Robert Hale Ives Goddard III (born 1941) is a linguist and a

curator A curator (from la, cura, meaning "to take care") is a manager or overseer. When working with cultural organizations, a curator is typically a "collections curator" or an "exhibitions curator", and has multifaceted tasks dependent on the parti ...

emeritus in the Department of

Anthropology Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including past human species. Social anthropology studies patterns of behavi ...

of the

National Museum of Natural History The National Museum of Natural History is a natural history museum administered by the Smithsonian Institution, located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., United States. It has free admission and is open 364 days a year. In 2021, with 7 ...

at the

Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Founded ...

. He is widely considered the leading expert on the

Algonquian languages The Algonquian languages ( or ; also Algonkian) are a subfamily of Indigenous languages of the Americas, indigenous American languages that include most languages in the Algic languages, Algic language family. The name of the Algonquian language f ...

and the larger

Algic The Algic languages (also Algonquian–Wiyot–Yurok or Algonquian–Ritwan) are an indigenous language family of North America. Most Algic languages belong to the Algonquian subfamily, dispersed over a broad area from the Rocky Mountains to ...

language family.

Early life and education

Goddard received his B.A. from

Harvard College Harvard College is the undergraduate college of Harvard University, an Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636, Harvard College is the original school of Harvard University, the oldest institution of higher lea ...

in 1963 and his Ph.D. from

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

in 1969. From 1966–1969 he was a junior fellow of the

Harvard Society of Fellows The Society of Fellows is a group of scholars selected at the beginnings of their careers by Harvard University for their potential to advance academic wisdom, upon whom are bestowed distinctive opportunities to foster their individual and intell ...

Career

After earning his doctorate, Goddard taught for several years at Harvard as a junior professor. In 1975, he moved to the

. His own field research in linguistics has concentrated on the

Delaware languages The Delaware languages, also known as the Lenape languages ( del, Lënapei èlixsuwakàn), are Munsee and Unami, two closely related languages of the Eastern Algonquian subgroup of the Algonquian language family. Munsee and Unami, spoken abo ...

and

Meskwaki The Meskwaki (sometimes spelled Mesquaki), also known by the European exonyms Fox Indians or the Fox, are a Native American people. They have been closely linked to the Sauk people of the same language family. In the Meskwaki language, the ...

(Fox). He is also known for work on the Algonquian

Massachusett language The Massachusett language is an Algonquian language of the Algic language family, formerly spoken by several peoples of eastern coastal and southeastern Massachusetts. In its revived form, it is spoken in four communities of Wampanoag people ...

, and the history of the

Cheyenne language The Cheyenne language (, ) (informal spelling Tsisinstsistots), is the Native American language spoken by the Cheyenne people, predominantly in present-day Montana and Oklahoma, in the United States. It is part of the Algonquian language fami ...

. He has also published on the history of the Arapahoan branch of Algonquian: its two current lines that are extant are

Arapaho The Arapaho (; french: Arapahos, ) are a Native American people historically living on the plains of Colorado and Wyoming. They were close allies of the Cheyenne tribe and loosely aligned with the Lakota and Dakota. By the 1850s, Arapaho band ...

and

Gros Ventre The Gros Ventre ( , ; meaning "big belly"), also known as the Aaniiih, A'aninin, Haaninin, Atsina, and White Clay, are a historically Algonquian-speaking Native American tribe located in north central Montana. Today the Gros Ventre people are ...

, spoken by tribal members in the West. Goddard is a prominent figure in the study of the methodology of historical linguistics. He has played a significant role in critiquing crank historical linguistic work. He is the linguistic and technical editor of the ''

Handbook of North American Indians The ''Handbook of North American Indians'' is a series of edited scholarly and reference volumes in Native American studies, published by the Smithsonian Institution beginning in 1978. Planning for the handbook series began in the late 1960s and ...

''.

Awards

* He received the Kenneth L. Hale Award from the LSA in 2002. * Goddard and Thomas Love received the Joel Palmer Award in 2005 for their article "Oregon the Beautiful".

Publications

* Kiyana, Alfred. (2022) Masahkamikohkwêwa (Grandmother Earth), Thomason, Lucy G. and Goddard, Ives, editors. Petoskey, Michigan: Mundart Press. ISBN 9798986545004 * *

References

External links

Ives Goddard homepage
National Museum of Natural History
Department of Anthropology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution

{{DEFAULTSORT:Goddard, Ives Linguists from the United States Historical linguists Harvard College alumni Harvard University faculty Living people 1941 births Smithsonian Institution people Linguists of Algic languages Linguists of Muskogean languages Linguists of Uto-Aztecan languages 20th-century linguists 21st-century linguists Fellows of the Linguistic Society of America