Cover not available
Article published In:
Historiographia Linguistica
Vol. 19:1 (1992) ► pp.25–56

Thomas Harriot (1560–1621) and the English origins of Algonkian linguistics

 | Oxford
Thomas Harriot (1560–1621) was an outstanding mathematician and astronomer whose scientific writings – had they not been allowed to remain in manuscript – would long ago have earned for him an international esteem comparable with that of Galileo and Kepler. Only in recent decades has his status been recognised by scientists, but not, so far, by linguists. Yet he was the first English traveller to North America known to have recorded an indigenous language, for which he devised a dictionary and a phonetic alphabet. He also recorded a large number of Algonkin words during his stay in North Carolina in 1585–86, some of which are found in the account of his travels which he published in 1588, more than fifty years before Roger Williams’s (1603?-1683) Key into the Language of America (1643), which has often been regarded as the first such work. The manuscripts of the dictionary and the phonetic alphabet were thought to be lost, until a few years ago a sketch of the phonetic alphabet was found; and in 1988 a detailed holograph copy came to light. The present paper, while describing this recent discovery, provides a brief survey of linguistic relationships between speakers of North Carolina Algonkin and English colonists between 1586 and the arrival of the Mayflower pilgrims in 1621, and traces Harriot’s influence on later 17th-century linguists.
Published online: 1 January 1992
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/hl.19.1.03sal
References (71)
References
Abercrombie, David. 1965. “Forgotten Phoneticians”. Studies in Phonetics & Linguistics by D. Abercrombie, 45–75. London: Oxford Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Aubrey, John. (1626–1697). 1960[1949]. Brief Lives. Ed. by Oliver Lawson Dick. London: Seeker & Warburg.Google Scholar
Barbour, Philip L. 1969. The Jamestown Voyages under the First Charter, 1607–1609. 21 vols. London: Hakluyt Society.Google Scholar
1971–72. “The Earliest Reconnaissance of the Chesapeake Bay Area: Captain John Smith’s map and Indian vocabulary”. The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 791.280–302; 801.21–51.Google Scholar
Brereton, John (fl.1602). 1983[1602]. A Briefe and True Relation of the Discoverie of the North Part of Virginia. Quinn & Quinn 1983.143–203.Google Scholar
Brotherston, Gordon. 1981. “A Controversial Guide to the Langugae of America, 1643”. 1642: Literature and Power in the 17th Century: Proceedings of the Essex Conference on the Sociology of Literature ed. by Francis Barker, 84–100. Colchester: Univ. of Essex.Google Scholar
Cheever, George B. 1848. The Journal of the Pilgrims at Plymouth, in New England, in 1620. New York: John Wiley.Google Scholar
Dobson, Eric J. 1968[1957]. English Pronunciation 1500–1700. 2nd ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Eliot, John (1604–1690). 1666. The Indian Grammar Begun. Cambridge, Mass: Johnson.Google Scholar
Fausz, J. Frederick. 1985. “Patterns of Anglo-Indian Aggression and Accommodation along the Mid-Atlantic Coast, 1584–1634”. Cultures in Contact ed. by William Fitzhugh, 225–268. Washington, D.C. & London: Smithsonian Institution.Google Scholar
Foreman, Carolyn Thomas. 1943. Indians Abroad, 1493–1938. Norman: Oklahoma Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Geary, James A. 1953. “Strachey’s Vocabulary of the Indian Words Used in Virginia, 1612”. The Historie of Travell into Virginia ed. by Louis B. Wright & Virginia Freund, 174–214. London: Hakluyt Society.Google Scholar
1955. “The Language of the Carolina Algonkian Tribes”. The Roanoke Voyages ed. by David B. Quinn, vol.21, Appendix II, 873–900. London: Hakluyt Society.Google Scholar
Goddard, Ives. 1978. “Eastern Algonquian Languages”. Handbook of North American Indians, vol. XV1, ed. by Bruce G. Trigger, 70–77. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution.Google Scholar
Gookin, Werner F. & Philip L. Barbour. 1963. Bartholomew Gosnold. Hamden & London: Archon Books.Google Scholar
Gorges, Ferdinando (?1566–1647). 1890[1658]. “A Briefe Narration of the Originall Undertakings” (= “A Description of New England”). Sir Ferdinand Gorges and his Province of Maine ed. by James P. Baxter, vol. II1, 1–81. Boston: The Prince Society.Google Scholar
