Via Andrew Garrett’s Facebook post, I once again learn of a death so recent Wikipedia hasn’t yet included it:
We are all saddened by the death of Prof. Robin Lakoff. Robin came to Berkeley in 1972, the year in which her book Language and Women’s Place created the modern field of language and gender. She was an articulate, passionate, and impactful writer in that field, in Latin linguistics (her book Abstract Syntax and Latin Complementation was published in 1968), and in language and politics (Talking Power, 1990; The Language War, 2000). After her retirement in 2012, she shared her memories in an oral-history interview: https://150w.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/lakoff_robin.pdf.
I’ve long admired her, but I don’t seem to have posted about her. That interview is interesting reading; here’s a section about MIT/Chomsky (and the salad days of lingistics as a profession):
Robin Lakoff:
Haj Ross, officially John Robert Ross, was part of our cohort at MIT. This was the mid to late sixties. And Haj was just wonderful. He was a terrific teacher, a brilliant theorist, great syntactician, wonderful in all kinds of ways. And, the way the MIT linguistics department was working then was that if you had the favor of God (aka Chomsky) and they wanted to hire you, you literally were hired to be an Assistant Professor the moment the ink on the title page on your dissertation was dry, and very shortly thereafter you got tenure.Paula Fass:
Oh my goodness.Robin Lakoff:
And in general, people got their degrees in a very short time. Linguistics in the mid sixties to mid seventies was extraordinary in the way it worked, very different from anything you see now, anywhere or the way most departments did it back then. So Haj got tenure in about 1968. But a group (of which I was a member) was beginning to invent a form of linguistics that was very different from what Chomsky was doing. We eventually came to call ourselves “generative semantics.” Chomsky, who is an anarchist in his political thought, is an archist in linguistics. He does not brook any argument: it was his way or the highway. Haj was a member of this group and it soon became clear that the work that he was doing wasn’t what Chomsky wanted done, and over the next few years every year he moved further away from MIT into the Boston suburbs and became more and more estranged from MIT. So it was not unreasonable to suppose, by 1971, that he could be tempted away from MIT.
And a bit from later on that gave me pleasure: “Reagan was still governor and of course he was busy firing Clark Kerr, and stuff like that. So maybe there was more freedom for people below him in the chain of command to do unusual things.” I like her style.
Addendum. I won’t make a separate post of this, but Ives Goddard has also died; the Algonquian Conference FB post quotes the obituary from the Smithsonian:
Ives Goddard III (1941-2025) passed away peacefully in his sleep on the evening of August 6. Ives earned his A.B. (1963) and Ph.D. (1969) from Harvard University. Following a stint as a junior professor at Harvard after his Ph.D., in 1975 he came to the Smithsonian to work as a linguist and as the technical editor of the Handbook of North American Indians. After he retired in 2007, he continued his research as a curator emeritus.
Ives was a renowned linguist known as a leading expert on Algonquian languages. He wrote his dissertation on Unami (Delaware/Lenape) morphology and has published extensively on the Unami community’s linguistic diversity. Goddard also wrote grammatical studies, dictionaries, and editions of texts in the Meskwaki (Fox) language as well as the Wampanoag (Massachusetts) and Munsee (Delaware/Lenape) languages. He contributed to the methodology of historical linguistics and demonstrated the value of archival materials for language revitalization. He was the Oxford English Dictionary’s chief consultant for all words of Indigenous American origin. And he was the author and editor of 15 books and more than 300 articles and book chapters.
He will be fondly remembered for his dry wit, encyclopedic knowledge of Indigenous languages, generosity to language learners and to other scholars, and passionate support for linguistics and language revitalization.
“people got their degrees in a very short time”
I met one of those people. They were retired at that point, but they still complained about the young people today and the slipping standards and how back in their day, linguistics was a rigorous enterprise. Later I got to read their dissertation which turned out to be pure drivel. So much for rigorousness.
Language grammars from that period which were evidently deemed worthy of the writer gaining a PhD are often not very good by today’s standards (though always with some splendid exceptions.)
But to be fair, in those days, a lot of the relevant grammatical theory and apparatus which is now taken for granted, especially in grammars of more exotic languages, hadn’t actually been invented yet.
A confounding factor might also be that the American academic linguistic tradition at that time did not value fieldwork on previously underdescribed languages, reducing the pool of capable scholars working on such things in the first place. Those academia-based works that did exist got shoehorned into inadequate Chomskyan or Chomsky-derived frameworks pretty much guaranteed to cripple their accuracy and usefulness.
