Endangered Language Linguist awarded prestigious MacArthur Fellowship

September 29th, 02010 by Laura Welcher

Jessie Little Doe Baird, a linguist who has worked for years on reviving the Wampanoag (Wôpanâak) Language, has just been awarded a 02010 MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship in honor of her work and research.

Baird, who is of Wamponoag heritage, studied at MIT under the indigenous language scholar Kenneth Hale. By immersing herself in the language, she has achieved fluency, effectively reviving in herself the spoken use of the long-silent language. Her research is focused on developing a dictionary of Wampanoag, which now includes nearly 10,000 words, as well as language teaching resources, through which she hopes to help usher the language into modern use in the Wampanoag community.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 29th, 02010 at 10:48 am and is filed under Rosetta.

  • JL

    I'm going to commit what's probably the highest heresy in linguistics and anthropology here. While I “get” the work to preserve ancient languages to better understand our collective heritage, is a contemporary plurality of languages something we should encourage? As we become an increasingly globalized humanity, connected instantly and ever more deeply and intimately, it seems that diversity of language becomes an obstacle rather than a benefit. Perhaps a single, common global language is a key to global understanding, harmony, cooperation, and so forth. I would also offer than within 20-30 years, real-time translation engines will virtually commonize all language – further shrinking the globe into a common forum.

Blog of the Long Now

Ideas about Long-term Thinking.

     

Categories

Archives

Meta

«
»
Some Rights Reserved (CC)

The Long Now Foundation
Fostering Long-term Responsibility
est. 01996.