Hakluyt, Richard (1552–1616). 1598–1600. The Principall Navigations. London: Bishop, Newberie & Barker. (Repr., 121 vols., Glasgow: MacLehose, 1903–1905.)Google Scholar
. 1935[c.l584]. “Discourse of Western Planting”. The Original Writings […] of the two Richard Hakluyts ed. by Eva G. R. Taylor, 211–326. London: Hakluyt Society.Google Scholar
Hamor, Ralph (fl.1615). 1615. A True Discourse of the Present Estate of Virginia. London: Welby.Google Scholar
Harriot, Thomas (1560–1621). 1588. A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia. London: [Robinson]. (Repr. in Hakluyt 1600.266–280 & 1904, vol.VIII1, 348–386; Quinn 1955 I1, 317–387.)Google Scholar
. 1631. Artis analyticae praxis. [Ed. by Walter Warner]. London: Barker.Google Scholar
Hart, John (c.1500–1574). 1955. John Hart’s Works on English Orthography and Pronunciation 1551. 1569. 1570. Ed. by Bror Danielsson. (= Stockholm Studies in English, 5.) Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell.Google Scholar
Hooke, Robert (1635–1703). 1935. “The Life and Work of Robert Hooke”. Early Science in Oxford ed. by Robert W. T. Gunther, vol. X1. Oxford: the Author.Google Scholar
Koerner, Konrad. 1989. “Towards a History of Amerindian Linguistics”. Actes du Vingtième Congrès des Algonquinistes ed. by William Cowan, 179–192. Ottawa: Carleton Univ.Google Scholar
Kupperman, Karen O. 1980. Settling with the Indians. London-Toronto-Melbourne: Dent.Google Scholar
1988. Captain John Smith. Chapel Hill & London: North Carolina Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Lescarbot, Marc. 1609. Nova Francia. Transl. by P. E[rondelle]. London: Bishop.Google Scholar
Lodwick, Francis (1619–1694). 1972[1686]. “An Essay towards an Universal Alphabet”. The Works of Francis Lodwick ed. by Vivian Salmon, 235–242. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Mersenne, Marin (1588–1648). 1965. Correspondance. Ed. by Cornelis de Waard, vol. IX, 62. Paris: CNRS.Google Scholar
Percy, George (1580–1632). 1969[1607]. Discourse of the Plantation in the Southerne Colonie of Virginia. Barbour 1969.129–146.Google Scholar
Porter, Harry C. 1979. The Inconstant Savage. London: Duckworth.Google Scholar
Preston, Richard A. 1953. Gorges of Plymouth Fort. Toronto: Toronto Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Purchas, Samuel (?1575–1626), ed. 1625. “The Description of the Countrey of Mawooshen”. Hakluytus Posthumus; or Purchas his Pilgrimes, Vol.IV1, 1873–1874. London: Fetherstone.Google Scholar
Quinn, David B. 1955. The Roanoke Voyages, 1584–1590. 21 vols. London: Hakluyt Society.Google Scholar
1974a. “Thomas Harriot and the New World”. Thomas Harriot: Renaissance Scientist ed. by John W. Shirley, 36–53. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
1974b. England and the Discovery of America, 1481–1620. London: Allen & Unwin.Google Scholar
1979. New American World. Vol.III1. London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
1985. Set Fair for Roanoke. Chapel Hill, N.C. & London: America’s Four Hundredth Anniversary Committee.Google Scholar
1986. “Religion in North America in the Sixteenth Century”. Bibliotheca della Ricerca: Cultura Straniera 131.17–41.Google Scholar
Quinn, David B. & Alison M. Quinn. 1983. The English New England Voyages, 1602–1608. London: Hakluyt Society.Google Scholar
Rambaud, Honorat (fl.1578). 1578. La Declaracion des Abvs que lon commet en escrivant. Lyons: De Tournes.Google Scholar
Rasles, Sebastien, S. J. (d.1724). 1833[c.l700]. “A Dictionary of the Abnaki Language, in North America. With introductory memoir and notes by John Pickering. Memoirs of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, n.s. 11.370–574. [Actually translated from French manuscript.]Google Scholar
Recorde, Robert (?1510–1558). 1577. The Whetstone of Wit. London: Kyngston.Google Scholar
Robinson, Robert (fl.1617). 1957[1617]. The Art of Pronuntiation: The phonetic writings of Robert Robinson ed. by Eric J. Dobson, 1–28. London: Early English Text Society.Google Scholar
Rosier, James (1575–1635). 1983[1605]. A True Relation of the Most Prosperous Voyage Made this Present Yeere 1605. London: Bishop. (Repr. in Quinn & Quinn, 250–309.)Google Scholar
Rudolff, Christoph. 1553. Die Coss C. Rudolffs. Ed. by Michael Stiefel. Königsberg: Behm von Luthomise.Google Scholar
