LaVerne Masayesva Jeanne is an

anthropologist An anthropologist is a person engaged in the practice of anthropology. Anthropology is the study of aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology, cultural anthropology and philosophical anthropology study the norms and ...

and linguist at the University of Nevada at Reno, where she is an emerita associate professor. She received her PhD at MIT in 1978, where she studied with linguist Ken Hale. Together with MIT her classmate

Navajo The Navajo (; British English: Navaho; nv, Diné or ') are a Native American people of the Southwestern United States. With more than 399,494 enrolled tribal members , the Navajo Nation is the largest federally recognized tribe in the United ...

Paul R. Platero, Jeanne is one of the first two Native Americans to have received a PhD degree in linguistics. Her work has been primarily focused on the

Hopi language Hopi (Hopi: ) is a Uto-Aztecan language spoken by the Hopi people (a Puebloan group) of northeastern Arizona, United States. The use of Hopi has gradually declined over the course of the 20th century. In 1990, it was estimated that more than 5,0 ...

(her mother language). Her 1978 thesis (supervised by Hale) was entitled ''Aspects of Hopi Grammar''. She also co-authored a heavily cited article in Language with Hale, Michael Krauss,

Colette Craig Colette Grinevald (born 1947) is a French linguist. She earned her PhD from Harvard University in 1975 and joined the newly created Linguistics department at the University of Oregon in 1977. Grinevald has written grammars of Jakaltek Popti' and ...

, and others on the state of endangered languages. She was also involved with Hopi revitalization projects.

References

Linguists from the United States Women linguists American anthropologists Native American academics Native American women academics American women academics University of Nevada, Reno faculty Hopi people Living people Linguists of Uto-Aztecan languages 21st-century Native Americans 21st-century Native American women Massachusetts Institute of Technology alumni 1944 births {{US-linguist-stub