Blair Arnold Rudes (May 18, 1951 – March 16, 2008) was an American linguist and professor at the

University of North Carolina at Charlotte The University of North Carolina at Charlotte (UNC Charlotte, or simply Charlotte) is a public research university in Charlotte, North Carolina, United States. UNC Charlotte offers 24 doctoral, 66 master's, and 79 bachelor's degree programs thr ...

best known for his expertise 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 ...

. He was hired in 2004 to reconstruct the long extinct

Powhatan language Powhatan or Virginia Algonquian is an Eastern Algonquian subgroup of the Algonquian languages. It was formerly spoken by the Powhatan people of tidewater Virginia. Following 1970s linguistic research by Frank Thomas Siebert, Jr., some of the l ...

for use in the film The New World.''A Dead Indian Language Is Brought Back to Life''
Washington Post, David A. Fahrenthold, December 12, 2006.

Early life and education

Blair A. Rudes was born on May 18, 1951, in

Gloversville, New York Gloversville is a city in the Mohawk Valley region of Upstate New York, United States. The most populous city in Fulton County, it was once the hub of the United States' glovemaking industry, with over 200 manufacturers there and the adjacent ...

. He said his mother was of Irish descent and his great-grandmother was

Abenaki The Abenaki ( Abenaki: ''Wαpánahki'') are Indigenous people of the Northeastern Woodlands of Canada and the United States. They are an Algonquian-speaking people and part of the Wabanaki Confederacy. The Eastern Abenaki language was pred ...

. He studied at Piseco Elementary School and Wells Central High School as a child, before going on to the

State University of New York at Buffalo The State University of New York at Buffalo (commonly referred to as UB, University at Buffalo, and sometimes SUNY Buffalo) is a public research university in Buffalo and Amherst, New York, United States. The university was founded in 1846 a ...

, where he obtained a doctorate in

linguistics Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ...

in 1976.

Career

Rudes became an assistant professor of English at the

University of North Carolina, Charlotte A university () is an institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly means "community of teachers and scholars". Univ ...

in 1999 and was promoted to an associate professor in 2005. As a scholar, he is most well known for writing the Tuscarora Dictionary, which the University of Toronto Press published in 1999. He also published over twenty articles in scholarly journals and helped edit several books. In 2004 Rudes was hired to reconstruct the

for use in

Terrence Malick Terrence Frederick Malick (; born November 30, 1943) is an American filmmaker. Malick began his career as part of the New Hollywood generation of filmmakers and received awards at the Cannes Film Festival, Berlin International Film Festival, and ...

's 2005 film '' The New World''. He utilized Colonial-era word lists, along with scholarly work, and filled in linguistic blanks by using better attested

Eastern Algonquian languages The Eastern Algonquian languages constitute a subgroup of the Algonquian languages. Prior to European contact, Eastern Algonquian consisted of at least 17 languages, whose speakers collectively occupied the Atlantic coast of North America and adj ...

. Initially, one scene consisting of three pages of dialogue took him one month to reconstruct. Pleased with the results, Malick wanted to film fifty additional scenes in Powhatan. Rudes spent two weeks in a hotel room translating dialogue and then coached actors of how to properly pronounce their lines. His contributions to the film attracted widescale publicity, including a feature story in the Science Section of the

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

. At Rude's request, the movie studio made his work available to Algonquian tribes located in

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States between the East Coast of the United States ...

so that members could relearn their ancestral language. His work additionally helped dispel a longstanding belief that the term "Chesapeake" meant "Great Shellfish Bay" in Powhatan. Rudes discovered that in actuality, it probably means "Great Water". Impressed by Rudes' work on The New World, director

Carter Smith Carter Smith (born September 6, 1971) is an American filmmaker and fashion photographer. He is best known for directing the films '' The Ruins'' (2008), '' Jamie Marks Is Dead'' (2014) and ''Swallowed'' (2022). Life and career A native of Bowdoi ...

hired him as the Mayan Dialogue Coach for The Ruins.

Personal life

Dr. Rudes was a polyglot, among the languages he could speak were

French French may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France ** French people, a nation and ethnic group ** French cuisine, cooking traditions and practices Arts and media * The French (band), ...

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

Irish Gaelic Irish (Standard Irish: ), also known as Irish Gaelic or simply Gaelic ( ), is a Celtic language of the Indo-European language family. It is a member of the Goidelic languages of the Insular Celtic sub branch of the family and is indigeno ...

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, a Romance ethnic group related to or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance languag ...

Russian Russian(s) may refer to: *Russians (), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *A citizen of Russia *Russian language, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages *''The Russians'', a b ...

, 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 * ...

. He was a gay man and was predeceased by his companion, Philip Hunt. He had two dogs, Heidi and Ben.

Death

Rudes died of a heart attack on March 16, 2008, after working out at a gym in

Charlotte, North Carolina Charlotte ( ) is the List of municipalities in North Carolina, most populous city in the U.S. state of North Carolina and the county seat of Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, Mecklenburg County. The population was 874,579 at the 2020 United ...

.Memorial: Remembering Our Friend, Blair A. Rudes – Linguistics Advisor to CCIC
28 March 2008, accessed November 21, 2013. At the time of his death, he was working on a three volume work titled "The Catawba Language" for the University of South Carolina Press.

Awards

Dr. Rudes was the recipient of several honors. In 2006 he was recognized by the Tuscorora Indian Nation for his contributions to preserving their language and in 2007, the South Carolina General Assembly passed a resolution recognizing the work he had done for the South Carolina Commission for Minority Affairs. On April 5, 2008, he was posthumously awarded the University at Buffalo’s Distinguished Alumni Award.

Selected bibliography

*''Tuscarora-English / English-Tuscarora Dictionary'', 1999 *''Endangered Languages and Literacy: Proceedings of the Fourth FEl Conference'',

Nicholas Ostler Nicholas Ostler (; born 20 May 1952) is a British scholar and author. Biography and work Ostler studied at Balliol College, Oxford, where he received degrees in Greek, Latin, philosophy, and economics. He later studied under Noam Chomsky at ...

(editor), Blair A. Rudes (editor),

Foundation for Endangered Languages Foundation(s) or The Foundation(s) may refer to: Common uses * Foundation (cosmetics), a skin-coloured makeup cream applied to the face * Foundation (engineering), the element of a structure which connects it to the ground, and transfers loads f ...

, 2000