American Indian language
- noun
- /əˈmɛrɪkən ˈɪndiən ˈlæŋɡwɪdʒ/
:
lengua indígena americana
- Many American Indian languages are at risk of extinction.
Examples
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Many university departments offer courses in American Indian languages such as Navajo and Cherokee.
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The preservation of American Indian languages is crucial for maintaining cultural heritage.
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She wrote her thesis on the structure of an American Indian language.
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The American Indian language spoken by the Navajo is complex.
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Many university departments offer courses in American Indian languages such as Navajo and Cherokee.
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She wrote her thesis on the structure of an American Indian language.
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The preservation of American Indian languages is crucial for maintaining cultural heritage.
Synonyms
A language spoken by the native peoples of the Americas
A language spoken by the native people of North, Central, or South America
A language first spoken by the native people of the Americas before Europeans arrived
A language spoken by the native people of the Americas
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly built from the parts: 'American' (of the Americas) + 'Indian' (pertaining to Indigenous American peoples) + 'language', yielding 'a language of Indigenous peoples of the Americas'. This straightforward modifier + noun composition is a common, compositional pattern that a B1 learner who knows the constituent words will readily understand (context disambiguates the occasional alternate sense of 'Indian').
Etymology
American Indian language comes from early European explorers who called the native people they met 'Indians' by mistake. So American Indian language simply means the 'language' spoken by the native peoples of the Americas, which is why we use it for Navajo, Cherokee and others.
