Criswell conducts a systematic linguistic analysis of the Lewis and Clark journals, examining the vocabulary, spelling, grammar, and word usage that illuminate early 19th-century American English and frontier speech patterns. The article catalogs hundreds of words and phrases that first appear in written English in the expedition journals, including terms borrowed from Native American languages, French-Canadian fur trade vocabulary, and the captains’ own coinages for newly encountered plants, animals, and landscapes. Criswell examines the distinctive spelling conventions of Clark (notorious for creative orthography, once spelling “Sioux” at least 27 different ways) and Lewis (generally more consistent but still reflecting pre-standardized American spelling). The article evaluates the journals as a document of American English in a period of rapid evolution, when the language was absorbing influences from multiple sources and adapting to describe a landscape and its inhabitants for which existing vocabulary was inadequate.
Our Partners