Going outside that tradition, you got tagmemics and its equally frightful cousins. Nobody can remain positive about tagmemics after trying to extract useful information from a grammar written according to its principles. But Chomsky can’t be held responsible for that one.
If it hadn’t been for the Australians keeping the true flame alive … (and Europeans, I suppose.)
I met one of those people. They were retired at that point, but they still complained about the young people today and the slipping standards and how back in their day, linguistics was a rigorous enterprise. Later I got to read their dissertation which turned out to be pure drivel. So much for rigorousness.
Was that Isidore Dyen, by any chance? (I’m sure it wasn’t — there must have been hundreds like that — but he’s the exemplar I knew.)
In contrast, I met someone of that generation who cringed at his own dissertation. His data were good, but he had to dress them up in Transformational Grammar drag to make the dissertation academically worthy.
Martinet-style Functionalist descriptive grammars are bad in their way, but not nearly as awful.
The speed with which which people wrote their dissertations and obtained tenure either within the same institution or within an institution* dominated by “scholars” with the same outlook as their doctorate-granting department also meant that, however competent or incompetent said scholars were, they almost always had a remarkably parochial outlook upon linguistics (and many other matters, in fact) which decades of teaching and research typically did nothing to change -if anything, their parochialism seems to have grown worse with time for most of them, if my experience interacting with members of this subspecies of HOMO LINGUISTICAE UNIVERSITATIS is typical that is.
That, to me, is the basic divide in outlook between the older and younger generation of linguists in Academia: the latter, having had upon graduation no guarantee of tenured employment and needing to work part-time at more than one outside University, often in a different country if not continent, quickly shed whatever parochialism they might have had upon graduation and accepted the existence, and quickly adjusted to the reality of, different schools/points of view within linguistics.
Bulbul: In my experience such older linguists, when they speak of “rigorous standards”, mean “whatever empty and meaningless formalism was fashionable in my department when I was writing my dissertation”. Their statement on young’uns lacking these “rigorous standards” is quite true, once you understand what “rigorous standards” corresponds to in their Deep Structure.
*My favorite ambiguity in English (All of us linguists have one, I imagine): “institution” meaning, according to context, a University or an insane asylum.
Excellent analysis!
@hat,
not him, no, someone who is still alive.
@Etienne,
exactly that, in this case formulated as “well there obviously is a clear standard of grammaticality and a sentence is a real thing.”
“Oh, to be in that dawn, pure bliss to be alive”
Until Chomsky started stamping out the creativity he had unleashed. His idea that all language is a system of computer-like operations starting from MERGE is looking increasingly old hat. Boring even. Is he still around?
He’s 97. Per WP, he had a severe stroke a few years ago and mostly cannot communicate.
The NY Times has finally published an obit, by Trip Gabriel (archived):
I well remember the fuss that was caused by her article and book (which came out while I was still a linguist-in-training); I found her arguments instantly convincing, and the reaction to them helped sharpen my feminist awareness.
Oh, and I learn that her maiden name was Tolmach, which is from a Russian word for ‘interpreter.’ Another nice example of onomastic determinism!
Tolmach, which is from a Russian word for ‘interpreter.’
Originally Turkish, I think. English Talmadge.
Wiktionary agrees with you:
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Dolmetscher#German
Not as good as
https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/dragoman
though, which goes back to Akkadian, no less.
I was accused yesterday of using my language to oppress women. I am not the most fluid conversationalist when it comes to serious issues, but I try to respect the people I talk to and not lie.
Is there another way to answer a question from one’s adult daughter, when the direct answer is that her mother had an affair?
Luwian even: tarkʷ-mant- “having explanation”. We’ve discussed it at some length, but I can’t find it.
Previous discussion of dragoman (2020).
@brett
How about “I think you should ask your mother…”?
Heh. My children do that by default, regardless of the topic, without any prompting from me at all. I can’t understand it, what with all the wisdom I could be imparting to them …
Tolmach … Originally Turkish, I think. English Talmadge.
Wiktionary disagrees that the surname Talmadge (Talemasche, Tollemache, etc.) is related to Tolmach; it says “Metonymic occupational surname for an itinerant merchant, from Old French talemasche (‘knapsack’)”, citing Dictionary of American Family Names.
