Morris Swadesh (; January 22, 1909 – July 20, 1967) was an American

linguist Linguistics is the 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. Lingu ...

who specialized in comparative and

historical linguistics Historical linguistics, also termed diachronic linguistics, is the scientific study of language change over time. Principal concerns of historical linguistics include: # to describe and account for observed changes in particular languages # ...

. Swadesh was born in

Massachusetts Massachusetts (Massachusett: ''Muhsachuweesut Massachusett_writing_systems.html" ;"title="nowiki/> məhswatʃəwiːsət.html" ;"title="Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət">Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət'' En ...

to Bessarabian Jewish immigrant parents. He completed bachelor's and master's degrees at the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...

, studying under Edward Sapir, and then followed Sapir to

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the w ...

where he completed a Ph.D. in 1933. Swadesh taught at the

University of Wisconsin–Madison A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United Stat ...

from 1937 to 1939, and then during World War II worked on projects with the

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, ...

and Office of Strategic Services. He became a professor at the

City College of New York The City College of the City University of New York (also known as the City College of New York, or simply City College or CCNY) is a public university within the City University of New York (CUNY) system in New York City. Founded in 1847, Cit ...

after the war's end, but was fired in 1949 due to his membership in the

Communist Party A communist party is a political party that seeks to realize the socio-economic goals of communism. The term ''communist party'' was popularized by the title of '' The Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engel ...

. He spent most of the rest of his life teaching in Mexico and Canada. Swadesh had a particular interest in the

indigenous languages of the Americas Over a thousand indigenous languages are spoken by the Indigenous peoples of the Americas. These languages cannot all be demonstrated to be related to each other and are classified into a hundred or so language families (including a large nu ...

, and conducted extensive fieldwork throughout North America. He was one of the pioneers of

glottochronology Glottochronology (from Attic Greek γλῶττα ''tongue, language'' and χρόνος ''time'') is the part of lexicostatistics which involves comparative linguistics and deals with the chronological relationship between languages.Sheila Embleton ...

and lexicostatistics, and is known for his creation of the Swadesh list, a compilation of basic concepts believed to present across cultures and thus suitable for cross-linguistic comparison. Swadesh believed that his techniques could discover deep relationships between apparently unrelated languages, thus allowing for the identification of

macrofamilies In historical linguistics, a macrofamily, also called a superfamily or phylum, is a proposed genetic relationship grouping together language families (also isolates) in a larger scale classification. Campbell, Lyle and Mixco, Mauricio J. (2007), ...

and possibly even a "Proto-Human" language. His theories were often controversial, and some have been deprecated by later linguists.

Early life and education

Swadesh was born in 1909 in Holyoke, Massachusetts, to Jewish immigrant parents from

Bessarabia Bessarabia (; Gagauz: ''Besarabiya''; Romanian: ''Basarabia''; Ukrainian: ''Бессара́бія'') is a historical region in Eastern Europe, bounded by the Dniester river on the east and the Prut river on the west. About two thirds o ...

. His parents were multilingual, and he grew up with

Yiddish Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ve ...

, some Russian, and English as his first languages. Swadesh earned his B.A. and M.A. from the

, where he began studying with the linguist Edward Sapir. He followed Sapir to

, where he earned his Ph.D. in 1933. Inspired by Sapir's early lists of word similarities among Native American languages, he began a life work in comparative linguistics.

Early career

In the 1930s, Swadesh conducted extensive fieldwork on more than 20

, with travels in Canada, Mexico, and the US. He worked most prominently on the Chitimacha language, a now-extinct

language isolate Language isolates are languages that cannot be classified into larger language families. Korean and Basque are two of the most common examples. Other language isolates include Ainu in Asia, Sandawe in Africa, and Haida in North America. The nu ...

found among indigenous people of

Louisiana Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It is the 20th-smallest by area and the 25th most populous of the 50 U.S. states. Louisiana is bord ...

