Frances Esther Karttunen (born 1942), also known as Frances Ruley Karttunen, is an American academic linguist, historian and author.

Education and career

She received her BA in 1964 from Harvard and her PhD in 1970 from

Indiana University Indiana University (IU) is a system of public universities in the U.S. state of Indiana. Campuses Indiana University has two core campuses, five regional campuses, and two regional centers under the administration of IUPUI. *Indiana Universi ...

. In her

linguistics Linguistics is the science, 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 ...

career Karttunen has specialised in the study of Mesoamerican languages such as

Mayan Mayan most commonly refers to: * Maya peoples, various indigenous peoples of Mesoamerica and northern Central America * Maya civilization, pre-Columbian culture of Mesoamerica and northern Central America * Mayan languages, language family spoken ...

but in particular Nahuatl, on which topic she has authored seven books and numerous academic papers. She has also written about

endangered language An endangered language or moribund language is a language that is at risk of disappearing as its speakers die out or shift to speaking other languages. Language loss occurs when the language has no more native speakers and becomes a "dead langu ...

linguistic diversity Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of met ...

and

language translation Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. The English language draws a terminological distinction (which does not exist in every language) between ''transl ...

. Early in her career Karttunen also produced several studies of Finnish phonology and syntax. As a historian Karttunen has published research in areas such as historical

Mesoamerican literature The traditions of indigenous Mesoamerican literature extend back to the oldest-attested forms of early writing in the Mesoamerican region, which date from around the mid-1st millennium BCE. Many of the pre-Columbian cultures of Mesoamerica are ...

, colonial-era

Aztec The Aztecs () were a Mesoamerican culture that flourished in central Mexico in the post-classic period from 1300 to 1521. The Aztec people included different ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those groups who spoke the Nahuatl ...

and

Nahua The Nahuas () are a group of the indigenous people of Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua. They comprise the largest indigenous group in Mexico and second largest in El Salvador. The Mexica (Aztecs) were of Nahua ethnicity, a ...

history, and the social organizations,

socio-political Political sociology is an interdisciplinary field of study concerned with exploring how governance and society interact and influence one another at the micro to macro levels of analysis. Interested in the social causes and consequences of how ...

concerns and

literacy rate Literacy in its broadest sense describes "particular ways of thinking about and doing reading and writing" with the purpose of understanding or expressing thoughts or ideas in written form in some specific context of use. In other words, huma ...

s of

indigenous peoples of Mexico Indigenous peoples of Mexico ( es, gente indígena de México, pueblos indígenas de México), Native Mexicans ( es, nativos mexicanos) or Mexican Native Americans ( es, pueblos originarios de México, lit=Original peoples of Mexico), are those ...

. Karttunen has also written and lectured about the local history of Nantucket. Her 1976 publication ''Nahuatl in the Middle Years: Language Contact Phenomena in Texts of the Colonial Period,'' with James Lockhart, is a foundational text for the

New Philology New Philology generally refers to a branch of Mexican ethnohistory and philology that uses colonial-era native language texts written by Indians to construct history from the indigenous point of view. The name New Philology was coined by James Loc ...

. She followed this by an insightful article on

literacy, showing how the

Mesoamerica Mesoamerica is a historical region and cultural area in southern North America and most of Central America. It extends from approximately central Mexico through Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and northern Costa Rica ...

n tradition of pictorial writing then transitioned to alphabetic writing in Latin letters by local-level notaries in a self-perpetuating tradition. Her 1997 article, "Rethinking Malinche", on

La Malinche Marina or Malintzin ( 1500 – 1529), more popularly known as La Malinche , a Nahua woman from the Mexican Gulf Coast, became known for contributing to the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire (1519–1521), by acting as an interpreter, ad ...

, known in the colonial era as Doña Marina, is a significant revisionist take on the choices that Cortés' cultural translator and consort faced and took. She also published ''An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl'' and several iterations of a ''Foundation Course in Nahuatl Grammar'', culminating in the 1994 edition (with linguist R. Joe Campbell). Most of her academic career was spent in association with the

University of Texas at Austin The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,07 ...

,Curriculum Vitae
where she held researcher and lecturer positions for over 30 years, until her retirement in 2000 as senior university research scientist at the Linguistics Research Center. She was married to historian Alfred W. Crosby.

Selected publications

* Between Worlds: Interpreters, Guides and Survivors. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 199

* "From Court Yard to the Seat of Government: The Career of Antonio Valeriano, Nahua Colleague of Bernardino de Sahagún". ''Amerindia Revue d'Etholonguistique Amérindienne'', n. 20, 1995, pp. 113–12

* "Interpreters Snatched from the Shore: The Successful and The Others". In Edward G. Gray and Norman Fiering (eds.) ''The Language Encounter in the Americas, 1492-1800.'' New Work: Berghahn Books, 2000, pp. 215–229.

References

External links

Photograph of Frances Karttunen
by Philip Spalding III
Frances Karttunen's websiteAudio file of "Rethinking Malinche" Part 1, read by Frances KarttunenAudio file of "Rethinking Malinche" Part 2, read by Frances Karttunen
* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Karttunen, Frances Living people 1942 births Linguists from the United States Women linguists 21st-century American historians American Mesoamericanists Women Mesoamericanists Linguists of Mesoamerican languages Aztec scholars 20th-century Mesoamericanists People from Nantucket, Massachusetts Radcliffe College alumni Indiana University alumni University of Texas at Austin faculty Linguists of Uto-Aztecan languages Historians from Massachusetts American women historians 21st-century American women