Nancy Currier Dorian (1936 – April 24, 2024) was an American

linguist 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 ...

who carried out research into the decline of the East Sutherland dialect of

Scottish Gaelic Scottish Gaelic (, ; Endonym and exonym, endonym: ), also known as Scots Gaelic or simply Gaelic, is a Celtic language native to the Gaels of Scotland. As a member of the Goidelic language, Goidelic branch of Celtic, Scottish Gaelic, alongs ...

for over 40 years, particularly in the villages of

Brora Brora ( ; ) is a village in the east of Sutherland, in the Highland (council area), Highland area of Scotland. Origin of the name The name ''Brora'' is derived from Old Norse and means "river with a bridge". History Brora is a small industri ...

Golspie Golspie ( , ) is a village and parish in Sutherland, Scottish Highlands, Highland, Scotland, which lies on the North Sea coast in the shadow of Ben Bhraggie. It has a population of around 1,350. History The name derives from the Old Norse, ...

and Embo. Due to their isolation from other Gaelic-speaking communities, these East Sutherland villages presented a good opportunity to study

language death In linguistics, language death occurs when a language loses its last native speaker. By extension, language extinction is when the language is no longer known, including by second-language speakers, when it becomes known as an extinct langua ...

. Dorian's study is possibly the longest such study in the field. She was considered "a prime authority" on language death. ''Language Death: The Life Cycle of a Scottish Gaelic Dialect'', her study into the decline of Gaelic in East Sutherland, is considered "the first major monograph" on language death. According to linguist Joan Argenter, Dorian's name "is well known to scholars working in" several areas of linguistics.

Life

Nancy Dorian was born in

New Brunswick, New Jersey New Brunswick is a city (New Jersey), city in and the county seat of Middlesex County, New Jersey, Middlesex County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey.Highland Park, she graduated from Highland Park High School in 1954. She studied German at the Connecticut College for Women and graduated

summa cum laude Latin honors are a system of Latin phrases used in some colleges and universities to indicate the level of distinction with which an academic degree has been earned. The system is primarily used in the United States. It is also used in some Sout ...

in 1958. She received an MA (1961) and PhD (1965) from the

University of Michigan The University of Michigan (U-M, U of M, or Michigan) is a public university, public research university in Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest institution of higher education in the state. The University of Mi ...

and taught linguistics and German at

Bryn Mawr College Bryn Mawr College ( ; Welsh language, Welsh: ) is a Private college, private Women's colleges in the United States, women's Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, United States. Founded as a ...

from 1965 to 1989, and also taught at the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (Penn or UPenn) is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. One of nine colonial colleges, it was chartered in 1755 through the efforts of f ...

and the

University of Kiel Kiel University, officially the Christian Albrecht University of Kiel, (, abbreviated CAU, known informally as Christiana Albertina) is a public research university in the city of Kiel, Germany. It was founded in 1665 as the ''Academia Holsator ...

. Dorian was a

professor emeritus ''Emeritus/Emerita'' () is an honorary title granted to someone who retirement, retires from a position of distinction, most commonly an academic faculty position, but is allowed to continue using the previous title, as in "professor emeritus". ...

at Bryn Mawr. She was a Unitarian Universalist; her hymn ''Dear Weaver of our Lives' Design'' won a prize for celebrating feminine imagery of the divine. She died suddenly on April 24, 2024, in

Brunswick, Maine Brunswick is a New England town, town in Cumberland County, Maine, United States. Brunswick is included in the Lewiston-Auburn, Maine metropolitan New England city and town area. The population was 21,756 at the 2020 United States Census. Part o ...

. Dorian first noticed the Gaelic language while conducting fieldwork for the Linguistic Survey of Scotland in 1963. Noting that a declining localized speech form offered a chance to find out what sorts of changes took place as a speech form passed out of use, she began a long-term study of variation and change in

East Sutherland Gaelic East Sutherland Gaelic ( ) is an extinct dialect of Scottish Gaelic that was spoken in fishing villages on the eastern coast of Sutherland, especially in Brora, Golspie, and Embo. History The Scottish Gaelic language has been in decline s ...

