Parker Paul McKenzie (November 15, 1897, near Rainy Mountain – March 5, 1999, Mountain View) was a

Kiowa Kiowa ( ) or Cáuigú () people are a Native Americans in the United States, Native American tribe and an Indigenous people of the Great Plains of the United States. They migrated southward from western Montana into the Rocky Mountains in Colora ...

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 developed the

Kiowa language Kiowa , in the language itself (also rendered , "language of the Kiowa"), is a Tanoan language spoken by the Kiowa people, primarily in Caddo, Kiowa, and Comanche counties. The Kiowa tribal center is located in Carnegie. Like most North A ...

orthography.

Early life

McKenzie was born in a

tipi A tipi or tepee ( ) is a conical lodge tent that is distinguished from other conical tents by the smoke flaps at the top of the structure, and historically made of animal hides or pelts or, in more recent generations, of canvas stretched on ...

, and

baptized Baptism (from ) is a Christian sacrament of initiation almost invariably with the use of water. It may be performed by sprinkling or pouring water on the head, or by immersing in water either partially or completely, traditionally three ...

in the

Washita River The Washita River () is a river in the U.S. states of Texas and Oklahoma. The river is long and terminates at its confluence with the Red River of the South, Red River, which is now part of Lake Texoma () on the TexasOklahoma border. Geogra ...

. He was educated at the Rainy Mountain Kiowa Boarding School, where it was mandatory to speak the

English Language English is a West Germanic language that developed in early medieval England and has since become a English as a lingua franca, global lingua franca. The namesake of the language is the Angles (tribe), Angles, one of the Germanic peoples th ...

; those who used the

were threatened with physical punishment. Afterwards, he attended the

Phoenix Indian School The Phoenix Indian School, or Phoenix Indian High School in its later years, was a Bureau of Indian Affairs-operated school in Encanto, Phoenix, Encanto Village, in the heart of Phoenix, Arizona. It served lower grades also from 1891 to 1935, an ...

, Union High School, Lamson College, and

Oklahoma State University Oklahoma State University (informally Oklahoma State or OSU) is a public land-grant research university in Stillwater, Oklahoma, United States. The university was established in 1890 under the legislation of the Morrill Act. Originally known ...

. McKenzie attended the Phoenix Indian School with Nettie Odlety (c. 1896 – 1978), whom he married on August 23, 1919. At school the couple wrote each other letters in Kiowa. They also were some of the earliest Kiowa

photographers A photographer (the Greek φῶς (''phos''), meaning "light", and γραφή (''graphê''), meaning "drawing, writing", together meaning "drawing with light") is a person who uses a camera to make photographs. Duties and types of photograp ...

, taking photographs in Arizona in 1916.

Linguistic work

When in 1918 the

Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums, Education center, education and Research institute, research centers, created by the Federal government of the United States, U.S. government "for the increase a ...

sent the

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

John Peabody Harrington John Peabody Harrington (April 29, 1884 – October 21, 1961) was an American linguist and ethnologist and a specialist in the indigenous peoples of California. Harrington is noted for the massive volume of his documentary output, most of whic ...

Oklahoma Oklahoma ( ; Choctaw language, Choctaw: , ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. It borders Texas to the south and west, Kansas to the north, Missouri to the northea ...

to study the language of the Kiowa, McKenzie was his

translator Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. The English language draws a terminological distinction (which does not exist in every language) between ''trans ...

. This began a decades-long scientific examination and recording of the Kiowa language, which until then had been purely an oral language. They jointly developed a valid

phonetic Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that studies how humans produce and perceive sounds or, in the case of sign languages, the equivalent aspects of sign. Linguists who specialize in studying the physical properties of speech are phoneticians ...

alphabet, which also resulted in the publication of ''Vocabulary of the Kiowa Language'' (1928) and ''Popular Account of the Kiowa Indian Language'' (1948), in a collaboration that extended into the 1950s. All this time, from the 1920s to the 1950s, McKenzie, never an academic, was a stenographer in the Indians Monies Section of the

Bureau of Indian Affairs The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), also known as Indian Affairs (IA), is a United States List of United States federal agencies, federal agency within the U.S. Department of the Interior, Department of the Interior. It is responsible for im ...

. Late in his life, in close cooperation with Laurel Watkins, McKenzie published ''A Grammar of Kiowa'' in 1984. Some compared his work with the development of the

Sequoyah Sequoyah ( ; , , or , , ; 1770 – August 1843), also known as George Gist or George Guess, was a Native American polymath and Constructed script, neographer of the Cherokee Nation. In 1821, Sequoyah completed his Cherokee syllabary, enabl ...

and Cherokee alphabets. He also translated many texts from English, including

Baptist Baptists are a Christian denomination, denomination within Protestant Christianity distinguished by baptizing only professing Christian believers (believer's baptism) and doing so by complete Immersion baptism, immersion. Baptist churches ge ...

hymn A hymn is a type of song, and partially synonymous with devotional song, specifically written for the purpose of adoration or prayer, and typically addressed to a deity or deities, or to a prominent figure or personification. The word ''hymn'' d ...

Legacy

His contributions to the Kiowa were honored by the

University of Colorado The University of Colorado (CU) is a system of public universities in Colorado. It consists of four institutions: the University of Colorado Boulder, the University of Colorado Colorado Springs, the University of Colorado Denver, and the U ...

in 1991 with the awarding of an

honorary doctorate An honorary degree is an academic degree for which a university (or other degree-awarding institution) has waived all of the usual requirements. It is also known by the Latin phrases ''honoris causa'' ("for the sake of the honour") or '' ad hon ...

, and his 100th birthday was honored with a ceremony in the Red Buffalo Hall of the Kiowa Tribal Complex in Carnegie, Oklahoma. McKenzie was a

Freemason Freemasonry (sometimes spelled Free-Masonry) consists of fraternal groups that trace their origins to the medieval guilds of stonemasons. Freemasonry is the oldest secular fraternity in the world and among the oldest still-existing organizati ...

Death

McKenzie died in 1999 at the age of 101 years, and was interred at

Anadarko, Oklahoma Anadarko is a city in and the county seat of Caddo County, Oklahoma, United States. The city is 50 miles (80.5 km) southwest of Oklahoma City. The population was 5,745 at the 2020 census. History Anadarko got its name when its post offic ...

.Notice of death
/ref> After his death, he was elected to the Oklahoma Historians Hall of Fame.

Family

McKenzie and his wife, Nettie, had five children: two daughters and three sons.

Notes

1897 births 1999 deaths Kiowa people Oklahoma State University alumni Native American linguists Native American photographers People from Kiowa County, Oklahoma American men centenarians Linguists of indigenous languages of North America 20th-century linguists Linguists from the United States {{Oklahoma-stub