Ken Hale

Tom Givon tgivon at OREGON.UOREGON.EDU
Fri Oct 12 04:44:48 UTC 2001


Dear friends & fellow travelers,

I was hoping someone else would beat me to this sad debt, but it seems
no one has, and it has been a peculiar year to say the least. So-- on
Monday morning, Oct. 8, one of our best & most beloved, Ken Hale, passed
away after a long illness.

Perhaps the best testimony to Ken's magnificent life was that he was
beloved and appreciated in equal measures on both sides of the
linguistic divide. For he combined a life-long infatuation with the
minutiae of far-flung languages with an unquenchable curiosity about
what made Human Language tick; that, and deep concern for the
survival of endangered languages and cultures.

Ken was a polyglot who loved theory, a country boy who loved the open
range and the Western fiddle, a buddy to go up the desert mountain with.
Above all perhaps, he was a true sweetheart who never had a sour word to
say about anybody. In linguistics, that alone must earn him a citation,
alas posthumous, for supreme valor.

We will all miss him.     CON CUIDADO, JEFE!


                                          Tomas



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