. His fieldnotes and subsequent publications constitute the main source of information on this extinct language. He also conducted smaller amounts of fieldwork on the Menominee and

Mahican The Mohican ( or , alternate spelling: Mahican) are an Eastern Algonquian Native American tribe that historically spoke an Algonquian language. As part of the Eastern Algonquian family of tribes, they are related to the neighboring Lenape, w ...

languages, in Wisconsin and New York, respectively; both are part of the Algonquian language family. Swadesh taught linguistics and anthropology at the University of Wisconsin in Madison from 1937 to 1939. During this time he devised and organized the highly original "Oneida Language and Folklore Project." This program hired more than a dozen Oneida Indians in Wisconsin for a WPA project (under the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration) to record and translate texts in the Oneida language. (The Oneida were historically one of the five nations of the Iroquois Confederacy, with their historic territory located in central New York state, but some had moved to Wisconsin in the 19th century.) In this same period in other WPA projects, writers were recording state histories and guides, and researchers were collecting oral histories of

African Americans African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...

who had been born into slavery before the end of the Civil War. Swadesh was let go by the University of Wisconsin just as he was to begin the project.

Floyd Lounsbury Floyd Glenn Lounsbury (April 25, 1914 – May 14, 1998) was an American linguist, anthropologist and Mayanist scholar and epigrapher, best known for his work on linguistic and cultural systems of a variety of North and South American languages. Eq ...

, then an undergraduate, was assigned to finish it. Lounsbury continued his studies in linguistics, later serving as Sterling Professor of Anthropology and Linguistics at

. In May 1939 Swadesh went to Mexico, where he had been hired to assist the government of Mexican President

Lázaro Cárdenas Lázaro Cárdenas del Río (; 21 May 1895 – 19 October 1970) was a Mexican army officer and politician who served as president of Mexico from 1934 to 1940. Born in Jiquilpan, Michoacán, to a working-class family, Cárdenas joined the Me ...

, who was promoting the education of indigenous peoples. Swadesh learned the Purépecha language for this work. Together with rural school teachers, Swadesh worked in indigenous villages, teaching people to read first in their own languages, before teaching them Spanish. He worked with the Tarahumara, Purépecha, and Otomi peoples. Swadesh also learned Spanish in less than a year; he was fluent enough that he was able to give a series of linguistics lectures (in Spanish) at the Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo and publish his first book, ''"La Nueva Filologia,"'' in Spanish in 1941.Obituary: Morris Swadesh, ''American Anthropologist,'' vol. 70, 1968, http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1525/aa.1968.70.4.02a00070/pdf Returning to the U.S., during the Second World War Swadesh worked on military projects for the U.S. Army and the

OSS OSS or Oss may refer to: Places * Oss, a city and municipality in the Netherlands * Osh Airport, IATA code OSS People with the name * Oss (surname), a surname Arts and entertainment * ''O.S.S.'' (film), a 1946 World War II spy film about ...

to compile reference materials on Burmese, Chinese, Russian, and Spanish. He also wrote easy-to-learn textbooks for troops to learn Russian and Chinese. Swadesh served in

Burma Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John C. Wells, Joh ...

, where Lt.

Roger Hilsman Roger Hilsman Jr. (November 23, 1919 – February 23, 2014) was an American soldier, government official, political scientist, and author. He saw action in the China-Burma-India Theater of World War II, first with Merrill's Marauders, getting w ...

described his linguistic skills as extraordinary. Swadesh learned enough of the Naga language, after spending only one day with a local guide, that he was able to give a ten-minute thank-you speech in that language.

, ''American Guerrilla'', Potomac Books, 2005, pp. 142–143 Hilsman recalled that Swadesh had been strongly opposed to

racial segregation in the United States In the United States, racial segregation is the systematic separation of facilities and services such as housing, healthcare, education, employment, and transportation on racial grounds. The term is mainly used in reference to the legally ...

