Marianne Mithun (born 1946) is an American linguist specializing in

American Indian languages Over a thousand indigenous languages are spoken by the Indigenous peoples of the Americas. These languages cannot all be demonstrated to be related to each other and are classified into a hundred or so language families (including a large numb ...

and

language typology Linguistic typology (or language typology) is a field of linguistics that studies and classifies languages according to their structural features to allow their comparison. Its aim is to describe and explain the structural diversity and the co ...

. She is professor of linguistics at the

University of California at Santa Barbara The University of California, Santa Barbara (UC Santa Barbara or UCSB) is a public land-grant research university in Santa Barbara, California with 23,196 undergraduates and 2,983 graduate students enrolled in 2021–2022. It is part of the U ...

, where she has held an academic position since 1986.

Career

She began her career with extensive fieldwork on

Iroquoian languages The Iroquoian languages are a language family of indigenous peoples of North America. They are known for their general lack of labial consonants. The Iroquoian languages are polysynthetic and head-marking. As of 2020, all surviving Iroquoian la ...

, especially

Mohawk Mohawk may refer to: Related to Native Americans * Mohawk people, an indigenous people of North America (Canada and New York) *Mohawk language, the language spoken by the Mohawk people * Mohawk hairstyle, from a hairstyle once thought to have been ...

, Cayuga, and

Tuscarora Tuscarora may refer to the following: First nations and Native American people and culture * Tuscarora people **''Federal Power Commission v. Tuscarora Indian Nation'' (1960) * Tuscarora language, an Iroquoian language of the Tuscarora people * ...

, earning her PhD in Linguistics from

Yale Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wor ...

in 1974 with a dissertation entitled "A Grammar of Tuscarora" (

Floyd Lounsbury Floyd Glenn Lounsbury (April 25, 1914 – May 14, 1998) was an American linguist, anthropologist and Mayanist scholar and epigrapher, best known for his work on linguistic and cultural systems of a variety of North and South American languages. ...

, dissertation supervisor). Her work spans a number of linguistic subfields, including

morphology Morphology, from the Greek and meaning "study of shape", may refer to: Disciplines * Morphology (archaeology), study of the shapes or forms of artifacts * Morphology (astronomy), study of the shape of astronomical objects such as nebulae, galaxies ...

syntax In linguistics, syntax () is the study of how words and morphemes combine to form larger units such as phrases and sentences. Central concerns of syntax include word order, grammatical relations, hierarchical sentence structure ( constituency) ...

discourse Discourse is a generalization of the notion of a conversation to any form of communication. Discourse is a major topic in social theory, with work spanning fields such as sociology, anthropology, continental philosophy, and discourse analysis. ...

, prosody,

language contact Language contact occurs when speakers of two or more languages or varieties interact and influence each other. The study of language contact is called contact linguistics. When speakers of different languages interact closely, it is typical for th ...

and

change Change or Changing may refer to: Alteration * Impermanence, a difference in a state of affairs at different points in time * Menopause, also referred to as "the change", the permanent cessation of the menstrual period * Metamorphosis, or change, ...

, typology,

language documentation Language documentation (also: documentary linguistics) is a subfield of linguistics which aims to describe the grammar and use of human languages. It aims to provide a comprehensive record of the linguistic practices characteristic of a given speec ...

, and the interrelations among these subfields. She has worked on a wide variety of languages from a wide variety of language families, but specializes in

Native American languages Over a thousand indigenous languages are spoken by the Indigenous peoples of the Americas. These languages cannot all be demonstrated to be related to each other and are classified into a hundred or so language families (including a large numbe ...

. Besides Iroquoian languages, she has also worked in California on Central Pomo and the

Chumashan languages Chumashan was a family of languages that were spoken on the southern California coast by Native American Chumash people, from the Coastal plains and valleys of San Luis Obispo to Malibu, neighboring inland and Transverse Ranges valleys and ca ...

, on Central Alaskan Yup'ik, and on the Austronesian language

Kapampangan Kapampangan, Capampañgan or Pampangan may refer to: *Kapampangan people of the Philippines *Kapampangan language Kapampangan or Pampangan is an Austronesian language, and one of the eight major languages of the Philippines. It is the primary ...

. Mithun compiled a comprehensive overview of Native American languages in ''The Languages of Native North America.'' A review on the

Linguist List The LINGUIST List is a major online resource for the academic field of linguistics. It was founded by Anthony Aristar in early 1990 at the University of Western Australia, and is used as a reference by the National Science Foundation in the Unite ...

describes the work as "an excellent book to have as a reference" and as containing "an incredible amount of information and illustrative data." The work is a bipartite reference organized firstly by

grammatical In linguistics, grammaticality is determined by the conformity to language usage as derived by the grammar of a particular variety (linguistics), speech variety. The notion of grammaticality rose alongside the theory of generative grammar, the go ...

categories (including categories that are particularly widespread in North America, such as

polysynthesis In linguistic typology, polysynthetic languages, formerly holophrastic languages, are highly synthetic languages, i.e. languages in which words are composed of many morphemes (word parts that have independent meaning but may or may not be able t ...

