NATIVE AMERICAN LANGUAGE
Understanding The Native American Language & Providing Professional Native American Interpreters, Translators and Transcriptionists
American Language Services (AML-Global) understands the importance of working in the Native American language. For over a Quarter of a Century, American Language Services has worked with the Native American language as well as hundreds of others from around the world. We offer comprehensive language services 24 hours, 7 days a week worldwide by providing Native American interpreting, translation and transcriptions services along with hundreds of other languages and dialects. Our linguists are native speakers and writers who are screened, credentialed, certified, field tested and experienced in a number of specific industry settings. The Native American language is unique and has very specific origins and characteristics.
The Foundation of Native American Language
Thousands of languages were spoken in North and South America prior to first contact with Europeans between the beginning of the eleventh century (Norwegian settlement of Greenland and attempted settlement of Labrador and Newfoundland) and the end of the fifteenth century (the voyages of Christopher Columbus). The attitudes of most of the European colonizers and their successor states toward Native American languages ranged from benign neglect to active suppression. North America is notable for its linguistic diversity, especially in California where it alone has 18 genetic units consisting of 74 languages (compare to the mere 3 genetic units in all of Europe: Basque, Indo-European, Uralic). Another area of considerable diversity appears to have been the Southeast; however, many of these languages became extinct from European contact and as a result they are, for the most part, absent from the historical record. This diversity has been and continues to be very influential in the development of linguistic thought in the U.S.
The Diversity of Native American Languages
Due to the diversity of this area, it is difficult to make generalizations that adequately characterize the entire region. Most North American languages have a relatively small number of vowels (i.e. four or five vowels). Languages of the western half of North America often have relatively large consonant inventories. The languages of the Pacific Northwest are notable for their complex phonotactics (for example, some languages have words that lack vowels entirely). The languages of the Plateau area have relatively rare pharyngeals and epiglottals (they are otherwise restricted to Afro-Asiatic and Caucasian languages). Ejective consonants are also common in North America, although they are rare elsewhere (except, again, for the Caucasus region, parts of Africa, and the Mayan family).
Native American Writing System
Native American has been written in a variety of alphabets over the centuries. The traditional Native American script was adapted from Uyghur script probably at the very beginning of the 13th century and from that time underwent some minor disambiguations and supplementations. Between 1930 and 1932, a short-lived attempt was made to introduce the Latin script in the Native American state, and after a preparatory phase, the Cyrillic script was declared as mandatory by government decree.
Who are You Going to Trust with Your Vital Native American Language Needs?
The Native American language is an important language worldwide. It is vital to understand the general nature and specific idiosyncrasies of Native American. Since 1985, AML-Global has provided outstanding Native American interpreters, translators and transcriptionsts worldwide.
