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Note: {Kenneth Locke Hale was born in Evanston Illinois. His mother was 19 at the time and his father was a recent Dartmouth Graduate, working in a bank.
The family stayed in Evanston until Ken's grandfather, Floyd Orlin Hale died of a Stroke during the Dartmouth-Yale football game. Ken's father, Bob, hated working in the bank and had a desire to be a Rancher. Ken's mother's sister Winnie had married "Bydie" Drachman, one of the Drachman family of Tucson. Bob must have asked his brother in law's advise about finding a ranch to buy with his newly inherited money.
Bob and Molly, Ken and Teddy moved to a newly purchased ranch(really two small places, "Turkey Creek, and The Home Place" in Canelo, Arizona, where Ken spent his time aged 6 to 15.
Ken loved the ranch life, trapping, and guns and planned to be a gunsmith.
When the ranch was sold the family moved to Tucson where Bob Hale took up cotton farming. Ken spent 2 years at Verde Valley School where he was first introduced to exotic languages. He first roomed with a Hopi boy and learned Hopi then with a boy from Jemez, and learned Jemez. He had to fiqure out a way to write the languages as he knew of no writing system for them.
His Spanish teacher wanted him to stop the work on Hopi and Jemez and concentrate on Spanish and French. He said, " She didn't understand that I learned faster by working on more than one at a time". He also resented the time he had to spend on other achedemic subjects, Math and History, and thus talked his parents into allowing him to return home and attend Tucson High School. Once there, he focused on languages, adding Navajo, Papago, Pachuco, Polish and anything else that came along.
He went to the U of A in 1952, majoring in Anthropology, as it was the closest program to Native languages of the South West. He quickly drew the attention of the faculty both at Uof A and other Universitys.}
For theAustralian Linguistic Society Newsletter, November 2001
Death of Professor Kenneth Loche Hale (1934-2001)
Ken Hale died peacefully at this home in Lexington Massachusetts on the 8th October aged 67. His death is a great loss for linguistics and also a deeply personal
one for the many linguists all over the world including those of us in Australia to whom Ken gave so much.
Ken was a long time member of the Australian Linguistic Society and supported the Society by giving some outstanding plenary addresses at annual meetings
he was able to attend and by his contributions to the work of other members. He was also a generous reviewer of papers submitted for publication in the
Society's journal, The Australian Journal of Linguistics.
Ken's contribution to the study of Australian languages was outstanding. During his fieldtrips to Australia in 1959-60 and 1966-7 he travelled over most of the
country recording and transcribing some 70 Aboriginal languages. He generously made these materials, so valuable for their extraordinary degree of accuracy,
available to the linguistic community. Ken made a number of outstanding breakthroughs in our understanding of Australian languages. In terms of their
genetic affiliation, Ken showed that the phonologically aberant Arandic languages and those of Cape York were related via a series of regular sound changes to
what he named the Pama-Nyungan language family spoken over most of the continent. He revolutionised the way in which linguists approached the study of
syntax in Australian languages with seminal papers such as his 1973 article 'Deep-surface canonical disparities in relation to analysis and change: an Australian
example', his 1976 'Adjoined relative clause in Australian languages' and his 1983 'Warlpiri and the grammar of non-configurational languages' to name only
three.
Ken gave immense support to Australian linguists and Australian language study in many other ways as well. He mentored and taught a number of
Australian students who did their post-graduate study at MIT where he taught linguistics from 1967 to shortly before his death, supervising their theses on
Australian languages, based to a large extent on his own fieldwork materials. He also introduced so many other young linguists to Australian languages and
this bore fruit for our understanding of these languages as these well-trained minds considered how best to account for the data these languages presented. Ken
examined many theses written by students in Australian universities. He initiated and engaged in joint research projects with Australian linguists and found
the funding for them. Over the years, Ken welcomed so many Australian linguists to MIT and to his home in Lexington where they enjoyed the hospitality
and companionship of Ken's wife, Sally, and their boys.
Ken's contribution was not confined to fellow linguists and their discipline, he cared about the speakers of Australian languages and wanted them to be able to
take hold of their own destiny and the future of their languages. He was instrumental in the establishment of bilingual education programs in Aboriginal
community schools in the NT in the 1970s through the set of Recommendations concerning bilingual education in the Northern Territory to the Australian
government he made jointly with Geoff O'Grady in 1974. He continued to support these programs in practical ways: through his involvement in teaching
Warlpiri adults how to write their languages, by making his language notes and writings available to the Aboriginal schools in accessible form, by inspiring and
guiding the establishment of the School of Australian Linguistics in Darwin with the aim of teaching linguistics to speakers of Aboriginal languages. Ken was
always willing to give whatever advice, information, material support to people working within the field of bilingual education and language documentation.
