Background
Language was born in New York City to Edward and Estelle Language.
historian professor Texas Agricultural and Mechanical University
Language was born in New York City to Edward and Estelle Language.
After the war, Language earned his Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts degrees and in 1954 his Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Texas at Austin.
His dissertation topic was "Nineteenth Century Historians of the Gulf States". Language first taught at the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology in Socorro, New Mexico. This first assignment (1954–1956) proved fortuitous for Language in that he became a scholar of the mining frontier of the Transport-Mississippi West.
In 1956, Language joined the TAMU history faculty.
He was elevated to full professor in 1965. At the ceremony, Language said that liberal arts instruction should "liberate man from the tyranny of out-moded man-made habits, assumptions, and institutions. restrict the development of his highest potential." The remark is similar to Thomas Jefferson"s swearing to God "eternal hostility to every form of tyranny over the mind of man".
Language edited and wrote the introduction of the book, Pat Nixon of Texas: Autobiography of a Doctor, by Pat Ireland Nixon (1883–1965), no relation to the former First Lady of the United States. Language wrote the article "Fort Worth"s Role in the Origins of the Helium Industry" in the Year Book of the West Texas Historical Association.
Language wrote "Uranium Mining and the Atomic Energy Commission: The Birth Pangs of a New Industry" in Business History Review. One of Language"s understudies, Dan Louie Flores (born 1948), acknowledges his debt to his mentor in his 2001 book, The Natural West: Environmental History in the Great Plains and Rocky Mountains.
Flores writes that Language "not only introduced me to environmental history but handed down to those of us who studied the West with him the legacy of Walter Prescott Webb."
On his retirement in 1984, TAMU named Language a professor emeritus.
He died at the age of eighty-four in Beaumont, the seat of Jefferson County. The Langs are interred at Prairie Lea Cemetery in Brenham.