Kay Williamson (January 26, 1935,

Hereford Hereford () is a cathedral city, civil parish and the county town of Herefordshire, England. It lies on the River Wye, approximately east of the border with Wales, south-west of Worcester, England, Worcester and north-west of Gloucester. ...

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– January 3, 2005,

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), born Ruth Margaret Williamson, was a

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. Lingu ...

who specialised in the study of African languages, particularly those of the

Niger Delta The Niger Delta is the delta of the Niger River sitting directly on the Gulf of Guinea on the Atlantic Ocean in Nigeria. It is located within nine coastal southern Nigerian states, which include: all six states from the South South geopolitic ...

Nigeria Nigeria ( ), , ig, Naìjíríyà, yo, Nàìjíríà, pcm, Naijá , ff, Naajeeriya, kcg, Naijeriya officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf o ...

, where she lived for nearly fifty years. She has been called "The Mother of Nigerian Linguistics" and is also notable for proposing the Pan-Nigerian alphabet.

Early life

Professor Kay Williamson was born in

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

, where she lived for the first 18 years of her life. She was the eldest of six children. Her father, Alfred Henry Williamson, also known as Harry, was the founder of Wyevale Nurseries. Her father and mother, Harriett Eileen Williamson, turned the Wyevale nurseries into one of the largest garden center chains in Europe. Williamson was educated at Hereford girls' high school and

St Hilda's College, Oxford St Hilda's College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. The college is named after the Anglo-Saxon Saint, Hilda of Whitby and was founded in 1893 as a hall for women; it remained a women's college until 20 ...

, where she took a BA in English in 1956, followed by an MA in 1960.

Career

Her many publications include a grammar and dictionary of the Ijo language, a dictionary of Igbo and numerous articles on diverse topics. Kay Williamson was known for her concern for social responsibility in linguistics. She was totally convinced that a linguist must help speakers of the languages of her research to produce texts in their languages. She devoted a substantial part of her time to the Rivers Readers Project, an exercise designed to introduce reading and writing in primary schools in about 20 dialects or languages in the predominantly Ijo-speaking area. As a byproduct, several books (including primers, readers, teachers' notes, spelling manuals, and collection of folk-tales) were compiled by Williamson and her collaborators. In 2002, she was appointed

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a List of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international coope ...

Professor of

Cultural Heritage Cultural heritage is the heritage of tangible and intangible heritage assets of a group or society that is inherited from past generations. Not all heritages of past generations are "heritage"; rather, heritage is a product of selection by soc ...

University of Port Harcourt The University of Port Harcourt is located in Choba in Port Harcourt, Rivers state, Nigeria. It was established in 1975 as University College, Port Harcourt and was given university status in 1977. The University of Port Harcourt was ran ...

, a position she held until her death. Her unpublished work is being edited by

Roger Blench Roger Marsh Blench (born August 1, 1953) is a British linguist, ethnomusicologist and development anthropologist. He has an M.A. and a Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge and is based in Cambridge, England. He researches, publishes, and w ...

Later life

Williamson was brought up as a

Methodist Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a group of historically related denominations of Protestant Christianity whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's ...

but became a

Quaker Quakers are people who belong to a historically Protestant Christian set of denominations known formally as the Religious Society of Friends. Members of these movements ("theFriends") are generally united by a belief in each human's abili ...

in the early 1990s, and subsequently took

peace activism A peace movement is a social movement which seeks to achieve ideals, such as the ending of a particular war (or wars) or minimizing inter-human violence in a particular place or situation. They are often linked to the goal of achieving world pe ...

very seriously. She died at the age of 69 in Brazil on the 3rd of January 2005.

Major publications

*Williamson, Kay. 1965 (2nd ed. 1969).
A grammar of the Kolokuma dialect of Ịjọ
'. (West African Language Monographs, 2.) London:

Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press is the university press of the University of Cambridge. Granted letters patent by King Henry VIII in 1534, it is the oldest university press in the world. It is also the King's Printer. Cambridge University Pr ...

2011: *Williamson, Kay, and Kiyoshi Shimizu (edd.). 1968. ''Benue-Congo comparative wordlist: Volume I''. Ibadan: West African Linguistic Society. *Williamson, Kay (ed.) 1972. ''Igbo-English dictionary''. Benin: Ethiope Publishing Corporation. *Williamson, Kay (ed.). 1973. ''Benue-Congo comparative wordlist: Volume II''. Ibadan: West African Linguistic Society. *Williamson, Kay (ed.) 1983. ''Orthographies of Nigerian languages: Manual II''. Lagos: National Language Centre, Federal Ministry of Education. *Williamson, Kay, and A. O. Timitimi (edd.). 1983. ''Short Ịzọn-English dictionary''. (Delta Series No. 3.) Port Harcourt:

University of Port Harcourt Press The University of Port Harcourt is located in Choba in Port Harcourt, Rivers state, Nigeria. It was established in 1975 as University College, Port Harcourt and was given university status in 1977. The University of Port Harcourt was ran ...

. , *Williamson, Kay. 1984. ''Practical orthography in Nigeria''. Ibadan:

Heinemann Educational Books William Heinemann Ltd., with the imprint Heinemann, was a London publisher founded in 1890 by William Heinemann. Their first published book, 1890's ''The Bondman'', was a huge success in the United Kingdom and launched the company. He was joine ...

. *Williamson, Kay. 1971. "The Benue-Congo languages and Ịjọ". In: ''

Current Trends in Linguistics Currents, Current or The Current may refer to: Science and technology * Current (fluid), the flow of a liquid or a gas ** Air current, a flow of air ** Ocean current, a current in the ocean *** Rip current, a kind of water current ** Current (str ...

'', Vol. 7, series ed. by T. A. Sebeok, 245-306. *Williamson, Kay. 1979. "Small languages in primary education: the Rivers Readers Project as a case history". ''African Languages/Langues Africaines'' 5:2.95-l05. *Williamson, Kay. 1989. "Niger-Congo Overview". In: ''The Niger-Congo languages'', ed. by

John Bendor-Samuel John Theodore Bendor-Samuel (9 June 1929 – 6 January 2011) was an evangelical Christian missionary and linguist who furthered Bible translation work into African languages, as well as making significant contributions to the study of African ...

, 3-45.

University Press of America University Press of America is an academic publisher based in the United States. Part of the independent Rowman & Littlefield Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group is an independent publishing house founded in 1949. Under several imprints, the ...

. *Williamson, Kay. 1989. "Benue-Congo Overview". In: ''The Niger-Congo languages'', ed. by John Bendor-Samuel, 246-274. University Press of America. *Williamson, Kay, and

. 2000. "Niger-Congo". In: ''African languages: an introduction'', ed. B. Heine and D. Nurse, Chapter 2, 11-42. Cambridge:

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Williamson, Kay Linguists from the United Kingdom Women linguists People from Hereford 1935 births 2005 deaths Linguists of Niger–Congo languages University of Port Harcourt faculty Writers from Port Harcourt British women academics Educators from Rivers State Yale University alumni Alumni of St Hilda's College, Oxford 20th-century linguists