Mary Haas
Encyclopedia
Mary Rosamund Haas was an American
linguist
who specialized in North American Indian
languages, Thai
, and historical linguistics
.
she undertook graduate work on comparative philology. It was at Chicago that Haas began to study under Edward Sapir
, whom she would follow to Yale
. She began a long career in linguistic fieldwork at that time, studying various languages during the summer months. The languages that she studied over the ten-year period from 1931 to 1941 included Nitinat, Tunica
, Natchez
, Creek
, Koasati
, Choctaw
, Alabama
, and Hichiti. Her first published paper, A Visit to the Other World, a Nitinat Text, a collaboration with Morris Swadesh
(to whom she would later be married for a time), was published in 1933.
She went on to complete her Ph.D.
in linguistics
from Yale University
in 1935 with a dissertation entitled A Grammar of the Tunica Language. (Tunica was a language once spoken in what is now Louisiana
.) Haas worked with the last fluent speaker of Tunica, Sesostrie Youchigant
, producing extensive texts and vocabularies. She received the Ph.D at the age of 25.
Shortly afterwards, she conducted fieldwork with the last two speakers of the Natchez language
in Oklahoma
, Watt Sam and Nancy Raven, resulting in extensive unpublished field notes that constitute the most reliable source of information on the language. Shortly after this, she conducted extensive fieldwork on the Creek language
as well, and was the first modern linguist to collect extensive texts in the language. Most of her notes on Creek and Natchez remain unpublished, though they have begun to be used by contemporary linguists.
pointed out in his obituary of Haas that she trained more Americanist
linguists than her former instructors Edward Sapir
and Franz Boas
combined: she supervised fieldwork in Americanist linguistics by more than 100 Ph.D. students. She was a founder and director of the Survey of California Indian Languages
, in this capacity she advised nearly fifty dissertations, including those of many linguists who would go on to be influential in the field, including William Bright
(Karok
), William Shipley
(Maidu
), Robert Oswalt (Kashaya
), Karl Teeter (Wiyot
), Margaret Langdon
(Diegueño
), Sally McLendon (Eastern Pomo
), Victor Golla (Hupa
), Mark Okrand (Mutsun
), Kenneth Whistler (Proto-Wintun
), William Jacobsen (Washo
), and others.
, the study and teaching of Southeast Asian languages was considered by the Allies to be important to the war effort, so under the auspices of the Army Specialized Training Program
at the University of California at Berkeley, Haas developed a program to teach the Thai language
. Her authoritative Thai-English Students' Dictionary, published in 1964, is still in use.
Haas was appointed to a permanent position at the University of California, Berkeley
department of Oriental Languages (an appointment she attributed to Peter A. Boodberg
, whom she described as "ahead of his time in the way he treated women scholars—a scholar was a scholar in his book").
She served as President of the Linguistic Society of America
in 1963. She received honorary doctorates from Northwestern University
in 1975, the University of Chicago
in 1976, Earlham College
, 1980, and Ohio State University
in 1980.
She died on May 17, 1996 in Alameda County, California
, aged 86.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
linguist
Linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....
who specialized in North American Indian
Native Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
languages, Thai
Thai language
Thai , also known as Central Thai and Siamese, is the national and official language of Thailand and the native language of the Thai people, Thailand's dominant ethnic group. Thai is a member of the Tai group of the Tai–Kadai language family. Historical linguists have been unable to definitively...
, and historical linguistics
Historical linguistics
Historical linguistics is the study of language change. It has five main concerns:* to describe and account for observed changes in particular languages...
.
Early work in linguistics
At the University of ChicagoUniversity of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...
she undertook graduate work on comparative philology. It was at Chicago that Haas began to study under Edward Sapir
Edward Sapir
Edward Sapir was an American anthropologist-linguist, widely considered to be one of the most important figures in the early development of the discipline of linguistics....
, whom she would follow to Yale
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
. She began a long career in linguistic fieldwork at that time, studying various languages during the summer months. The languages that she studied over the ten-year period from 1931 to 1941 included Nitinat, Tunica
Tunica language
The Tunica language was a language isolate spoken in the Central and Lower Mississippi Valley by in the United States by Native American Tunica peoples. There are no known speakers of the Tunica language remaining.When the last known fluent speaker Sesostrie Youchigant died, the language became...
, Natchez
Natchez language
Natchez was a language of Louisiana. Its two last fluent speakers, Watt Sam and Nancy Raven, died in the late 1930s. The Natchez nation is now working to revive it as a spoken language.-Classification:...
, Creek
Creek language
The Creek language, also known as Muskogee or Muscogee , is a Muskogean language spoken by Muscogee and Seminole people primarily in the U.S. states of Oklahoma and Florida....
, Koasati
Koasati language
Koasati is a Native American language of Muskogean origin. The language is spoken by the Coushatta people, most of whom live in Allen Parish north of the town of Elton, Louisiana, though a smaller number share a reservation near Livingston, Texas, with the Alabama people...