Red Scare

In May 1949, Swadesh was fired by the

(CCNY) due to accusations that he was a

Communist Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, ...

. That was during the Red Scare, and he was one of a number of

anthropologist An anthropologist is a person engaged in the practice of anthropology. Anthropology is the study of aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology, cultural anthropology and philosophical anthropology study the norms an ...

s and other academics to be opposed by anticommunists during the McCarthy Era. Swadesh had been a member of the Denver Communist Party and was active in the protest movement against the execution of convicted spies,

Julius and Ethel Rosenberg Julius Rosenberg (May 12, 1918 – June 19, 1953) and Ethel Rosenberg (; September 28, 1915 – June 19, 1953) were American citizens who were convicted of spying on behalf of the Soviet Union. The couple were convicted of providing top-secret i ...

.David H. Price. (2004). ''Threatening Anthropology: McCarthyism and the FBI's Surveillance of Activist Anthropologists.'' Duke University Press p. 102–105 Swadesh continued to work in the United States until 1954, aided by limited funding from the

American Philosophical Society The American Philosophical Society (APS), founded in 1743 in Philadelphia, is a scholarly organization that promotes knowledge in the sciences and humanities through research, professional meetings, publications, library resources, and communit ...

of Philadelphia.

Later career

In 1956 Swadesh returned to Mexico, where he took a position as researcher at the National Autonomous University of Mexico and taught linguistics at the National School of Anthropology and History (Escuela Nacional de Antropología e Historia), in

Mexico City Mexico City ( es, link=no, Ciudad de México, ; abbr.: CDMX; Nahuatl: ''Altepetl Mexico'') is the capital and largest city of Mexico, and the most populous city in North America. One of the world's alpha cities, it is located in the Valley o ...

. In 1966, he was appointed Professor of General Linguistics at the

University of Alberta The University of Alberta, also known as U of A or UAlberta, is a Public university, public research university located in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. It was founded in 1908 by Alexander Cameron Rutherford,"A Gentleman of Strathcona – Alexande ...

in Canada. He was developing plans for a major research project in

Western Canada Western Canada, also referred to as the Western provinces, Canadian West or the Western provinces of Canada, and commonly known within Canada as the West, is a Canadian region that includes the four western provinces just north of the Canada� ...

at the time of his death, in the summer of 1967.

Work in historical linguistics

Swadesh is best known for his work in

. Any language changes over centuries (consider, for example, the changes in English since the Middle Ages). Some languages diverge and become separate dialects, or languages that still belong to the same language family. Tracking similarities and differences between languages is part of historical linguistics. Swadesh proposed a number of distant genetic links among languages. He was the chief pioneer of lexicostatistics, which attempts to classify languages on the basis of the extent to which they have replaced basic words reconstructible in the proto-language, and

, which extends lexicostatistics by computing divergence dates from the lexical retention rate. Swadesh became a consultant with the International Auxiliary Language Association, which standardized Interlingua and presented it to the public in 1951 (Esterhill 2000). In this role, he originated the lists of 100 and 200 basic vocabulary items, used (with some variation) in both lexicostatistics and glottochronology for comparison among languages. They have since been known as the Swadesh lists. Some scholars considered Swadesh as a supporter of monogenesis, the theory that all languages have a common origin: "Swadesh sought to show that all the world's languages are related in one large family" (Ruhlen 1994:215). Others believe that Swadesh proposed early linkages, but believed that languages diverged immediately among peoples, as he expressed in his major, but unfinished work, ''The Origin and Diversification of Language'' (1971), published posthumously.William Strazny, "Morris Swadesh: Critical Essay"
William Strazny Website, accessed October 25, 2009

Personal life

Swadesh was married for a time to

Mary Haas Mary Rosamond Haas (January 23, 1910 – May 17, 1996) was an American linguist who specialized in North American Indian languages, Thai, and historical linguistics. She served as president of the Linguistic Society of America. She was electe ...

