Inscribing Sovereignties

Writing Community in Native North America

Phillip H. Round

• Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
• Year: 2024
• Print ISBN: 9781469680699, 9781469680682
• eBook ISBN: 9781469680705
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Media Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

Before European settlers arrived in North America, more than 300 distinct languages were being spoken among the continent’s Indigenous peoples. But the Euro-American emphasis on alphabetic literacy has historically hidden the power and influence of Indigenous verbal and nonverbal language diversity on encounters between Indigenous North Americans and settlers. In this pathbreaking work, Phillip H. Round reveals how Native North Americans sparked a communications revolution in their adaptation and resistance to settlers' modes of speaking and writing. Round especially focuses on communication through inscription—the physical act of making a mark, the tools involved, and the social and cultural processes that render the mark legible. Using methods from history, literary studies, media studies, linguistics, and material culture studies, Round shows how Indigenous graphic practices embodied Native epistemologies while fostering linguistic innovation.

Round’s broad theory of graphogenesis—creating meaningful inscription—leads to new insights for both the past and present of Indigenous expression in a range of forms. Readers will find powerful new insights into Indigenous languages and linguistic practices, with important implications not just for scholars but for those working to support ongoing Native American self-determination.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Prelude
• Note on Orthography
• Introduction. Logos and the Indigenous Word
• Chapter 1. Spelling “Indian”
• Chapter 2. Kahiatónhsera: Marking the Matters of the Good Message
• Chapter 3. Wowapi: Inscribing the Oceti Sakowin
• Chapter 4. Paw-pa-pe-po: They Told Me That One Had Invented an Alphabet
• CODA. The Sovereign Reality of Phonemes
• Acknowledgments
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index