Sérgio Meira de Santa Cruz Oliveira (born December 31, 1968) is a Brazilian

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 specializes in the Cariban and Tupian language families of lowland South America and in the Tiriyó language in particular. He has worked on the classification of the Cariban language family, and has collected primary linguistic data from speakers of 14 Cariban languages and 5 non-Cariban languages.

Education and personal life

Meira holds a BA and a

PhD A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

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 ...

Theory and Analysis from

Rice University William Marsh Rice University, commonly referred to as Rice University, is a Private university, private research university in Houston, Houston, Texas, United States. Established in 1912, the university spans 300 acres. Rice University comp ...

. His doctoral research was in collaboration with his supervisor Spike Gildea. Sérgio Meira is a member of the

American Anthropological Association The American Anthropological Association (AAA) is an American organization of scholars and practitioners in the field of anthropology. With 10,000 members, the association, based in Arlington, Virginia, includes archaeologists, cultural anthropo ...

(AAA) and of the

Society for the Study of the Indigenous Languages of the Americas The Society for the Study of the Indigenous Languages of the Americas (SSILA) is an international organization founded in 1981 devoted to the study of the indigenous languages of the Americas, indigenous languages of North, Central, and South Ameri ...

(SSILA). In addition to his native Portuguese, Sérgio Meira is proficient in English, French, and

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many countries in the Americas **Spanish cuisine **Spanish history **Spanish culture ...

, is moderately fluent in

Esperanto Esperanto (, ) is the world's most widely spoken Constructed language, constructed international auxiliary language. Created by L. L. Zamenhof in 1887 to be 'the International Language' (), it is intended to be a universal second language for ...

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 ...

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 ...

, Dutch,

Volapük Volapük (; , 'Language of the World', or lit. 'World Speak') is a constructed language created in 1879 and 1880 by Johann Martin Schleyer, a Roman Catholic priest in Baden, Germany, who believed that God told him to create an international lang ...

, Romanian, and has a good command of Catalan,

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 ...

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

, and other languages.

Career

He is currently a

research Research is creative and systematic work undertaken to increase the stock of knowledge. It involves the collection, organization, and analysis of evidence to increase understanding of a topic, characterized by a particular attentiveness to ...

er at the

Radboud University Nijmegen Radboud University (abbreviated as RU, , formerly ) is a public university, public research university located in Nijmegen, Netherlands. RU has seven faculties and more than 24,000 students. Established in 1923, Radboud University has consistentl ...

. His research focuses on historical linguistics, fieldwork and description of the Cariban and Tupian language families, as well as language and cognition. His work helped in the development of the South American Phonological Inventory Database (SAPhon), the World Atlas of Language Structures (WALS), and

Glottolog ''Glottolog'' is an open-access online bibliographic database of the world's languages. In addition to listing linguistic materials ( grammars, articles, dictionaries) describing individual languages, the database also contains the most up-to-d ...

Volapük

Sérgio Meira is one of eight academicians at the International Volapük Academy. He was appointed in 2007 by

Brian Reynold Bishop Brian Reynold Bishop (born Kingston upon Thames, 1934) is a British volapükologist who was the seventh Cifal (Chief) of the Volapük-speakers' community and President of the Volapük Academy.cifal and the academy's president at that time. He is also an active member of the Volapük discussion group, which unites most living

volapükologist A volapükologist () is a person whose scientific interest is Volapük or who learns the language for hobby reasons. There is a difference between a volapükologist and a volapükist. The latter can be defined as a person who joined the Volap� ...

s. Meira translated articles, including

Rasmus Malling-Hansen Hans Rasmus Johan Malling-Hansen (5 September 1835 – 27 September 1890) was a Danish language, Danish Invention, inventor, Preacher, minister and Head teacher, principal at the Royal Institute for the Deaf. He is famous for inventing the ...

obituary An obituary (wikt:obit#Etymology 2, obit for short) is an Article (publishing), article about a recently death, deceased person. Newspapers often publish obituaries as Article (publishing), news articles. Although obituaries tend to focus on p ...

, from Volapük into English for the International Rasmus Malling-Hansen Society. He also did translation work on the Volapük Wikisource, but later suggested that his work be deleted because it would be considered copyright infringement. Sérgio Meira is one of Andrew Drummond's correspondents who contributed to his knowledge of Volapük material prior to the writing of ''A Hand-Book of Volapük''. In late October 2006, Sérgio Meira started contributing to the Volapük Wikipedia. He is the main author of most of the featured articles.

Selected publications

Meira has a number of publications; an overview of some highlights is given below:

Cariban family

* ''On the Origin of Ablaut in the Cariban Family'' (2010) * Natural concepts' in the spatial topological domain—adpositional meanings in cross-linguistic perspective: an exercise in semantic typology'' (2003) * ''The Southern Cariban languages and the Cariban family'' (2005) * ''Sobre a origem histórica dos 'prefixos relacionais' das línguas tupí-guaraní'' (2013)

Tiriyó

*''Rhythmic stress in Tiriyó'' (Cariban)

Notes

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Meira, Sergio 1968 births Living people Linguists from Brazil Rice University alumni Wikipedia people Volapükologists Brazilian Esperantists