, Choctaw
Choctaw language
The Choctaw language, traditionally spoken by the Native American Choctaw people of the southeastern United States, is a member of the Muskogean family...
, Alabama
Alabama language
Alabama is a Native American language, spoken by the Alabama-Coushatta tribe of Texas. It was once spoken by the Alabama-Quassarte Tribal Town of Oklahoma, but there are no more Alabama speakers in Oklahoma. It is a Muskogean language, and is believed to have been related to the Muklasa and...
, and Hichiti. Her first published paper, A Visit to the Other World, a Nitinat Text, a collaboration with Morris Swadesh
Morris Swadesh
Morris Swadesh was an influential and controversial American linguist. In his work, he applied basic concepts in historical linguistics to the Indigenous languages of the Americas...
(to whom she would later be married for a time), was published in 1933.
She went on to complete her Ph.D.
Ph.D.
A Ph.D. is a Doctor of Philosophy, an academic degree.Ph.D. may also refer to:* Ph.D. , a 1980s British group*Piled Higher and Deeper, a web comic strip*PhD: Phantasy Degree, a Korean comic series* PhD Docbook renderer, an XML renderer...
in linguistics
Linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....
from Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
in 1935 with a dissertation entitled A Grammar of the Tunica Language. (Tunica was a language once spoken in what is now Louisiana
Louisiana
Louisiana is a state located in the southern region of the United States of America. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans. Louisiana is the only state in the U.S. with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are local governments equivalent to counties...
.) Haas worked with the last fluent speaker of Tunica, Sesostrie Youchigant
Sesostrie Youchigant
Sesostrie Youchigant was the last native speaker of the Tunica language. He worked with linguist Mary Haas to describe what he remembered of the language, and the description was published in A Grammar of the Tunica Language in 1939.-External links:...
, producing extensive texts and vocabularies. She received the Ph.D at the age of 25.
Shortly afterwards, she conducted fieldwork with the last two speakers of the Natchez language
Natchez language
Natchez was a language of Louisiana. Its two last fluent speakers, Watt Sam and Nancy Raven, died in the late 1930s. The Natchez nation is now working to revive it as a spoken language.-Classification:...
in Oklahoma
Oklahoma
Oklahoma is a state located in the South Central region of the United States of America. With an estimated 3,751,351 residents as of the 2010 census and a land area of 68,667 square miles , Oklahoma is the 28th most populous and 20th-largest state...
, Watt Sam and Nancy Raven, resulting in extensive unpublished field notes that constitute the most reliable source of information on the language. Shortly after this, she conducted extensive fieldwork on the Creek language
Creek language
The Creek language, also known as Muskogee or Muscogee , is a Muskogean language spoken by Muscogee and Seminole people primarily in the U.S. states of Oklahoma and Florida....
as well, and was the first modern linguist to collect extensive texts in the language. Most of her notes on Creek and Natchez remain unpublished, though they have begun to be used by contemporary linguists.
Role in teaching
Haas was noted for her dedication to teaching linguistics, and to the role of the linguist in language instruction. Her student Karl V. TeeterKarl V. Teeter
Karl van Duyn Teeter was an American linguist known especially for his work on the Algic languages.Raised in Lexington, Massachusetts, he dropped out of high school and joined the United States Army, where he served as a Supply Sergeant from 1951-1954...
pointed out in his obituary of Haas that she trained more Americanist
Americanist
Americanist may refer to:* a scholar specializing in American studies* Americanist phonetic notation* International Congress of Americanists* Society of Early Americanists...
linguists than her former instructors Edward Sapir
Edward Sapir
Edward Sapir was an American anthropologist-linguist, widely considered to be one of the most important figures in the early development of the discipline of linguistics....
and Franz Boas
Franz Boas
Franz Boas was a German-American anthropologist and a pioneer of modern anthropology who has been called the "Father of American Anthropology" and "the Father of Modern Anthropology." Like many such pioneers, he trained in other disciplines; he received his doctorate in physics, and did...
combined: she supervised fieldwork in Americanist linguistics by more than 100 Ph.D. students. She was a founder and director of the Survey of California Indian Languages
Survey of California and Other Indian Languages
The Survey of California and Other Indian Languages at the University of California at Berkeley documents, catalogs, and archives the indigenous languages of the Americas...
, in this capacity she advised nearly fifty dissertations, including those of many linguists who would go on to be influential in the field, including William Bright
William Bright
William Bright was an American linguist who specialized in Native American and South Asian languages and descriptive linguistics....
(Karok
Karuk language
Karuk or Karok is an endangered language of northwestern California. It is the traditional language of the Karuk people, most of whom now speak English....