. When Dorian started studying the dialect, there were still more than 200 speakers in

and Embo, including 105 in Embo, where they were more than a third of the population. Although traditional practice calls for anthropologists to change fieldwork settings, health challenges led Dorian to continue study of East Sutherland language development, a situation that had the beneficial side effect of producing a study of unprecedented scope and continuity. Previous researchers had focused on the NORM (non-mobile old rural male) speakers, who had more conservative language, at the expense of the wider speech community. She coined the term "semi-speaker" for those, mostly from the younger generations, who could speak Gaelic but imperfectly. Her attention to the way that speech competence develops differently in endangered and obsolete languages led socio-linguists to take an interest in understanding different speaker types and their relations to the process of language shift and language shift reversal. Dorian criticized researchers who focused narrowly on single speakers, which conveniently ignored the variation between speakers. Her book ''The Tyranny of Tide: An Oral History of the East Sutherland Fisherfolk'' blurred the lines between linguistics and ethnology, revealing how these fields help illuminate and complement each other.

Notable works

''Language Death: The Life Cycle of a Scottish Gaelic Dialect'' (1981)

Dorian published sixteen years of research on East Sutherland Gaelic as ''Language Death: The Life Cycle of a Scottish Gaelic Dialect''. According to a review by Wolfgang U. Dressler, it was "the first major monograph" on language death. In the view of Professor Tracy Harris and Suzanne Romaine, it was the most comprehensive work on the subject that had been published; Harris also stated that it was "a great contribution to the field of linguistics". Dressler wrote that " would take too long to describe all the praiseworthy aspects of this book", and that it was "indispensable" to scholars of language death. Romaine highlighted the multidisciplinary perspective with which Dorian had approached her work, producing a book that would appeal to

ethnographers Ethnography is a branch of anthropology and the systematic study of individual cultures. It explores cultural phenomena from the point of view of the subject of the study. Ethnography is also a type of social research that involves examining ...

sociologists This list of sociologists includes people who have made notable contributions to sociological theory or to research in one or more areas of sociology. A * Peter Abell, British sociologist * Andrew Abbott, American sociologist * Margaret ...

, Celtic scholars, historians of Scotland, and a wide range of linguists, including those specializing in

sociolinguistics Sociolinguistics is the descriptive, scientific study of how language is shaped by, and used differently within, any given society. The field largely looks at how a language changes between distinct social groups, as well as how it varies unde ...

historical linguistics Historical linguistics, also known as diachronic linguistics, is the scientific study of how languages change over time. It seeks to understand the nature and causes of linguistic change and to trace the evolution of languages. Historical li ...

, and

syntax In linguistics, syntax ( ) is the study of how words and morphemes combine to form larger units such as phrases and sentences. Central concerns of syntax include word order, grammatical relations, hierarchical sentence structure (constituenc ...

. Dorian identified some counterintuitive ways in which language shift was functioning in East Sutherland, noting that the Gaelic language was able to adapt to modern life even while becoming moribund. No

diglossia In linguistics, diglossia ( , ) is where two dialects or languages are used (in fairly strict compartmentalization) by a single language community. In addition to the community's everyday or vernacular language variety (labeled "L" or "low" v ...

developed, because speakers were able to borrow words from English and apply them to any discussion, even for highly technical topics. She was able to classify speakers as "older fluent speakers", "younger fluent speakers", and "semi-speakers", describing the linguistic differences between each speaker type. Her finding that the socioeconomically homogeonous community was characterized by a high degree of variation between speakers was later elaborated in her 2010 book ''Investigating Variation: The Effects of Social Organization and Social Setting''. Certain types of syntactic distinctions, such as

grammatical gender In linguistics, a grammatical gender system is a specific form of a noun class system, where nouns are assigned to gender categories that are often not related to the real-world qualities of the entities denoted by those nouns. In languages wit ...

, case markings, and the two passive constructions, were lost gradually, rather than erased wholesale, as some theoreticians had predicted. Dorian did not find the same types of linguistic changes which were thought to mark endangered languages. She postulated that the type of

change Change, Changed or Changing may refer to the below. Other forms are listed at Alteration * Impermanence, a difference in a state of affairs at different points in time * Menopause, also referred to as "the change", the permanent cessation of t ...

in endangered languages was the same as in healthy languages, but the rate of change was greatly accelerated; the defining features of an endangered language were sociolinguistic rather than structural. Her research showed that the exclusion of Gaelic from the school curriculum was a major factor in its decline, because it reduced the number of opportunities to use Gaelic and cemented its lower status and "usefulness" in the eyes of the community. Another important factor, Dorian found, was the presence of prosperous English-speaking incomers which caused the poorer Gaelic speakers to connect the English language with economic success. Later research showed that the features that Dorian identified for Sutherland Gaelic's decline also applied to many other obsolescent languages.

