Rebecca Slatcher on cataloguing North American Indigenous languages at the British Library .

1. Cataloguing North American
Indigenous Languages at the
British Library
1.Historic language collecting and how this relates to cataloguing
2.How different structures of languages offer an important
perspective on knowledge organisation
3.How Indigenous languages are impacted by cataloguing today

3. 'A knowledge of their several languages would be the most certain evidence of their derivation which could be
produced. In fact, it is the best proof of the affinity of nations which ever can be referred to’
'It is to be lamented, that we have suffered so many of the Indian tribes already to extinguish, without having previously
collected and deposited in the records of literature, the general rudiments at least of the languages they spoke’
‘I will now proceed to state the nations and numbers of the Aborigines which still exist in a respectable and independent
form… I will reduce within the form of a catalogue all those within, and circumjacent to, the United States’
There is a connection between how language collections have been built and described,
and the attempted erasure of Indigenous cultures. This means classification as an act
and process can be harmful, and is a continued area of responsibility for institutions
Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, 1785

4. Indigenous languages as an object of study
Indigenous peoples as vanishing and the need for languages to be recorded in print
The use of lists and catalogues
There is a connection between how language collections have been built and described,
and the attempted erasure of Indigenous cultures. This means classification as an act
and process can be harmful, and is a continued area of responsibility for institutions
Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, 1785

5. Thomas Jefferson, ‘Comparative vocabularies of several
Indian languages’ held at the American Philosophical
Society (Mss.497.J35)
Thomas Jefferson, ‘Catalogue of known tribes’, Notes on the
State of Virginia, 1785

7. ‘To my mind it is worth considering the ways that we see books on the shelves
today through Jefferson’s eyes—his taste, his aesthetic, and his politics. The
Library of Congress’s current classification system was derived in part from
Jefferson’s personal catalog.’
Melissa Adler, The Strangeness of Subject Cataloguing

8. There is a connection between how languages are structured and how
knowledge is organised. This means we should put Eurocentric cataloguing
principles into perspective when looking at Indigenous language materials
The verb in the Micmac ‘is copious, flexible, and expressive’
where ‘one verb in the Micmac requires pages in English’
Silas Rand, Legend of the Micmacs, 1894
‘…piling up syllable on syllable, till his forms are infinitely multiplied, and his
actual vocabulary has become a formidable mass of aggregated sounds’
Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, Historical and Statistical Information respecting the
History, Condition and Prospects of the Indian Tribe of the United States, 1851
is ‘capable of expressing shades of meaning and forms
of action in much greater variety than the English verb’
Stephen Riggs, Gospel in Dakota, 1869

9. ‘
‘Why are Aboriginal languages rich with verbs, adverbs, adjectives? They are not
materialistic, but movement and relationship orientated’
Joy Asham Fedorick, ‘Decolonizing Language’ in Give Back: First Nations
Perspectives on Cultural Practice
‘A bay is a noun only if water is dead. When bay is a noun, it is defined by humans,
trapped between its shores and contained by the word. But the verb wiikwegamaa-
to be a bay- releases it from its bondage and lets it live. ‘To be a bay’ holds wonder
that, for this moment, the living moment, the living water decided to shelter itself
between these shores.’
Robin Wall Kimmerer Braiding Sweetgrass

12. Indians of North America– Languages
Cherokee language– Texts
Cherokee language– Bible
Cherokee language– Missions
Cherokee language– Dictionaries
Cherokee language– Vocabularies
Cherokee language– Glossaries
Cherokee language– Ethnology
Cherokee language– Grammars
Cherokee language– Folklore
DDC classification
Library of Congress Subject Headings

13. MARC language codes

14. Chickasaw MARC code- [nai] Chickasaw ISO-639-3 code- [cic]
Cree MARC code- [cre]
Cree Glottocodes- 5 codes

15. The literature of the aboriginal people of North America defines America. It is
not exotic. The concerns are particular, yet often universal’
Joy Harjo