), William Shipley
William Shipley
William Shipley was an English drawing master, social reformer and inventor who, in 1754, founded an arts society in London that became The Royal Society of Arts, or Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures & Commerce, .-Early years, training and career:Shipley was born in...
(Maidu
Maidu language
Maidu is a severely endangered Maiduan language spoken by Maidu peoples traditionally in the mountains east and south of Lassen Peak in the American River and Feather River river drainages...
), Robert Oswalt (Kashaya
Kashaya language
Kashaya is a name for a branch of Pomo people whose historical home is the Pacific Coastline of what is now Sonoma County, California, and also their severely endangered Pomoan language. The Pomoan languages have been classified as part of the Hokan language family, although this proposal is...
), Karl Teeter (Wiyot
Wiyot language
Wiyot is an extinct Algic language, formerly spoken by the Wiyot people of Humboldt Bay, California. The language's last native speaker, Della Prince, died in 1962...
), Margaret Langdon
Margaret Langdon
Margaret Langdon was a linguist who studied and documented many languages of the American Southwest and California, including Kumeyaay, Northern Diegueño , and Luiseño....
(Diegueño
Kumeyaay language
Kumeyaay , also known as Central Diegueño, Kamia, and Campo, is the Native American language spoken by the Kumeyaay people of southern San Diego and Imperial counties in California. Hinton suggested a conservative estimate of 50 surviving Kumeyaay speakers...
), Sally McLendon (Eastern Pomo
Eastern Pomo language
Eastern Pomo is a moribund Pomoan language, spoken around Clear Lake in Lake County, California by one of the several Pomo peoples. It is not mutually intelligible with the other Pomoan languages...
), Victor Golla (Hupa
Hupa language
-External links :* * overview at the Survey of California and Other Indian Languages*...
), Mark Okrand (Mutsun
Mutsun language
Mutsun is both: a name of one sub-group of the Ohlone indigenous people of Alta California; and the name of the native language the Mutsun tribes spoke.-The people:...
), Kenneth Whistler (Proto-Wintun
Wintu language
Wintu is an endangered Wintuan language spoken by the Wintu people of Northern California.Wintu is the northernmost member of the Wintun family of languages....
), William Jacobsen (Washo
Washo language
The Washo language is an endangered Native American language isolate spoken by the Washo on the California–Nevada border in the drainages of the Truckee and Carson Rivers, especially around Lake Tahoe...
), and others.
Work on Thai
During World War IIWorld War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, the study and teaching of Southeast Asian languages was considered by the Allies to be important to the war effort, so under the auspices of the Army Specialized Training Program
Army Specialized Training Program
The Army Specialized Training Program was a military training program instituted by the United States Army during World War II at a number of American universities to meet wartime demands for junior officers and soldiers with technical skills...
at the University of California at Berkeley, Haas developed a program to teach the Thai language
Thai language
Thai , also known as Central Thai and Siamese, is the national and official language of Thailand and the native language of the Thai people, Thailand's dominant ethnic group. Thai is a member of the Tai group of the Tai–Kadai language family. Historical linguists have been unable to definitively...
. Her authoritative Thai-English Students' Dictionary, published in 1964, is still in use.
Haas was appointed to a permanent position at the University of California, Berkeley
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...
department of Oriental Languages (an appointment she attributed to Peter A. Boodberg
Peter A. Boodberg
Peter Alexis Boodberg in American spelling, was an American sinologist of Russian origin....
, whom she described as "ahead of his time in the way he treated women scholars—a scholar was a scholar in his book").
She served as President of the Linguistic Society of America
Linguistic Society of America
The Linguistic Society of America is a professional society for linguists. It was founded in 1924 to advance linguistics, the scientific study of human language. The LSA has over 5,000 individual members and welcomes linguists of all kinds. It works to advance the discipline and to communicate...
in 1963. She received honorary doctorates from Northwestern University
Northwestern University
Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston and Chicago, Illinois, USA. Northwestern has eleven undergraduate, graduate, and professional schools offering 124 undergraduate degrees and 145 graduate and professional degrees....
in 1975, the University of Chicago
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...
in 1976, Earlham College
Earlham College
Earlham College is a liberal arts college in Richmond, Indiana. It was founded in 1847 by Quakers and has approximately 1,200 students.The president is John David Dawson...
, 1980, and Ohio State University
Ohio State University
The Ohio State University, commonly referred to as Ohio State, is a public research university located in Columbus, Ohio. It was originally founded in 1870 as a land-grant university and is currently the third largest university campus in the United States...
in 1980.
She died on May 17, 1996 in Alameda County, California
Alameda County, California
Alameda County is a county in the U.S. state of California. It occupies most of the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area. As of the 2010 census it had a population of 1,510,271, making it the 7th most populous county in the state...
, aged 86.
External links
- Electronic version of Haas and Subhanka's Spoken Thai
- Obituary at Sealang Library
- Concise Encyclopedia Britannica entry