Marianne Mithun ( ; born 1946) is an American linguist specializing in

American Indian languages American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, p ...

and

language typology Linguistic typology (or language typology) is a field of linguistics that studies and classifies languages according to their structural features to allow their comparison. Its aim is to describe and explain the structural diversity and the co ...

. She is a professor of linguistics at the

University of California, Santa Barbara The University of California, Santa Barbara (UC Santa Barbara or UCSB) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Santa Barbara County, California, United States. Tracing its roots back to 1891 as an ...

, where she has held an academic position since 1986.

Career

She began her career with extensive fieldwork on

Iroquoian languages The Iroquoian languages () are a language family of indigenous peoples of North America. They are known for their general lack of labial consonants. The Iroquoian languages are polysynthetic and head-marking. As of 2020, almost all surviving I ...

, especially

Mohawk Mohawk may refer to: Related to Native Americans *Mohawk people (Kanien’kehá:ka), an indigenous people of North America (Canada and New York) *Mohawk language (Kanien’kéha), the language spoken by the Mohawk people *Mohawk hairstyle, from a ...

Cayuga Cayuga often refers to: * Cayuga people, a native tribe to North America, part of the Iroquois Confederacy * Cayuga language, the language of the Cayuga Cayuga may also refer to: Places Canada *Cayuga, Ontario United States * Cayuga, Illinois ...

, and

Tuscarora Tuscarora may refer to the following: First nations and Native American people and culture * Tuscarora people **'' Federal Power Commission v. Tuscarora Indian Nation'' (1960) * Tuscarora language, an Iroquoian language of the Tuscarora people * ...

, earning her PhD in Linguistics from

Yale Yale University is a private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, and one of the nine colonial colleges ch ...

in 1974 with a dissertation entitled "A Grammar of Tuscarora" ( Floyd Lounsbury, dissertation supervisor). Her work spans a number of linguistic subfields, including

morphology Morphology, from the Greek and meaning "study of shape", may refer to: Disciplines *Morphology (archaeology), study of the shapes or forms of artifacts *Morphology (astronomy), study of the shape of astronomical objects such as nebulae, galaxies, ...

syntax In linguistics, syntax ( ) is the study of how words and morphemes combine to form larger units such as phrases and sentences. Central concerns of syntax include word order, grammatical relations, hierarchical sentence structure (constituenc ...

discourse Discourse is a generalization of the notion of a conversation to any form of communication. Discourse is a major topic in social theory, with work spanning fields such as sociology, anthropology, continental philosophy, and discourse analysis. F ...

, prosody,

language contact Language contact occurs when speakers of two or more languages or varieties interact with and influence each other. The study of language contact is called contact linguistics. Language contact can occur at language borders, between adstratum ...

and

change Change, Changed or Changing may refer to the below. Other forms are listed at Alteration * Impermanence, a difference in a state of affairs at different points in time * Menopause, also referred to as "the change", the permanent cessation of t ...

, typology,

language documentation Language documentation (also: documentary linguistics) is a subfield of linguistics which aims to describe the grammar and use of human languages. It aims to provide a comprehensive record of the linguistic practices characteristic of a given speec ...

, and the interrelations among these subfields. She has worked on a wide variety of languages from a wide variety of language families, but specializes in

Native American languages The Indigenous languages of the Americas are the languages that were used by the Indigenous peoples of the Americas Pre-Columbian era, before the arrival of non-Indigenous peoples. Over a thousand of these languages are still used today, while m ...

. Besides Iroquoian languages, she has also worked in California on

Central Pomo Central Pomo is an extinct Pomoan language spoken in Northern California. Pre-contact speakers of all the Pomoan languages have been estimated at 8,000 all together. This estimation was from the American anthropologist Alfred Kroeber. "The Cent ...

and the

Chumashan languages Chumashan is an extinct and revitalizing family of languages that were spoken on the southern California West Coast of the United States, coast by Native Americans in the United States, Native American Chumash people, from the Coastal plains an ...

, on

Central Alaskan Yup'ik Central Alaskan Yup'ik may refer to: * Central Alaskan Yup'ik people * Central Alaskan Yup'ik language Central is an adjective usually referring to being in the center of some place or (mathematical) object. Central may also refer to: Directio ...

, and on the

Austronesian language The Austronesian languages ( ) are a language family widely spoken throughout Maritime Southeast Asia, parts of Mainland Southeast Asia, Madagascar, the islands of the Pacific Ocean and Taiwan (by Taiwanese indigenous peoples). They are spoken b ...

Kapampangan Kapampangan, Capampañgan or Pampangan may refer to: *Kapampangan people, of the Philippines *Kapampangan language Kapampangan, Capampáñgan, or Pampangan, is an Austronesian language, and one of the eight major languages of the Philippines. ...

