Joan Hazel Carter (22 February 1928 – 3 August 2016) was a British-American linguist, known in particular for her work on the Bantu languages, Shona, Kongo and

Tonga Tonga, officially the Kingdom of Tonga, is an island country in Polynesia, part of Oceania. The country has 171 islands, of which 45 are inhabited. Its total surface area is about , scattered over in the southern Pacific Ocean. accordin ...

. Born on 22 February 1928 to Charles and Constance Wilkinson, Carter graduated from the County Grammar School for Girls in

Beckenham Beckenham () is a town in Greater London, England, within the London Borough of Bromley. Prior to 1965, it was part of Kent. It is situated north of Elmers End and Eden Park, east of Penge, south of Lower Sydenham and Bellingham, and west ...

, Kent, England in 1947 and received a full scholarship to attend

Oxford University The University of Oxford is a collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the second-oldest continuously operating u ...

, Oxford, England where she was a member of St. Hugh's College from 1947 to 1950. Carter conducted fieldwork on Shona in 1952 (in present-day

Zimbabwe file:Zimbabwe, relief map.jpg, upright=1.22, Zimbabwe, relief map Zimbabwe, officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa to the south, Bots ...

) and on Tonga from 1957 to 1960 (in present-day

Zambia Zambia, officially the Republic of Zambia, is a landlocked country at the crossroads of Central Africa, Central, Southern Africa, Southern and East Africa. It is typically referred to being in South-Central Africa or Southern Africa. It is bor ...

). A post-graduate scholar at the

School of Oriental and African Studies The School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS University of London; ) is a public research university in London, England, and a member institution of the federal University of London. Founded in 1916, SOAS is located in the Bloomsbury area ...

(SOAS) at the

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, she became a lecturer in

Bantu Languages The Bantu languages (English: , Proto-Bantu language, Proto-Bantu: *bantʊ̀), or Ntu languages are a language family of about 600 languages of Central Africa, Central, Southern Africa, Southern, East Africa, Eastern and Southeast Africa, South ...

at SOAS in 1954. In 1971 she received her doctorate with a dissertation entitled "Syntactic Tone Phrases in Kongo", which was published in 1973 under the title, "Syntax and Tone in Kikongo." She was promoted to Reader in Bantu Languages at SOAS in 1971, a post she held until 1983. After one year as a visiting professor at the Department of African Languages & Literature at the

University of Wisconsin-Madison A university () is an institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly means "community of teachers and scholars". Uni ...

in 1980–1981, Carter retired from SOAS and moved permanently to the United States. At the University of Wisconsin, she was first an honorary research fellow, then a visiting professor, and finally she became full professor in 1986. She retired in June 1995 and was appointed professor emerita. In 2001 she received the Distinguished Services Award from the African Language Teachers Association. In addition to her many other achievements, Hazel (the name she used in the knitting world) was an accomplished Shetland Lace knitter, teacher and author. Her designs are included in several printed books, and individual patterns continue to be available online.

Key publications

* Carter, Hazel. 1971 and 1972. Morphotonology of Zambian Tonga: Some Developments of Meeussen's System. ''African Language Studies'' 12: 1-30 and 14: 36–52. * Carter, Hazel. 1973. ''Syntax and Tone in Kikongo''. London: SOAS. * Carter, Hazel and G. P. Kahari. 1981
Shona Language Course, Books I, II and III
Distributed by ERIC Clearinghouse. * Carter, Hazel and João Makoondekwa. c. 1987. ''Kongo language course : a course in the dialect of Zoombo, northern Angola = Maloòngi makíkoongo''. Madison, WI : African Studies Program, University of Wisconsin—Madison. * Carter, Hazel. 2002. ''An outline of Chitonga grammar''. Lusaka: Zambia: Bookworld Publishers, 2002.

References

External links

Oral History Interview: Hazel Carter
{{DEFAULTSORT:Carter, Hazel Linguists from the United Kingdom American women linguists Linguists of Bantu languages 1928 births 2016 deaths University of Wisconsin–Madison faculty Alumni of St Hugh's College, Oxford Academics of SOAS University of London English emigrants to the United States British people in knitting American people in knitting 20th-century British non-fiction writers 20th-century British women writers British women linguists