I learn that her maiden name was Tolmach, which is from a Russian word for ‘interpreter.’
Is that German Dolmetscher?
Yes, see DE’s comment above.
Also just Dolmetsch, though that is probably obsolescent. The -er form is backformed from the verb, dolmetschen.
…and it just dawned on me that the d points to borrowing in Saxony, a notorious site of Inderior German Gonsonant Weagening where, moreover, Upper Sorbian is spoken.
Also just Dolmetsch, though that is probably obsolescent.
Yes, I would be astonished to find that in a contemporary text outside of a historical novel or a similarly archaizing text.
Saxony, a notorious site of Inderior German Gonsonant Weagening
Back in the um, golden age of dialect jokes in the US, this was one stereotype of German-accented English, alongside the one with the converse, i.e. rampant devoicing. I can’t find any good examples at the moment. Was there a distinct wave of immigration to the US from Saxony?
Wiktionary disagrees that the surname Talmadge (Talemasche, Tollemache, etc.) is related to Tolmach; it says “Metonymic occupational surname for an itinerant merchant, from Old French talemasche (‘knapsack’)”, citing Dictionary of American Family Names.
I was curious about what this talemasche ‘knapsack’ could possibly be and looked into the matter. In fact, Hanks et al., Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland (2016) has (boldface added) the following:
However, for talemasche, the FEW (section 3.a. in vol. 6/1, p. 333) gives the definition ‘masque’ for mediaeval Judaeo-French (spelled טלמשייא talemasje, etc., I gather) and ‘figure, visage’ for Middle French, here. See especially note 34 to this on page 440:
The reference in note 34 is to Auguste-Henry-Édouard Queux de Saint-Hilaire, ed., Œuvres complètes de Eustache Deschamps, pub. d’après le manuscrit de la Bibliothèque nationale, volume iv (1878), p. 293, footnote 3, available here.
The identification of the English surname Talmadge with the group of Middle French talemasche, Judaeo-French talemasje, may to go back to Blondheim in Arsène Darmesteter and David Simon Blondheim (1937) Les gloses françaises dans les Commentaires talmudiques de Raschi, volume 2 (Études lexicographiques). I am on holiday now and cannot consult this work at the moment.
Blondheim
Here (pdf, p. 134, §977). Rashi says, specifically, that they are for fun, to scare children with. It’s a translation of לוקטמין in Sabbath 66a:5 and 66b:5. Jastrow reviews the various interpretations of the Aramaic lûqiṭmîn.
No idea – but b d g aren’t voiced; rather, b d g p t k pp tt ck collapse into short fortes [p t k] at the ends of syllables and when preceding /l r n/, short lenes [b̥ d̥ g̊] otherwise, except in the northern part where g instead merges with /x/ depending on its position. Interestingly, nothing happens to [z].
Re emigrants from Saxony, this group was of some disproportionate importance in subsequent US religious history but quite small percentagewise in terms of total German-origin immigration in the general time frame. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saxon_Lutheran_immigration_of_1838%E2%80%9339 Note the claim that “In 2014, 247 residents of [Perry County, Mo.] continued to speak a distinct Upper Saxon dialect of German, although that number is decreasing, with the youngest speakers being over 50 years of age.”
@Y, dm
Sächsische Lorelei (Lena Voigt)
Ich weeß nich, mir isses so gomisch
Un ärchendwas macht mich verschtimmt.
S’is meechlich, das is anadomisch,
Wie das ähmd beim Mänschen oft gimmt.
De Älwe, die bläddschert so friedlich,
Ä Fischgahn gommt aus dr Tschechei.
Drin sitzt ‘ne Familche gemiedlich,
Nu sinse schon an dr Bastei.
Un ohm uffn Bärche, nu gugge,
Da gämmt sich ä Freilein ihrn Zobb.
Se schtriecheltn glatt hibbsch mit Schbugge,
Dann schtäcktsn als Gauz uffn Gobb.
Dr Vader da unten im Gahne
Glotzt nuff bei das Weib gans entzickt.
De Mudder meent draurich: “Ich ahne,
Die macht unsern Babbah verrickt.”
Nu fängt die da ohm uffn Fälsen
Zu sing ooch noch an ä Gubbleh.
Dr Vader im Gahn dud sich wälsen
Vor Lachen un jodelt: ,,Juchheh !”
,,Bis schtille”, schreit ängstlich Ottilche.
