• What is this site about?
• What is contained in the print version of the monograph?
• Whose work does the original monograph represent?
• Why do texts collections matter?
• Why publish electronically?
• What is included in the site?
• Who holds the copyright?
• Why do I see numbers in the Apache language texts?
• Where does the Apache language font used in this site come from?

What is this site about?

The Electronic publication of Harry Hoijer's Chiricahua and Mescalero Apache Texts is a web-accessible Apache language linguistic database and text archive available to the public at no charge as part of the multilingual collection at the University of Virginia's Electronic Text Center at Alderman Library. The metadata scheme used is an extension of the Text Encoding Initiative. It is a republication of Hoijer's 1938 monograph originally published by the University of Chicago.

What is contained in the print version of the monograph?

Hoijer's original monograph is a complexly annotated document built around a set of 55 Apache language texts, including mostly narratives, but also songs, prayers, and speeches, elicited from nine different Apache speakers. These are accompanied by English translations and cross-referenced with a grammatical outline of the language, as well as linguistic and ethnological notes. Chiricahua and Mescalero Apache Texts is exemplary of American structuralist linguistics and philological approach to texts in two respects. First, Hoijer bases his linguistic description upon spoken texts elicited from native speakers. And secondly, he relies upon extensive consultation with Apache speakers in the course of creating his analysis. What results from this approach is a dual resource that is simultaneously a grammatical description of the language and a synchronic philological treatment of the text collection in terms of morphology and grammar. The philological dimension of this particular collection is further enhanced by the addition of ethnological notes to the texts, which place the characters and events described in stories, songs, and speeches in broader cultural context.

Whose work does the original monograph represent?

• Harry Hoijer elicited and transcribed oral performances by Apache speakers. He also worked with Apache speakers to create linguistic analyses and English translations of each word or phrase as it appears in the texts. He composed a grammatical description of the language based on analysis of the texts. And finally, he was responsible for the publication of the collection as a whole.



• David Fatty, Sam Kenoi, Duncan Belacho, Lawrence Mithlo, Charles Smith, Horace Torres, Fred Pelmam, Apache language speakers, storytellers, singers, orators who contributed the verbal performances of the texts and worked with Hoijer on the linguistic analysis and translation. Hoijer names Sam Kenoi, Dan Nicholas, and Charles Smith as particularly important for the latter.



• Morris Opler, a cultural anthropologist who contributed Ethnological Notes to the texts that place characters and events in the texts within broader cultural contexts.

Why do text collections matter?

A number of scholars have argued that Americanist text collections acquire renewed relevance in light of recent developments in linguistics, poetics, cultural anthropology, oral history, and Native American studies. Firstly, text collections represent irreplaceable opportunities for linguistic description of disappearing languages with little or no written tradition. In addition to their value as linguistic data, texts collections have untapped value as representations of their speakers and their social contexts. And there is renewed interest among scholars and native speakers in the poetic form and content of text collections as examples of oral literature.

Why publish electronically?

• to make a valuable language resource, currently in limited circulation, accessible to a wider audience. This text collection represents one of the few publications documenting a diversity of Apache speakers and speech genres at a critical juncture in their recent history. As such, it is of interest to multiple communities of users, including scholars, teachers, as well as Apache language speakers.



• to provide multiple interfaces and formatting options that accommodate a variety of interests including those of researchers (in linguistics, poetics, cultural anthropology, oral history, history of anthropology), native speakers, and language students.



• to reflect the complex relations of authorship involved in this collection by including in the presentation of each text attribution of textual authorship to the Apache speaker who contributed it.



• to make use of features such as hypertext linking, searching, and interactivity in order to provide a richer experience of the collection's content. The electronic version is designed to augment Hoijer's original notation system by creating hyperlinks between corresponding units within the texts, translations, and linguistic notes, and presents these on the screen simultaneously in parallel frames.



• to use the flexibility of mark-up description to reflect features of the original monograph, while also enriching it with additional mark-up and presentation strategies. Some additional descriptive tags are introduced in order to reflect artistic features of the texts, which are presented by employing standard literary conventions. Others are introduced to enable the creation of additional resources, such as a Lexicon, from information already contained in Hoijer's linguistic notes.



• to demonstrate the value of emerging technologies to make resources like Hoijer's monograph and other Americanist text collections more available as well as more useful to people interested in issues related to both linguistics, pedagogy, and language preservation.

What is included in the site?

• Fifty-five Apache Language Texts representing a variety of genres: stories, songs, prayers, speeches, performed by nine different Apache speakers



• English Translations, developed by Hoijer in consultation with Apache speakers



• Ethnological Notes to the texts, contributed by Morris Opler, a cultural anthropologist



• Hoijer's Linguistic Notes, containing morphological analysis of words and phrases as they appear in the texts



• Hoijer's Grammatical Outline of Chiricahua and Mescalero Apache language varieties.



• a Search Engine for Apache and English language searches



• a Lexicon to the texts developed from Hoijer's Linguistic analysis

Who holds the copyright?

The University of Chicago holds copyright to the original 1938 monograph, all rights reserved. They granted the Electronic Text Center permission to electronically publish the monograph with the following provisions:

This text must be used and shared in accordance with the fair use provisions of US and international copyright laws and agreement, and it may be archived and distributed in electronic form, provided that this entire notice, including copyright information, is carried, and provided that the University of Chicago press is notified and no fee is charged for access. Archiving, republication, or redistribution of this text on other terms, in any medium, requires both the consent of the author(s) and the University of Chicago Press.

The images used on these pages were obtained from the American Memory Collection at the Library of Congress, and our use of them conforms to fair use provisions of US copyright laws. A statement defining fair use can be found at: http://memory.loc.gov/learn/resources/cpyrt/

The Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia hold copyright for this electronic edition, ©2000, subject to the provisions already stipulated by the original copyright holders.

Why do I see numbers in the Apache language texts?

If your Apache language texts are full of numbers and letters, this is because you have not yet downloaded the Apache/Navajo font. Without the font, special characters in the Apache language alphabet appear as numbers on your computer screen. To download the font, click here:

Where does the Apache language font used in this site come from?

The font utility employed in this site, Times New Roman Navajo. was developed at the San Juan School district for use in their Navajo language education programs. The Navajo language is closely related to Chiricahua and Mescalero Apache, and the same alphabet expresses the sound distinctions in each of these language varieties. The San Juan school district has made the font utility available for educational purposes at no charge.