Margaret Langdon

Margaret Langdon (c. 1926, Louvain, Belgium – October 25, 2005) was a US linguist who studied and documented many languages of the American Southwest and California, including Kumeyaay, Northern Diegueño (Ipai), and Luiseño.[1] Langdon worked with various tribal elders throughout her career on southwestern languages. She compiled the first dictionary of the Mesa Grande language.[2] She was a leading figure in the field of Yuman language studies.[3][4]

Margaret Langdon
Bornc. 1926
Louvain, Belgium
DiedOctober 25, 2005
NationalityAmerican
OccupationLinguist
Academic background
Alma materUniversity of California-Berkeley (Ph.D., 1966)
Doctoral advisorMary Haas
Academic work
Notable studentsPamela Munro, Leanne Hinton
Main interestsLanguages of the American Southwest and California

Biography

Langdon (née Storms) was born in Belgium and immigrated to the United States following World War II. She grew up speaking French and Flemish. She earned her PhD in 1966 at the University of California-Berkeley under Mary Haas.[5] Her doctoral thesis was a dictionary of the Mesa Grande dialect of Diegueño.[1][6]

She taught at the Linguistics Department of the University of California, San Diego from 1965 to 1991, where she served as chair of the department from 1985–1988.[6] She was advisor to 17 graduate dissertations in linguistics, addressing such languages as Navajo, Palauan, Mojave, Havasupai, Seri, and others.[7] Among her students at UCSD were linguists Pamela Munro, Leanne Hinton, Cheryl Hinton, Steve Elster, and Loni Langdon.

Selected publications

Langdon, Margaret. 1970. A Grammar of Diegueño: The Mesa Grande Dialect. University of California Publications in Linguistics 66. Berkeley.

Langdon, Margaret. 1974. Comparative Hokan-Coahuiltecan Studies, a Survey and Appraisal. Janua Linguarum, Series Critica, 4. The Hague-Paris-New York: Mouton and Co.

Langdon, Margaret. 1979. Some Thoughts on Hokan with Particular Reference to Pomoan and Yuman. In The Languages of Native America, Lyle Campbell and Marianne Mithun, eds., pp. 562–649. Austin and London: University of Texas Press, ISBN 9780292768529

Langdon, Margaret. 1986. Hokan-Siouan Revisited. In New Perspectives in Language, Culture and Personality (Proceedings of the Edward Sapir Centenary Conference, Ottawa, 1-3 Oct. 1984), W Cowan, M.K. Foster, and K. Koemer, eds., pp. 111–146. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Co.

Langdon, Margaret. 1990. Morphosyntax and Problems of Reconstruction in Yuman and Hokan. In Linguistic Change and Reconstruction Methodology, Philip Baldi, ed., pp. 57–72. Trends in Linguistics, Studies and Monographs 45. Berlin-New York-Amsterdam: Mouton de Gruyter.

References
  1. "Margaret Langdon; linguist helped write first local Indian dictionary | The San Diego Union-Tribune". Archived from the original on 2016-10-11.
  2. "Barona Spirits Speak: Newsletter of the Barona Cultural Center and MuseumWinter 2006, Vol. VI, #1" (PDF). VI (#1). Barona Cultural Center and Museum. Winter 2006: 1. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2011-07-25. Retrieved 2009-09-27. Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  3. Langdon, Margaret (1976). Yuman texts. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
  4. Hinton, Leanne. "Yuman Linguistics: the work of Margaret Langdon" (PDF).
  5. "Publications | Linguistics". lx.berkeley.edu. Retrieved 2018-03-10.
  6. "Margaret Langdon obituary" (PDF).
  7. "UC San Diego - Linguistics People - Alumni". linguistics.ucsd.edu. Retrieved 13 May 2010.

Archival sources

Finding Aid to the Margaret Langdon Papers, 1957-2001 held at The Bancroft Library, UC Berkeley.


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