Words as archaeological objects: A study of marine lifeways, seascapes, and coastal environmental knowledge in the Yagan‑English dictionary
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https://hdl.handle.net/10037/33000Date
2024-02-21Type
Journal articleTidsskriftartikkel
Peer reviewed
Abstract
Reverend Thomas Bridges’ Yagan-English dictionary (1879) has hitherto been
little explored outside of linguistics but is highly valuable as a complementary
source to archaeological, ethnohistorical, and ethnographic records in Tierra del
Fuego (Argentina and Chile). The dictionary contains 22,800 entries and yields rich
information concerning the marine lifeways of the Yagan and their and intimate
knowledge about Fuegian seascapes. The idea behind this paper is that environments
have strong bearings on linguistic vocabularies. Treating words as archaeological
objects that map onto landscapes, we identify important landforms for Yagan marine
foragers and Norwegian fsher-farmers in a comparative study of word frequencies
in Bridges’ dictionary and Ivar Aasen’s Norwegian dictionary (1850). Moreover, we
explore in detail how marine lifestyles and Fuegian seascapes emerge in Bridges’
dictionary and discuss the dictionary’s relevance for historical archaeology in Tierra
del Fuego.
Publisher
Springer NatureCitation
Eidshaug JSP, Bjerck HB, Lohndal T, Risbøl OR. Words as archaeological objects: A study of marine lifeways, seascapes, and coastal environmental knowledge in the Yagan‑English dictionary. International Journal of Historical Archaeology. 2024Metadata
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