‘Genius grant’a boost to linguist as she revive s a native language (fwd link)

[Phillip E Cash Cash]

‘Genius grant’ a boost to linguist as she revives a native language

By Laura Collins-Hughes
Globe Staff / September 28, 2010
USA

First she cried. Then she found out about the money and nearly fainted.

Jessie Little Doe Baird was overcome at the news that her 17 years of
linguistic work — resurrecting the language the Wampanoag people spoke and
wrote until at least the mid-1800s — had landed her a MacArthur Fellows
“genius grant’’ of $500,000. The 23 recipients of this year’s John D. and
Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation grants, including five others from New
England, were announced this morning.

When the foundation notified Baird, 46, a Mashpee linguist and the program
director of the Wôpanâak Language Reclamation Project, two weeks ago of the
fellowship, the honor brought her to tears. As far as she knows, her
6-year-old daughter is the only child since the 19th century raised from
birth to speak Wampanoag (or, in that language, Wôpanâak).

Access full article below:
http://www.boston.com/lifestyle/articles/2010/09/28/reviving_wampanoag_earns_linguist_a_genius_grant/
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ilat/attachments/20100928/7610b4b2/attachment.htm>