, a fellow American linguist. He later married Frances Leon, with whom he worked in Mexico in the 1930s; they divorced in the late 1950s. He married linguist Evangelina Arana after his return to Mexico in 1956. He died in

in July 1967.

Bibliography

* Swadesh, Morris (1932) ''The Expression of the Ending-Point Relation in English, French, and German''. Alice V. Morris, ed. Linguistic Society of America. Language Monographs No. 10. 125 pp. Baltimore. * Swadesh, Morris (1933). ''The Internal Economy of the Nootka Word''. PhD thesis, Yale University. * Swadesh, Morris (1934). ''The Phonemic Principle'' a Language 10 (1934) * Swadesh, Morris (1937) ''A Method for Phonetic Accuracy and Speed''. ''American Anthropologist'' 39 * Swadesh, Morris (1939). (With Edward Sapir) ''Nootka Texts. Tales and Ethnologic Narratives''. William Dwight Whitney Linguistic Series, Linguistic Society of America. Philadelphia. * Swadesh, Morris (1940). ''Orientaciones Lingüísticas para Maestros en Zonas Indígenas''. 77 pp. México. * Swadesh, Morris (1940). (con F. Lounsbury y Oscar Archequette, eds.) ''OnΔyo-da?a.ga. Deyelihwahgwa.ta'' (Oneida Hymm Book). 100 pp. Oneida, Wisconsin. * Swadesh, Mauricio (1941) ''La Nueva Filología''—México: Biblioteca del Maestro No. 4, ''El Nacional'' 288 pp. * Swadesh, Morris (1944). ''How to Pick up a Foreign Language''. Folleto de la Office of Strategic Services, ''14 pp''. Washington, D.C. * Swadesh, Morris (1945). ''Talking Russian Before you know it''. Holt, 134 pp. Nueva York. * Swadesh, Morris (1945). ''The Words you Need in Burmese''. Folleto de la Office of Strategic Services, 35 pp. Washington, D.C. * Swadesh, Morris (1948). ''Chinese in your Pocket''. Holt. xvi + 185 pp. Nueva York. Reprinted 1964 with the titl
''Conversational Chinese for Beginners''
* Swadesh, Morris. (1950). ''Salish internal relationships.'' ''International Journal of American Linguistics'', ''16'', 157–167. * Swadesh, Morris (1951). ''Basic Vocabulary of Glottochronology''. Denver (mimeo). * Swadesh, Morris. (1952). ''Lexicostatistic dating of prehistoric ethnic contacts.'' ''Proceedings American Philosophical Society'', ''96'', 452–463. * Swadesh, Morris (1954). ''Amerindian Non-Cultural Vocabularies''. Denver. * Swadesh, Morris (1955). Towards greater accuracy in lexicostatistic dating. ''International Journal of American Linguistics'', ''21'', 121–137. * Swadesh, Morris (1955). ''Amerindian Non-Cultural Vocabularies''. Edición revisada. Denver. * Swadesh, Morris (1955). (With Edward Sapir) ''Native Accounts of Nootka Ethnography''. Indiana University Research Center in Anthropology, Folklore and Linguistics No. 1. 457 pp. Bloomington. * Swadesh, Morris (1956). (With A. Castro, J. Pedraza y E. Wallis) ''Los Otomíes hablamos en Castellano''. Patronato Indígena del Valle del Mezquital e Instituto Lingüístico de Verano. 21 pp. México (mimeo.) * Swadesh, Morris (1956). ''Juegos para Aprender Castellano''. Instituto Indigenista Interamericano, México. * Swadesh, Morris (1957). ''Términos de Parentesco Comunes entre Tarasco y Zuñi''. Cuadernos del Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas de la UNAM, Serie Antropológica No. 3, 39 pp. México. * Swadesh, Morris (1959). ''Linguistics as an Instrument of Prehistory'' a ''Southwestern Journal of Anthropology'' 15. * Swadesh, Morris (1959). ''Mapas de Clasificación Lingüística de México y las Américas''. Cuadernos del Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas de la UNAM, Serie Antropológica No. 6, 37 pp. y 3 mapas. México. * Swadesh, Morris (1959). ''Indian Linguistic Groups of México''. Escuela Nacional de Antropología e Historia, 14 pp. y 2 mapas. México. * Swadesh, Morris (1959–60). ''Materiales para un Diccionario Comparativo de las Lenguas Amerindias''. * Swadesh, Morris (1960). ''La Lingüística como Instrumento de la Prehistoria''. Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Dirección de Prehistoria, Publicación no. 9, 36 pp. México. * Swadesh, Morris (1960). (With Edward Sapir) ''Yana Dictionary''. University of California, Publications in Linguistics 22, 267 pp. Berkeley. * Swadesh, Morris (1960). ''Tras la Huella Lingüística de la Prehistoria''. Suplemento del Seminario de Problemas Científicos y Filosóficos de la UNAM, 2ª Serie, No. 26. México. * Swadesh, Morris (1960). ''Estudios sobre Lengua y Cultura''. Acta Antropológica, Segunda Época, II-2, 250 pp. México. * Swadesh, Morris (1963). (et al.) ''Proyecto de Libro de Lectura y de Cuaderno de Trabajo de Lengua Nacional para 6º. Año'', México. * Swadesh, Morris (1965). (With Evangelina Arana) ''Los Elementos del Mixteco Antiguo''. Instituto Nacional Indigenista, 200 pp. México. * Swadesh, Morris (1965–68). (With María Cristina Álvarez, Ramón Arzápalo, and Juan R. Bastarrachea): ''Diccionario de Elementos de la Lengua Maya'', en revisión para su edición, Seminario de Estudios de la Escritura Maya, UNAM. México. * Swadesh, Mauricio (1966). ''El lenguaje y la vida humana'', 396 pp. México: FCE. * Swadesh, Mauricio (1966). (With Madalena Sancho) ''Los Mil Elementos del Mexicano Clásico. Base Analítica de la Lengua Nahua''. Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas de la UNAM, 89 pp. México. * Swadesh, Mauricio (1966). (With María Chuairy and Guido Gómez) ''El Árabe Literario''. El Colegio de México, 321 pp. México. * Swadesh, Morris (1967). (With Evangelina Arana) ''Diccionario Analítico de la Lengua Mampruli''. Museo de las Culturas. México. * Swadesh, Morris (1968). ''Elementos del Tarasco Antiguo'', Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas de la UNAM. * Swadesh, Morris (1968). ''La Nueva Filología'', 2ª edición. Colección Obras de Mauricio Swadesh Editadas por sus Alumnos No. 1, México. * Swadesh, Morris (1971
''The Origin and Diversification of Language''
Aldine, Chicago.

References

Sources

* Esterhill, Frank. 2000. ''Interlingua Institute: A History.'' New York: Interlingua Institute. * Newman, Stanley. 1967. "Morris Swadesh (1909-1967)." ''Language'' 43. * Price, David H. 1997.
Anthropologists on trial"
Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, Washington, D.C., November 1997 * Ruhlen, Merritt. 1994. ''On the Origin of Languages: Studies in Linguistic Taxonomy'', Stanford, California: Stanford University Press.

External links

Minnesota State University, Mankato {{DEFAULTSORT:Swadesh, Morris 1909 births 1967 deaths American people of Moldovan-Jewish descent American people of Ukrainian-Jewish descent Linguists from the United States American communists Jewish American social scientists University of Chicago alumni Yale University alumni People from Holyoke, Massachusetts Paleolinguists People of the Office of Strategic Services Linguists of Algic languages Linguists of Siouan languages Linguists of Hokan languages Linguists of Salishan languages Linguists of Penutian languages National School of Anthropology and History faculty 20th-century linguists