provide an account of the background research and fieldwork for – as well as the results, influences, and applications of – their work (and that of other collaborators) on the dialect of the Outer Banks of North Carolina, particularly on the island of Ocracoke. The reader of this review should keep in mind the readership that W&S-E have in mind: “We attempt to describe the language that is faithful to the detailed patterning of the dialect while making our account readable to the wide range of people who are interested in the speech of Ocracoke” (xii).

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.

Urban's book may be regarded, at one level, as an exploration of certain traditional anthropological themes – such as social structure, myth, and ritual – in the context of an Amerindian community in Brazil. What makes the book highly non-traditional, however, is how these themes are worked into a discussion of very basic epistemological and methodological concerns: the nature of ethnographic inquiry, criteria for the truth or correctness of ethnographic claims, and the role played by discourse in organizing cultural experience and shaping the outcome of fieldwork.

In this short monograph, addressed to a general audience of novices in the study of language and society, Boutet takes up the challenge of presenting this scientific field in a concise yet informative manner. She successfully meets the challenge, enhancing her lively discussion of basic concepts with numerous examples drawn from past or current research and from her own observational data. Technical jargon has been avoided as much as possible, and a pleasant layout of the various sections (as well as a good cross-referencing system) contribute to make the subject matter accessible to the reader. The book also contains useful bibliographic references and suggestions for further reading.

The authors of this book were senior figures in the cohort of students who pursued American Indian linguistics under the direction of the late Mary Haas at Berkeley starting in the 1950s and 60s. In 1994, while the present work was being prepared for publication, Miller – the unquestioned dean of Uto-Aztecan linguistic studies – died tragically as a result of a bicycle accident in Mexico. The volume was seen through the press by Silver, an area specialist in Native Californian languages. As it now stands, the book is a fitting reminder of the richness of the “Berkeley tradition” in which the authors were trained; it is also an appropriate memorial to Miller's life and achievements.