Joel Fred Sherzer (March 18, 1942 – November 6, 2022) was an American
anthropological linguist known for his research with the
Guna people
The Guna, are an Indigenous people of Panama and Colombia. In the Guna language, they call themselves ''Dule'' or ''Tule'', meaning "people", and the name of the language is ''Dulegaya'', literally "people-mouth".
The term was in the language ...
of
Panama
Panama ( , ; es, link=no, Panamá ), officially the Republic of Panama ( es, República de Panamá), is a transcontinental country spanning the southern part of North America and the northern part of South America. It is bordered by Co ...
and his focus on verbal art and discourse-centered approaches to linguistic research. He co-founded the
Archive of the Indigenous Languages of Latin America
The Archive of the Indigenous Languages of Latin America (AILLA) is a digital repository housed in LLILAS Benson Latin American Studies and Collections at the University of Texas at Austin. AILLA is a digital language archive dedicated to the digi ...
. Sherzer completed his
Ph.D.
A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...
at the
University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...
in 1968 and thereafter taught at the
University of Texas at Austin
The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,07 ...
for his entire career.
Awards
* 1978
Guggenheim Fellowship
* 2018
Archiving Award
The Archive of the Indigenous Languages of Latin America
Over the course of his research career, Sherzer observed that scholars were creating substantial collections of recordings and texts in indigenous Latin American languages, and he was concerned about the preservation of these priceless collections of indigenous verbal art. In 2001, Sherzer, along with Anthony Woodbury and Mark McFarland, founded the
Archive of the Indigenous Languages of Latin America
The Archive of the Indigenous Languages of Latin America (AILLA) is a digital repository housed in LLILAS Benson Latin American Studies and Collections at the University of Texas at Austin. AILLA is a digital language archive dedicated to the digi ...
to collect, digitize, and permanently preserve these resources and make them freely available over the internet.
Works
* ''Adoring the saints: Fiestas in Central Mexico''. Yolanda Lastra, Dina Sherzer, and Joel Sherzer. Austin: University of Texas Press. 2009
* ''Stories, myths, chants, and songs of the Kuna Indians''. Compiled, edited and translated by Joel Sherzer. Austin: University of Texas Press. 2004
* ''Speech play and verbal art''. Austin: University of Texas Press. 2002.
* ''Translating Native American Verbal Art: Ethnopoetics and Ethnography of Speaking''. Edited by Kay Sammons and Joel Sherzer. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press. 2000.
* ''Verbal art in San Blas: Kuna culture through its discourse''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1990
* ''Las culturas'' ''nativas Latino Americanas a través de su discurso''. Editors Ellen Basso and Joel Sherzer. Quito: Ediciones Abya-Yala. 1990.
* ''Native American Discourse: Poetics and Rhetoric.'' Joel Sherzer and Anthony C. Woodbury. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1987.
* ''Native South American discourse.'' Editors Joel Sherzer and Greg Urban. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. 1986.
* ''Kuna ways of speaking: An ethnographic perspective.'' Austin: University of Texas Press. 1983.
* ''The origin and diversification of language.'' Edited posthumously by Joel Sherzer Chicago: Aldine-Atherton. 1971.
References
External links
Kuna Collection of Joel SherzerCollection of audio recordings and documents from Sherzer's research with the Guna.
Kuna Photograph Collection of Joel SherzerCollection of photographs taken by Sherzer during his research with the Guna. Also includes audio of interviews of Sherzer discussing the content of the photographs.
Fieldwork stories about Joel SherzerVideo recordings
n Spanish and Gunaof Guna people speaking of Sherzer's work.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sherzer, Joel
1942 births
2022 deaths
Linguists from the United States
University of Pennsylvania alumni
University of Texas at Austin faculty