William F. Shipley (November 19, 1921 – January 20, 2011) was an American

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 ...

whose main area of research was the now-extinct

Maidu language Maidu , also Northeastern Maidu or Mountain Maidu, is an extinct Maiduan language of California, United States. It was spoken by the Maidu peoples who traditionally inhabit the mountains east and south of Lassen Peak in the American River and Fea ...

of Northern California. He was one of the last speakers of the language.

Life

Shipley was a student of anthropologist and linguist

Alfred Kroeber Alfred Louis Kroeber (June 11, 1876 – October 5, 1960) was an American cultural anthropologist. He received his PhD under Franz Boas at Columbia University in 1901, the first doctorate in anthropology awarded by Columbia. He was also the first ...

, and linguist

Mary Haas Mary Rosamond Haas (January 23, 1910 – May 17, 1996) was an American linguist who specialized in North American Indian languages, Thai, and historical linguistics. She served as president of the Linguistic Society of America. She was elected ...

UC Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant uni ...

. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

, he was part of a program to teach US Army soldiers to speak

Mandarin Chinese Mandarin (; ) is a group of Chinese (Sinitic) dialects that are natively spoken across most of northern and southwestern China. The group includes the Beijing dialect, the basis of the phonology of Standard Chinese, the official language ...

at Berkeley. Shipley began studying the Mountain Maidu language in 1953 with Maym Benner Gallagher, a Maidu elder. He continued to work with Kenneth Holbrook to continue to document and record the Maidu language. Their collaboration led to a book of Maidu texts and dictionary. as well as a

grammar In linguistics, the grammar of a natural language is its set of structural constraints on speakers' or writers' composition of clauses, phrases, and words. The term can also refer to the study of such constraints, a field that includes domain ...

of Maidu. Shipley taught as a professor of linguistics at

UC Santa Cruz The University of California, Santa Cruz (UC Santa Cruz or UCSC) is a public land-grant research university in Santa Cruz, California. It is one of the ten campuses in the University of California system. Located on Monterey Bay, on the edge ...

from 1966 to 1991. After his retirement, he continued to work in spreading knowledge about the Maidu language and culture. His book of translated Maidu stories, ''The Maidu Indian Myths and Stories of Hánc'ibyjim'', was published by Heydey Books in 1991. He died of complications from

pneumonia Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung primarily affecting the small air sacs known as alveoli. Symptoms typically include some combination of productive or dry cough, chest pain, fever, and difficulty breathing. The severi ...

on January 20, 2011. He was the father of screenwriter Michael Shipley.

References

External links

Photographs of William Shipley from the UC Santa Cruz Library's Digital Collections
1921 births 2011 deaths Academics from Oklahoma Gay academics Gay military personnel Deaths from pneumonia in California LGBT people from Oklahoma Linguists from the United States Linguists of Maiduan languages Linguists of Penutian languages Military personnel from Oklahoma University of California, Berkeley alumni University of California, Santa Cruz faculty United States Army personnel of World War II {{US-linguist-stub