Stephanie "Morning Fire" Fielding (

Mohegan The Mohegan are an Algonquian Native American tribe historically based in present-day Connecticut. Today the majority of the people are associated with the Mohegan Indian Tribe, a federally recognized tribe living on a reservation in the east ...

: ''Yôpôwi Yoht'') is a Mohegan

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 ...

. Her work focuses on the resurrection and revitalization of the Mohegan language. During the 2017-2018 academic year, she was a Presidential Fellow and lecturer in the Department of Linguistics at

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Sta ...

. Fielding lives on the

reservation in southeastern Connecticut, in

Uncasville Uncasville is an area in the town of Montville, Connecticut, United States. It is a village in southeastern Montville, at the mouth of the Oxoboxo River where it flows into the Thames River. The name is now applied more generally to all of the ...

Biography and career

Fielding holds a

Bachelor of Arts Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four year ...

in linguistics and

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 be ...

from the

University of Connecticut The University of Connecticut (UConn) is a public land-grant research university in Storrs, Connecticut, a village in the town of Mansfield. The primary 4,400-acre (17.8 km2) campus is in Storrs, approximately a half hour's drive from H ...

, as well as a

Master of Science A Master of Science ( la, Magisterii Scientiae; abbreviated MS, M.S., MSc, M.Sc., SM, S.M., ScM or Sc.M.) is a master's degree in the field of science awarded by universities in many countries or a person holding such a degree. In contrast t ...

in linguistics 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 ...

(MIT). She was the first student to graduate from a two-year Masters program at MIT "for members of indigenous communities whose languages are dead or dying." Her Master's thesis, ''The Phonology of Mohegan-Pequot'', includes diary excerpts written in Mohegan from her relative

Fidelia Fielding Fidelia Ann Hoscott Fielding ( Smith; September 15, 1827 – July 18, 1908), also known as ''Dji'ts Bud dnaca'' ("Flying Bird"), daughter of Bartholomew Valentine Smith (c. 1811–1843) and Sarah A. Wyyougs (1804–1868), and granddaughter of Mar ...

, the last fluent speaker of the Mohegan language. Much of Fielding's graduate work focused on linguistic algorithms that allow her to take accepted proto-Algonquian words in order to recreate an authentic Mohegan vocabulary. In 2006, Fielding published ''A Modern Mohegan Dictionary''. She also created the online ''Mohegan Language Project'', a central part of her efforts to keep her ancestral language alive. Of this project, Fielding states that "the goal is fluency," and offers links to a Mohegan-English dictionary, phrase book, pronunciation guide, exercises, and an audio option. In an interview with the ''New York Times'', Fielding said "In order for a language to survive and resurrect, it needs people talking it, and for people to talk it, there has to be a society that works on it." She has worked "as a teacher, writer, editor, graphic artist and radio announcer. She has also served on the board of directors of educational institutions, media outlets, non-profit organizations, and religious organizations." She often translates English into Mohegan for speakers at Mohegan traditional ceremonies.

References

External links

*MIT Linguistics Departmen
Interview
with Fielding
Photo of Stephanie Fielding
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fielding, Stephanie Living people Native American linguists Mohegan people MIT School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences alumni University of Connecticut alumni Native American writers Native American language revitalization Language activists Year of birth missing (living people) Women linguists Linguists from the United States 21st-century linguists Native American people from Connecticut 21st-century Native Americans 20th-century Native American women 20th-century Native Americans 21st-century Native American women Writers from Connecticut 20th-century American women writers 21st-century American women writers