The Mary R. Haas Book Award is presented to a junior scholar for an unpublished manuscript that makes a significant substantive contribution about Indigenous languages of the Americas. The award carries no financial stipend, but the winning manuscripts will be considered for publication under the Society’s auspices in the University of Nebraska Press series “Studies in the Native Languages of the Americas.”
SSILA received a large number of excellent nominations for the Mary R. Haas Book Award this year. As a result, the committee chose to award one winner and three honourable mentions. Please join us in congratulating the following young scholars and their work!
Dr. Ryan Henke has been awarded the Mary Haas Book Award for his University of Hawai‘i at Manoa dissertation The First Language Acquisition of Nominal Inflection in Northern East Cree: Possessives and Nouns. The well-written dissertation describes and analyzes the L1 acquisition of Northern East Cree nominal inflections which are linguistically expressed in polysynthetic and morphological form in Northern East Cree speech. Henke draws from data found in a rich corpus containing said language samples of child directed NEC speech. Henke’s study is undeniably original and significant given the paucity of linguistic research in this area, and the current realities of language endangerment involving Indigenous communities. This sensitivity represents the current new paradigm in linguistics where acknowledgment is given the one’s positionality and them problem of adopting of positivistic science approaches that may otherwise come into conflict with interpretive Indigenous communities. In this regard, Henke’s dissertation shows a unique commitment and understanding to linguistics theory and its place in the world of living interpretive speech communities.
Dr. Esteban Diaz Montenegro was awarded an Honourable Mention for his Université Lumière Lyon 2 dissertation entitled El habla nasa (páez) de Munchique: nuevos acercamientos a su sociolingüística, fonología y morfosintaxis [The Nasa (Paez) language of Munchique : new approaches to its sociolinguistics, phonology and morphosyntax]. This social and grammatical description is very clear with multiple examples, gathered from exemplary work in an in-flux community. It is an important contribution especially given the paucity of knowledge of this language. Dr. Diaz chose to write his dissertation in Spanish so that it could be more accessible to the community.
Dr. John Elliott received an Honourable Mention for his University of Hawai‘i at Manoa dissertation A Grammar or Enxet Sur. This is a very comprehensive grammar of an under-described language. The writing, formatting, and organization are all commendable, and thus, it is a stellar example of both documentation and description of a language.
Dr. James Sarmento received an Honourable Mention for his University of California, Davis dissertation The Shasta Language: A One-Hundred Year Conversation. Sarmento’s approach is theoretically and methodologically grounded in the realities of a living Indigenous community absent of its heritage language. This reality therefore shapes that way in which Sarmento designs his methodology. His claim is that the Indigenous language revitalization and reclamation of Shasta requires an emergent ‘conversation’ (as community-engaged practice) between living Shashta and the historical and idealogical dimensions of Shashta language work. In this way, Sarmento’s dissertation is original and compelling given the current realities of Shashta language and culture.