Keeper of Yakama language awarded honorary degree (fwd link)

[Susan Penfield]

This is SO well deserved!  Go Virginia!
She is an inspiration to all of us who have had the gift of knowing her!

Susan

On Tue, Sep 8, 2009 at 12:51 PM, phil cash cash
<cashcash at email.arizona.edu>wrote:

> POSTED ON Monday, September 07, 2009 AT 11:07PM
>
> Keeper of Yakama language awarded honorary degree
>
> BY PHIL FEROLITO
> YAKIMA HERALD-REPUBLIC
> USA
>
> When Virginia Beavert was just a teenager, she was appointed by the Yakama
> Tribal Council to work with an anthropologist studying the tribe's culture
> on
> the reservation.
>
> Beavert was the only tribal member then who could speak English and several
> dialects of the 14 different tribes that make up the Yakama Nation.
>
> "I had to talk to the people in their own dialect," 87-year-old Beavert
> recalled.
>
> She had no idea that her translating skills would eventually lead her to
> helping
> the tribe preserve its language.
>
> Now, after playing a key role in developing a 576-page dictionary of her
> native
> language, she has been awarded an honorary doctorate degree from the
> University
> of Washington.
>
> Access full article below:
>
> http://www.yakima-herald.com/stories/2009/09/07/keeper-of-yakama-language-awarded-honorary-degree
>



-- 
**********************************************************************************************
Susan D. Penfield, Ph.D.
(Currently on leave to the National Science Foundation.
E-mail: spenfiel at nsf.gov
Phone at NSF: 703-292-4535)


Department of English (Primary)
Faculty affiliate in Linguistics, Language, Reading and Culture,
Second Language Acquisition and Teaching (SLAT),
American Indian Language Development Institute (AILDI)
The Southwest Center
University of Arizona,
Tucson, Arizona 85721
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ilat/attachments/20090908/a3296550/attachment.htm>