Distinguished sociolinguist Peter Trudgill here presents a controversial new theory about dialect contact and the formation of new colonial dialects. He examines the genesis of Latin American Spanish, Canadian French, and North American English and in particular concentrates on Australian, New Zealand, and South African English. These varieties developed during the nineteenth century along with the immigration of settlers from Britain and Ireland.
Gorgon: Paleontology, Obsession, and the Greatest Catastrophe in Earth's History
The gorgons ruled the world of animals long before there was any age of dinosaurs. They were the T. Rex of their day until an environmental cataclysm 250 million years ago annihilated them—along with 90 percent of all plant and animal species on the planet—in an event so terrible even the extinction of the dinosaurs pales in comparison. For more than a decade, Peter Ward and his colleagues have been searching in South Africa’s Karoo Desert for clues to this world: What were these animals like?
Kelly, an Australian writer and science teacher, gives readers a thorough tour of crocodilian evolution in this lively biological biography. Kelly builds her scientific investigation on a solid cultural foundation, by introducing the crocodile through folk tales of indigenous Australians, Africans, Americans and South Asians; similarly, fossils showing crocodilies have changed very little in more than 200 million years adds relevance to the old stories and weight to the sobering fact that, ...
Covering great Inca, Maya, and Aztec empires as well as lesser-known cultures, such as the Olmec people, this revised edition of South and Meso-American Mythology A to Z is a comprehensive reference to the deities, legendary heroes and heroines, objects, animals, and places that make up the mythic lore of the peoples of Meso-America and South America. Learn how these peoples explained Earth's creation and which themes were common throughout the region. This new edition is now in full color for the first time.
This volume tells the story of the South Americans and their history through a survey of their food culture. Food in the various countries differs in some ways because of cultural heritage, cooking techniques, and geography, here divided into four zones. The traditions of the primary groups—Indians, Europeans, and Africans—and their five centuries of mixing have still resulted in a stable food culture. The foods of the Indians before European contact still play an important role, along with other foods brought by successive immigrant groups.