Schon gibbelt gans forchtbar dr Gahn,
Un blätzlich versinkt de Familche . . .
Nee, Freilein, was hamse gedan!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yU1td6HxjHg&pp=0gcJCf8Ao7VqN5tD
Re U.S. comics, the Katzenjammer Kids did not do this type of thing, but they said things like giff and haff and threw in a German article (always der) a lot.
Oh, so /j/ participates in the merger with /x/. Didn’t know that.
@dm
I believe the reader on Youtube says Odilche or Oddilche, of course that does not affect your point about the je. I also hear an extreme uuaah + glottal for ur in furchtbar.
Following up on the meaning of talemasche ‘figure, visage’, perhaps a snippet of volume 2 (1937) of Darmesteter and Blondheim is visible to LH readers here on Google books:
Blondheim doesn’t seem to go into the exact semantic motivation for the surname. I hope I can obtain an electronic file soon… Blondheim’s lexicographical studies of the glosses look fun.
Personal reminiscences of Ives Goddard from Sally Thomason and Arnold Zwicky, at Zwicky’s blog:
Great story! (And it makes me miss the inflammatory mapo dofu I used to get at the Little Omei restaurant in Taipei…)
If you trace the ancestry back a bit further than the AZ post does, it looks like the paternal-line ancestor who imported his surname to North America came over from Wiltshire to the Massachusetts Bay colony in the later 17th century and I would assume most of his other ancestors as of the early 17th century resided in places where the local food wasn’t much spicier than was the case in Wiltshire. Whether there are actually significant regional variations in genetic propensity to tolerate spice or not I have no idea; perhaps it has come up in one of those endless Yamnaya-etc. genetics threads.
Dang. Goddard was Algonquian linguistics.
It appears from googling that a month after his death no “mainstream” newspaper has deemed Goddard important enough to run an obituary. Grumble grumble grumble.
Anybody trying to look it up should look for pain tolerance. Spice in this sense is pain; capsaicin & co. attach to pain receptors.
That may be, but people whose mouth can tolerate capsaicin are no more tolerant of sitting on a thumbtack.
I bet they are, as in “they jump up half a second later”.
inflammatory mapo dofu I used to get …
Aww there’s still plenty of mouth-blasting mapo dofu to be found all over Taiwan. Waaay too tongue-burning for me. (And I thought I could cope with most spicy Asian food.)
I’m sure there is, but I’m not there to enjoy it any more. (I couldn’t eat Chinese food for about a year after I returned to the US, until my taste buds forgot what the real stuff tasted like.)
@langhat “ inflammatory mapo dofu I used to get …” Do you have an nightshade family allergy? I use pure capsicum to get around my nightshade allergy. Nice blog, btw. Interesting stuff.
No, I don’t have any allergies I’m aware of — I was just saying it was spicy. I liked it!
Etienne said:
That sounds like Lynne Murphy’s background:
And after her PhD, she did have to work at more than one university, on different continents — the University of the Witwatersrand, and then Baylor — before finally arriving at the University of Sussex, where she is now.
Not even as history of the field? Amazing.
BTW, is this idiomatic in BrEng, as opposed to “I don’t think that it’s possible”? I wasn’t taught it and first encountered it (some 15–20 years ago) in a quote from G. H. W. Bush, and only from other Americans since.
Literally it’s more like “I’m not sure it’s possible” or “It may not be possible”, but that could be a mild understatement for “I don’t think it’s possible” (in my American experience).
Not even as history of the field?
To these people, the history of the field begins with Noam Chomsky arising from the waves on a shell held by Zelig Harris (or, if you want to change the metaphor, make Harris = John the Baptist).
is this idiomatic in BrEng, as opposed to “I don’t think that it’s possible”?
Seems fine to me.
Kusaal uses “still don’t know” as a standard idiom for “have never”:
M nan zi’ nyɛ gbigimnɛ.
I still not.know.LINKER see lion.NEGATIVE
“I’ve never seen a lion.”
I just felt that Hatters ought to know that. You never know when it might come in handy.
GNgrams show the expression being only slightly less common in BrE than in AmE. However in AmE its popularity jumped in the 1980s, in BrE not until the 2000s. Both have rare traces of it going back to the mid-20th century.
In my idiolect , the idioms “I don’t know that…” and “I’m not sure that…” are synonymous, and different from “I don’t believe that…”, which last admits less of a possibility of one’s being mistaken.