. Mithun compiled a comprehensive overview of Native American languages in ''The Languages of Native North America.'' A review on the

Linguist List The LINGUIST List is an online resource for the academic field of linguistics. It was founded by Anthony Aristar in early 1990 at the University of Western Australia, and is used as a reference by the National Science Foundation in the United S ...

describes the work as "an excellent book to have as a reference" and as containing "an incredible amount of information and illustrative data." The work is a bipartite reference organized firstly by

grammatical In linguistics, grammaticality is determined by the conformity to language usage as derived by the grammar of a particular speech variety. The notion of grammaticality rose alongside the theory of generative grammar, the goal of which is to formu ...

categories (including categories that are particularly widespread in North America, such as

polysynthesis In linguistic typology, polysynthetic languages, formerly holophrastic languages, are highly synthetic languages, i.e., languages in which words are composed of many morphemes (word parts that have independent meaning but may or may not be able to ...

), and secondly by family. Mithun and her husband, linguist

Wallace Chafe Wallace L. Chafe ( ; September 3, 1927 – February 3, 2019) was an American linguist. He was Professor Emeritus and research professor at The University of California, Santa Barbara. Biography Chafe was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He wa ...

, established and directed The Wallace Chafe and Marianne Mithun Fund for Research on Understudied Languages. The fund provides support for graduate students to cover expenses associated with language documentation projects for understudied languages.

Awards and honors

Mithun was the founding president of the

Society for Linguistic Anthropology The American Anthropological Association (AAA) is an American organization of scholars and practitioners in the field of anthropology. With 10,000 members, the association, based in Arlington, Virginia, includes archaeologists, cultural anthropol ...

from 1983 to 1985. From 1999 to 2003 she was president of the

Association for Linguistic Typology The Association for Linguistic Typology (ALT) is a professional society for linguists interested in linguistic typology (general comparative linguistics, as opposed to historical-comparative linguistics). It was founded in 1995. The ALT has severa ...

. From 2014 to 2015 she was president o
The Societas Linguistica Europaea
She is a member of the

Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters (, DNVA) is a learned society based in Oslo, Norway. Its purpose is to support the advancement of science and scholarship in Norway. History The Royal Frederick University in Christiania was establis ...

. In 2002 ''The Languages of Native North America'' won the Leonard Bloomfield Book Award, awarded annually by the

Linguistic Society of America The Linguistic Society of America (LSA) is a learned society for the field of linguistics. Founded in New York City in 1924, the LSA works to promote the scientific study of language. The society publishes three scholarly journals: ''Language'', ...

for the best book in linguistics. In 2008, Mithun was inducted as a

Fellow of the Linguistic Society of America A fellow is a title and form of address for distinguished, learned, or skilled individuals in academia, medicine, research, and industry. The exact meaning of the term differs in each field. In learned or professional societies, the term refers ...

. In 2019, Mithun served as the vice president/president-elect of the

(LSA), and in 2020 she served as the 95th President of the LSA. In 2021, she was awarded the

Neil and Saras Smith Medal for Linguistics The British Academy presents 18 awards and medals to recognise achievement in the humanities and social sciences. Overview The British Academy currently awards 18 prizes and medals: General awards: * British Academy Medal (for academic researc ...

by the

British Academy The British Academy for the Promotion of Historical, Philosophical and Philological Studies is the United Kingdom's national academy for the humanities and the social sciences. It was established in 1902 and received its royal charter in the sa ...

"for her research into Native American and Austronesian languages which represent a significant contribution to theoretical linguistics". Mithun has taught at many institutions around the world, including Georgetown, La Trobe,

Rice Rice is a cereal grain and in its Domestication, domesticated form is the staple food of over half of the world's population, particularly in Asia and Africa. Rice is the seed of the grass species ''Oryza sativa'' (Asian rice)—or, much l ...

Stanford Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth governor of and th ...

SUNY Albany The State University of New York at Albany (University at Albany, UAlbany, or SUNY Albany) is a public research university in Albany, New York, United States. Founded in 1844, it is one of four "university centers" of the State University of N ...

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , ; ; ) is the capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, largest city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It has a population of 933,680 in June 2024 within the city proper, 1,457,018 in the City Re ...

Cagliari Cagliari (, , ; ; ; Latin: ''Caralis'') is an Comune, Italian municipality and the capital and largest city of the island of Sardinia, an Regions of Italy#Autonomous regions with special statute, autonomous region of Italy. It has about 146,62 ...

Berkeley Berkeley most often refers to: *Berkeley, California, a city in the United States **University of California, Berkeley, a public university in Berkeley, California *George Berkeley (1685–1753), Anglo-Irish philosopher Berkeley may also refer to ...

Hamburg Hamburg (, ; ), officially the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg,. is the List of cities in Germany by population, second-largest city in Germany after Berlin and List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, 7th-lar ...

UIUC The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC, U of I, Illinois, or University of Illinois) is a public land-grant research university in the Champaign–Urbana metropolitan area, Illinois, United States. Established in 1867, it is the f ...

, UNM, Wake Forest, and

Selected works

* * * *

References

External links