Background
The youngest son of a rabbi and his wife who had immigrated from Kiev, Ukraine, "Iz" (as he was known to friends) grew up speaking Yiddish at home and studying Hebrew at Gratz College in preparation for rabbinical training.
(In this book, which was originally published in 1974, lex...)
In this book, which was originally published in 1974, lexical reconstruction is used to provide links between cultural and social anthropology and linguistics. The Athapaskan language family has members in Alaska, western Canada, the west coast and southwest of the United States, and Oklahoma. The authors use the kinship terminology of existing Athapaskan languages and dialects to provide a lexical reconstruction of the kinship terminology of the mother-language, Proto-Athapaskan, which existed perhaps 1,500 or more years ago. A central contribution of the work is the explicit delineation of the method used in lexical reconstruction to arrive at the likeliest inferences about the meanings of proto-lexemes. Other methodological contributions include a method for inferring features of social organization from kinship terminology and for reconstructing other features of social organization from the distribution of these features among existing groups.
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The youngest son of a rabbi and his wife who had immigrated from Kiev, Ukraine, "Iz" (as he was known to friends) grew up speaking Yiddish at home and studying Hebrew at Gratz College in preparation for rabbinical training.
Bachelor of Arts, University Pennsylvania, 1933; Master of Arts, University Pennsylvania, 1934; Doctor of Philosophy in Indo-European Linguistics, University of Pennsylvania, 1939; postgraduate Slavic, Columbia, 1938-1939; postgraduate Slavic, Yale, 1939-1940.
Faculty, Yale University, 1942-1984;
professor Malayan languages, Yale University, 1957-1958;
professor Malayopolynesian and comparative linguistics, Yale University, 1958-1973;
professor comparative linguistics and Austronesian languages, Yale University, 1973-1984;
professor emeritus, Yale University, since 1984;
director graduate studies Indic and Far Eastern languages and literature, Yale University, 1960-1962;
Indic and Southeast Asia, Yale University, 1960-1966;
director graduate studies linguistics, Yale University, 1966-1968;
Adjunct Professor linguistics, U. Hawaii, 1985-1989;
linguist, Coordinated Investigation Micronesian Anthropology, Truk, 1947;
linguist, Science Investigation Micronesia, Yap, 1949. Visiting professor U. Padjadjaran, Bandung, 1960-1961, U. Auckland, summer 1969, Australian National U., fall 1971, U. Philippines, spring 1972, Institute Study of Langs. and Cultures of Asia and Africa, Tokyo U. for Foreign Langs., 1982-1983. Coordinator linguistics section 10th Pacific Science Congress, Honolulu, 1961.
Associate professor University of Chicago and Linguistic Society American Summer Institute, 1955. Professor University of Michigan and Linguistic Society American Summer Institute, 1957. Director Southeast Asia Linguistics Program, 28th International Congress Orientalists, Canberra, 1971.
Organizing committee Conference Genetic Lexicostatistics, New Haven, 1971. Organizer 1st Eastern Conference Austronesian Linguistics, New Haven, 1973. Advising committee 1st International Conference Comparative Austronesian Linguistics, Honolulu, 1974.
Member of advisory board Oceanic Linguistics.
(In this book, which was originally published in 1974, lex...)
After the war, he did fieldwork on two more genetically and typologically disparate Austronesian languages, Chuukese (rendered as "Trukese" at that time) and Yapese, as a member of the Tri-Institutional Coordinated Investigation of Micronesian Anthropology sponsored by Yale University, the University of Hawaiʻi, and the Bernice P. Bishop Museum.
Married Edith Brenner, June 11, 1939 (deceased 1976). Children– Doris Jane, Mark Ross.