), and secondly by family. Mithun and her husband, linguist

Wallace Chafe Wallace Chafe (; September 3, 1927 – February 3, 2019) was an American linguist. He was Professor Emeritus and research professor at The University of California, Santa Barbara. Biography Chafe was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He was a ...

, established and directed The Wallace Chafe and Marianne Mithun Fund for Research on Understudied Languages. The fund provides support for graduate students to cover expenses associated with language documentation projects for understudied languages.

Awards and honors

Mithun has taught at many institutions around the world, including Georgetown, La Trobe,

Rice Rice is the seed of the grass species ''Oryza sativa'' (Asian rice) or less commonly ''Oryza glaberrima ''Oryza glaberrima'', commonly known as African rice, is one of the two domesticated rice species. It was first domesticated and grown i ...

Stanford Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is considere ...

SUNY Albany The State University of New York at Albany, commonly referred to as the University at Albany, UAlbany or SUNY Albany, is a Public university, public research university with campuses in Albany, New York, Albany, Rensselaer, New York, Rensselae ...

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the Capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population ...

Cagliari Cagliari (, also , , ; sc, Casteddu ; lat, Caralis) is an Italian municipality and the capital of the island of Sardinia, an autonomous region of Italy. Cagliari's Sardinian name ''Casteddu'' means ''castle''. It has about 155,000 inhabitant ...

Berkeley Berkeley most often refers to: *Berkeley, California, a city in the United States **University of California, Berkeley, a public university in Berkeley, California * George Berkeley (1685–1753), Anglo-Irish philosopher Berkeley may also refer ...

Hamburg (male), (female) en, Hamburger(s), Hamburgian(s) , timezone1 = Central (CET) , utc_offset1 = +1 , timezone1_DST = Central (CEST) , utc_offset1_DST = +2 , postal ...

UIUC The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the Uni ...

, UNM, Wake Forest, and

. Mithun was the founding president of the

Society for Linguistic Anthropology The American Anthropological Association (AAA) is an organization of scholars and practitioners in the field of anthropology. With 10,000 members, the association, based in Arlington, Virginia, includes archaeologists, cultural anthropologists, ...

from 1983 to 1985. From 1999 to 2003 she was president of the Association for Linguistic Typology. From 2014 to 2015 she was president o
The Societas Linguistica Europaea
She is a member of the

Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters ( no, Det Norske Videnskaps-Akademi, DNVA) is a learned society based in Oslo, Norway. Its purpose is to support the advancement of science and scholarship in Norway. History The Royal Frederick Univer ...

. In 2002 ''The Languages of Native North America'' won the

Leonard Bloomfield Book Award The Linguistic Society of America (LSA) is a learned society for the field of linguistics. Founded in New York City in 1924, the LSA works to promote the scientific study of language. The society publishes three scholarly journals: ''Language'', ...

, awarded annually by the

Linguistic Society of America The Linguistic Society of America (LSA) is a learned society for the field of linguistics. Founded in New York City in 1924, the LSA works to promote the scientific study of language. The society publishes three scholarly journals: ''Language'', ...

for the best book in linguistics. In 2019, Mithun served as the vice president/president-elect of the

(LSA), and in 2020 she served as the 95th President of the LSA. In 2021, she was awarded the

Neil and Saras Smith Medal for Linguistics The British Academy presents 18 awards and medals to recognise achievement in the humanities and social sciences. Overview The British Academy currently awards 18 prizes and medals: General awards: * British Academy Medal (for academic research ...

by the

British Academy The British Academy is the United Kingdom's national academy for the humanities and the social sciences. It was established in 1902 and received its royal charter in the same year. It is now a fellowship of more than 1,000 leading scholars span ...

"for her research into Native American and Austronesian languages which represent a significant contribution to theoretical linguistics".

Selected works

* 1984. "The evolution of noun incorporation." ''Language'' 60: 847–894. * 1991. "Active/Agentive case marking and its motivations." ''Language'' 67: 510–546. * 1999. ''The Languages of Native North America.'' Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. * 2001. "Who shapes the record: The speaker and the linguist." ''Linguistic Fieldwork: Essays on the Practice of Empirical Linguistic Research''. Paul Newman and Martha Ratliff, eds. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 34-54.

References

External links