Indigenous Languages
“It is the duty of every traveller in distant, little-known lands to make contributions, according to his ability, to the knowledge of their languages.” So wrote Maximilian in his introduction to the German edition of his printed travels. As he traveled across the American continent, he collected language samples from over 20 tribal nations that he encountered. Some language samples amounted to a list of 20 keywords that he could collect quickly, while others were more comprehensive vocabulary lists obtained during longer encounters. He wrote these word lists in part “from the pronunciations of the Indians themselves” but also with the assistance of interpreters and Indian agents. In the early 2000s, with support from the National Endowment for the Humanities, a team of thirteen linguists transcribed, translated, annotated over 300 native language terms into individual word lists. In addition to Maximilian’s own language tables, they collected these word lists into various addenda and added modern orthographies.
As part of The Natural Face of North America, PIs conducted listening sessions with members of MHA Nation and the Omaha Tribe of Nebraska. During these sessions, members identified an interest in prioritizing language preservation and restoration. We thus collaborated with native language speakers to record these key vocabulary lists produced by Maximilian. These were often completed in the context of long-form conversations and the original recordings are preserved in relevant tribal repositories. These conversations revealed errors or misunderstandings in Maximilian’s original interpretation. These inconsistencies are demonstrated where recorded words on the site differ from Maximilian’s original translations. To date, we have worked with speakers of Arikara, Hidatsa, Mandan, and Omaha languages to provide recordings of Maximilian’s word lists. These are located throughout Maximilian’s journals, in the various addenda, and directly accessible from the below links:
 Arikara |
 Hidatsa |
 Mandan |
 Omaha |