Samuel Alfred Barrett (1879 in Conway, Alaska – 1965) was 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
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguis ...
who studied
Native American peoples.
Education
Barrett received all three of his degrees from
UC Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of Californi ...
—B.S. in 1905, M.S. in 1906, and a
doctorate
A doctorate (from Latin ''docere'', "to teach"), doctor's degree (from Latin ''doctor'', "teacher"), or doctoral degree is an academic degree awarded by universities and some other educational institutions, derived from the ancient formalism ''l ...
in
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 ...
,
Phonetics
Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that studies how humans produce and perceive sounds, or in the case of sign languages, the equivalent aspects of sign. Linguists who specialize in studying the physical properties of speech are phoneticians. ...
, and
Ethno-geography 1908.
Career
Barrett's system of naming the languages of the
Pomoan group included seven names based on geographical terms:
Northern Pomo
Northern Pomo is a critically endangered Pomoan language, spoken by the indigenous Pomo people in what is now called California. The speakers of Northern Pomo were traditionally those who lived in the northern and largest area of the Pomoan terr ...
,
Northeastern Pomo
Northeastern Pomo, also known as Salt Pomo, is a Pomoan language of Northern California. There are no living fluent speakers. It was spoken along Stony Creek, a tributary of the Sacramento River. Northeastern was one of seven mutually unintellig ...
,
Southern Pomo
Southern Pomo is one of seven mutually unintelligible Pomoan languages which were formerly spoken and is currently spoken by the Pomo people in Northern California along the Russian River and Clear Lake. The Pomo languages have been grouped to ...
,
Eastern Pomo
Eastern Pomo, also known as Clear Lake Pomo, is a nearly extinct Pomoan language spoken around Clear Lake in Lake County, California by one of the Pomo peoples.
It is not mutually intelligible with the other Pomoan languages. Before contact wi ...
,
Central Pomo,
Southeastern Pomo, and Southwest Pomo (now more commonly referred to as
Kashaya).
This nomenclature has been criticized for suggesting that the various Pomoan languages are dialects of a single language, when they are in fact mutually unintelligible and therefore distinct languages.
Barrett became the director of the
Milwaukee Public Museum
The Milwaukee Public Museum (MPM) is a natural and human history museum in downtown Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The museum was chartered in 1882 and opened to the public in 1884; it is a not-for-profit organization operated by the Milwaukee Public Mus ...
in
Milwaukee
Milwaukee ( ), officially the City of Milwaukee, is both the most populous and most densely populated city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the county seat of Milwaukee County. With a population of 577,222 at the 2020 census, Milwaukee is ...
.
The final major work of his life was to produce a series of films about the peoples of
Northern California
Northern California (colloquially known as NorCal) is a geographic and cultural region that generally comprises the northern portion of the U.S. state of California. Spanning the state's northernmost 48 counties, its main population centers incl ...
such as the
Pomo
The Pomo are an Indigenous people of California. Historical Pomo territory in Northern California was large, bordered by the Pacific Coast to the west, extending inland to Clear Lake, and mainly between Cleone and Duncans Point. One small grou ...
, particularly the Kashaya.
Works
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References
External links
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1879 births
1965 deaths
American anthropologists
Linguists from the United States
UC Berkeley College of Letters and Science alumni
Linguists of Pomoan languages
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