''Investigating Obsolescence: Studies in Language Contraction and Death'' (1989)

Dorian was inspired to organize this collection of essays when she realized that there were no conferences or journals dedicated to the study of language death, where scholars in the field could share ideas. The book was described by Dorian as a "stepping stone" to future research into language death. By examining 37 languages and dialects, the authors of essays contributed to the availability of information on specific minority languages. At the same time, the different methodologies used help other researchers learn more about endangered language research. The essays elucidated how second-language learner methodologies could be applied to the study of heritage speakers of endangered languages for whom the language is not their primary mode of communication, one of Dorian's main goals for the collection. In addition, the book was described by Carl Blyth as a "milestone" because it "establishes a more coherent agenda in a disparate and still emerging field". ''Investigating Obsolescence'' "undoubtedly compares to other major collections of sociolinguistic essays", according to Emanuel Drechsel.

''Small-Language Fates and Prospects: Lessons of persistence and Change from Endangered Languages (2014)''

Within this book, Dorian's primary focus of study is the fishing towns of Brora, Golspie, and Embo, located in eastern Sutherland, and the transformation of Gaelic dialect in these towns. Dorian notes that on her arrival, many people were bilingual in Gaelic and English—this led to further documentation in linguistic changes such as speech patterns and overall reductions in skill and proficiency. Dorian analyzes language ideology and the importance of its contribution in language shift. She argues that it is important to analyze the speakers' range and ability to utilize the Gaelic language. Dorian concludes this book with notes on field work and the methodologies of working within the community when positioned as an outsider, and utilizes her decades of work to provide an in-depth view of Gaelic language transformation. According to a review by linguist Lenore A. Grenoble, the most striking thing about the book is that it has relevance in its field today considering the book spans decades of work. Also, anthropologist Emily McEwan-Fujita's review comments on its value as a resource for students and scholars. Grenoble also highlights the usefulness of publishing a book of these collections that allows for easier access where tracking down older articles may be difficult.

Legacy

Carl Blyth wrote in 1994 that Dorian "deserves foremost credit for consistently drawing the attention of linguists and anthropologists to the importance of endangered languages". In 2005, Dorian was the subject of a documentary that aired on

BBC Alba BBC Alba is a Scottish Gaelic-language free-to-air public broadcast television channel jointly owned by the BBC and MG Alba. The channel was launched on 19 September 2008 and is on-air for up to seven hours a day. The name ' is the Scottish Gae ...

: "Mar a Chunnaic Mise: Nancy Dorian agus a' Ghàidhlig" ("As I saw it: Nancy Dorian and Gaelic"). The documentary focused on her work on East Sutherland Gaelic. In 2012 Dorian was awarded the Kenneth L. Hale Award by the

Linguistic Society of America The Linguistic Society of America (LSA) is a learned society for the field of linguistics. Founded in New York City in 1924, the LSA works to promote the scientific study of language. The society publishes three scholarly journals: ''Language'', ...

, an award which recognizes scholars for work on endangered or extinct languages. Dorian's award credited her for "research on Scots Gaelic that spans a period of almost fifty years—perhaps the most sustained record of research on any endangered language; and for her effective advocacy for the cause of endangered language preservation and revitalization. Hers was one of the earliest and one of the most prominent voices raised in support of endangered languages." Dorian received an honorary degree from

Glasgow University The University of Glasgow (abbreviated as ''Glas.'' in post-nominals; ) is a public research university in Glasgow, Scotland. Founded by papal bull in , it is the fourth-oldest university in the English-speaking world and one of Scotland's four ...

in 2015.

List of works

* * * * * *

References

;Citations ;Bibliography * * * * *Dorian, "Introduction" to ''Small-Language Fates and Prospects: Lessons of Persistence and Change from Endangered Languages, Collected Essays,'' (Leiden: Brill, 2014), pp. 3, 23, 25. * * * * * * * * * * *

External links

*
Lexical Loss Among the Final Speakers of an Obsolescent Language: a formerly-fluent speaker and a semi-speaker compared
Paper published online June 1997
Using a Private-sphere Language for a Public-sphere Purpose: Some Hard Lessons from Making a TV Documentary in a Dying Dialect
(Word Document ), talk delivered to the emeritus faculty at Bryn Mawr College, March 16, 2006, by Nancy Dorian {{DEFAULTSORT:Dorian, Nancy American sociolinguists University of Michigan alumni Connecticut College alumni Bryn Mawr College faculty 1936 births Date of birth missing 2024 deaths American women linguists Celtic studies scholars Scottish Gaelic language activists American Unitarian Universalists Brora Highland Park High School (New Jersey) alumni People from Highland Park, New Jersey People from New Brunswick, New Jersey