Jessie Little Doe Baird (also Jessie Little Doe Fermino, born 18 November 1963) is a linguist known for her efforts to revive the Wampanoag (Wôpanâak) language. She received a

MacArthur Fellowship The MacArthur Fellows Program, also known as the MacArthur Fellowship and commonly but unofficially known as the "Genius Grant", is a prize awarded annually by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation typically to between 20 and 30 indi ...

in 2010. She resides in

Mashpee, Massachusetts Mashpee ( wam, Mâseepee) is a town in Barnstable County, Massachusetts, United States, on Cape Cod. The population was 15,060 as of 2020. The town is the site of the headquarters and most members of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe, one of two fed ...

Life

In 1992 or 1993, Baird experienced many dreams that she believed to be visions of her ancestors meeting her and speaking in their language, which she did not understand at first. According to a prophecy of her

Wampanoag The Wampanoag , also rendered Wôpanâak, are an Indigenous people of the Northeastern Woodlands based in southeastern Massachusetts and historically parts of eastern Rhode Island,Salwen, "Indians of Southern New England and Long Island," p. 1 ...

community, a woman of their kind would leave her home to bring back their language and "the children of those who had had a hand in breaking the language cycle would help heal it." In around the same year, Baird began teaching the Wôpanâak language at tribal sites in Mashpee and Aquinnah. Baird studied for a master's degree from the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...

three years later, where she studied with linguist Dr. Kenneth L. Hale; together they collaborated to create a language database based on official written records, government correspondences and religious texts, especially a 1663 Bible printed by Puritan minister John Eliot kept in the archives of MIT. This led to the first +10,000-word dictionary of Wôpanâak language, complied by Baird and Hale in 1996. Baird and her work on Wôpanâak language reconstruction and revival are the subject of a PBS documentary, ''We Still Live Here – Âs Nutayuneân'', directed by Anne Makepeace. Baird also serves as the vice-chairwoman of the Mashpee Wampanoag Indian Tribal Council. In 2017, Jessie Little Doe Baird received an honorary Doctorate in Social Sciences from Yale University.

References

External links

* 11 min. * Additional footage from the "We Still Live Here – Âs Nutayuneân" documentary (2011).
Wôpanâak Language Reclamation Project
Retrieved 14 November 2022. {{DEFAULTSORT:Baird, Jessie Little Doe 1963 births Living people MacArthur Fellows Native American linguists Native American language revitalization MIT School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences alumni Place of birth missing (living people) Linguists of Algic languages Wampanoag people Native American people from Massachusetts 20th-century linguists 21st-century linguists 20th-century Native Americans 21st-century Native Americans Linguists from the United States 21st-century Native American women Women linguists