Seaton, Ethel M. 1956. “Thomas Hariot’s Secret Script”. Ambix 51.111–114. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sergeaunt, John. 1895. “Busby’s Account Book”. A Memoir of Richard Busby D.D. ed. by G. F. Russell Barker, 104–119. London: Lawrence & Bullen.Google Scholar
Sheehan, Bernard W. 1980. Savagism and Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Shirley, John W. 1974. “Sir Walter Raleigh and Thomas Harriot”. Thomas Harriot: Renaissance Scientist ed. by J. W. Shirley, 16–35. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
1983. Thomas Harriot: A biography. Ibid.Google Scholar
Siebert, Frank T. 1975. “Resurrecting Virginia Algonquian from the Dead: The reconstituted and historical phonology of Powhatan”. Studies in Southeastern Indian Languages ed. by James M. Crawford, 285–453. Athens: Univ. of Georgia Press.Google Scholar
Sion College. 1650. Catalogus universalis librorum omnium. London: Laybourn.Google Scholar
Smith, John. 1986. The Complete Works of Captain John Smith (1580–1631). Ed. by Philip L. Barbour. Chapel Hill & London: Univ. of North Carolina Press.Google Scholar
S[pencer], J[ohn]. 1632. Catalogus librorum omnium quotquot in hac Bibliotheca Collegii Sionensis in studiosorum vsum extant. Per Ioh. Spencerum Bibliothecarium.Google Scholar
Spencer, John. 1650a. Catalogus librorum omnium M.M.S.S. in bibliotheca hac de Sione apud Londinensis.Google Scholar
. 1650b. Catalogus universalis librorum omnium Bibliotheca Collegii Sionis. London: Leybourn.Google Scholar
Stevens, Cj. 1956. “Soul Savers, Grammarians and the Red Man”. American Speech 311.40–51. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Strachey, William (fl.1609–1618). 1953[c.l612]. The Historie of Travell into Virginia. Ed. by Louis B. Wright & Virginia Freund. London: Hakluyt Society.Google Scholar
Sturtevant, William C. & David B. Quinn. 1987. “This New Prey: Eskimos in Europe in 1567, 1576 and 1577” Indians in Europe ed. by Christian F. Feest, 61–140. Aachen: Rader-Verlag.Google Scholar
Tanner, Rosalind H. C. 1967. “The Study of Thomas Harriot’s Manuscripts. I: Harriot’s will”. History of Science 61.1–16. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
1969. “Nathaniel Torporley and the Harriot Manuscripts”. Annals of Science 251.339–349. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Taylor, Eva G. R. 1951. “Instructions to a Colonial Surveyor in 1582”. The Mariner’s Mirror 371.48–62. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Trevor-Roper, Hugh, ed. 1968. The Age of Expansion. London: Thames & Hudson.Google Scholar
Wallace, Alec. 1985. “Thomas Harriot and Walter Raleigh in Ireland”. Durham Thomas Harriot Seminar, Occasional Paper No. 2.Google Scholar
[White, John] (1575–1648). 1630. The Planters Plea. London: Jones.Google Scholar
Wilkins, John. (1614–1672). 1668. An Essay towards a Real Character, and a Philosophical Language. London: Gellibrand & Martyn.Google Scholar
Williams, Roger (?1604–1683). 1643. A Key into the Language of America. London: Dexter.Google Scholar
Williamson, James A. 1962. The Cabot Voyages and Bristol Discovery under Henry VII. London: Hakluyt Society.Google Scholar
Wolfart, H. Christoph. 1977. “Another Algonquian Contribution to Historical Linguistics: Siebert’s Powhatan”. IJAL 431.162–165.Google Scholar
. 1988. “The Beginnings of Algonquian Lexicography”. Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 1321.119–127.Google Scholar
Cited by (5)

Cited by five other publications

Stedall, Jacqueline
2007. Symbolism, combinations, and visual imagery in the mathematics of Thomas Harriot. Historia Mathematica 34:4 ► pp. 380 ff. DOI logo
Oberg, Michael Leroy
2000. Between ‘Savage Man’ and ‘Most Faithful Englishman’ Manteo and the Early Anglo-Indian Exchange, 1584–1590. Itinerario 24:2 ► pp. 146 ff. DOI logo
Oberg, Michael Leroy
2000. Between ‘Savage Man’ and ‘Most Faithful Englishman’ Manteo and the Early Anglo-Indian Exchange, 1584–1590. Itinerario 24:2 ► pp. 146 ff. DOI logo
Koerner, Konrad
1996. Publications By Vivian Salmon, 1957–1996. Historiographia Linguistica 23:1-2 ► pp. 243 ff. DOI logo
[no author supplied]
2021. A History of the Study of the Indigenous Languages of North America [Studies in the History of the Language Sciences, 129], DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 5 january 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.