While I single out Ken's contribution to linguistics in Australia and to the study of Australian languages here, it is important to note that this was only one
fraction of Ken's overall contribution to linguistic scholarship and to the promotion of linguistic diversity and support for speakers of minority languages
around the world.
Before his death, Ken was presented with a number of Festschriften honouring his contribution to our field. One of these, Forty Years On: Ken Hale and
Australian languages, published by Pacific Linguistics, Canberra, was devoted to honouring Ken's place in the study of Australian languages and as a gesture
of thanks to Ken for the contribution he had made to the lives and careers of each of the authors.
Ken is survived by his wife, Sally and his sons, Whit, Caleb and Ezra.
The bibliography of Ken Hale's works on Australian languages and more information on tributes to Ken Hale can be found at
www.anu.edu.au/linguistics/nash/aust/hale/
Mary Laughren
Brisbane, 13th November 2001
Kenneth Hale
Nov 1st 2001
From The Economist print edition
Kenneth Locke Hale, a master of languages, died on October 8th, aged 67
SOMETIMES Kenneth Hale was asked
how long it would take him to learn a
new language. He thought ten or 15
minutes would be enough to pick up
the essentials if he were listening to a
native speaker. After that he could
probably converse; obviously not
fluently, but enough to make himself
understood. To those whose
education, however admirable in other
respects, had provided only
rudimentary language skills, Mr Hale
seemed a marvel.
And so he was. He had a gift. But he
was also an academic, a teacher of
linguistics at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology (MIT). He was
aware that many otherwise clever people are dunces at learning a second
language. He sought to find laws and structures that could be applied to all
languages. As well as studying the common languages, French, Spanish and so
on, the search took him into many linguistic byways, to the languages of native
Americans and Australian aborigines and the Celtic fringes of Europe. As many
of these languages had no written grammar or vocabulary, and indeed were
spoken by few people, Mr Hale picked them up orally. His tip for anyone who
pressed him for advice on learning a language was to talk to a native speaker.
Start with parts of the body, he said, then common objects. After learning the
nouns, you can start to make sentences and get attuned to the sounds. Still,
there was much more to language than that. Noam Chomsky, like Mr Hale a
teacher of linguistics at MIT, wrote:
Language is really weird. Although speaking a language is for
normal humans an effortless task, there is nothing else in the
natural world that even approaches its complexity... Although
children receive no instruction in learning their native language, they are able to fully master it in less than five years. This is all
the more confusing as language is much more computationally
complex than, say, simple arithmetic, which often takes years to
master... It is often hypothesised that language is an innate
human faculty, with its own specialised system in our brain.
Some students of linguistics believe that such a system, if it exists, is normally
shut down in the brain at the age of 12. But for Mr Hale it was around this age
that his interest in language was just starting.
In cowboy boots
Kenneth Hale's childhood was on a ranch in Arizona and he started his
education in a one-roomed school in the desert. Many years later, lecturing at
MIT, he still felt most comfortable in cowboy boots. On his belt was a buckle he
had won at a rodeo by riding bulls, and he had the slightly bowed legs of a
horseman. His students were impressed that he could light a match with his
thumbnail.
Mr Hale had discovered his talent for language when playing with Indian friends
who taught him Hopi and Navajo. Learning languages became an obsession.
Wherever he travelled he picked up a new tongue. In Spain he learnt Basque;
in Ireland he spoke Gaelic so convincingly that an immigration officer asked if
he knew English. He apologised to the Dutch for taking a whole week to master
their somewhat complex language. He picked up the rudiments of Japanese
after watching a Japanese film with subtitles. He sought to rescue languages that were dying out. One Indian language at its last gasp was spoken by the
Wopanaak, the tribe that greeted the Pilgrim Fathers in 1620. It is now spoken
again by several thousand people around Cape Cod. A Wopanaak who studied
under Mr Hale is preparing a dictionary of her language. �Ken was a voice for
the voiceless,� said Noam Chomsky.
Mr Hale could converse in about 50 languages, perhaps a world record,
although he was too modest to claim one. But some tongues, such as
Australia's Lardil, died with its last seven speakers. Mr Hale was the last person
on earth to speak some languages. Hundreds are disappearing, he said. �They
became extinct, and I had no one to speak them with.�
How much did Kenneth Hale contribute to an understanding of the apparently
innate human capacity for speech? He made a number of what he called �neat�
discoveries about the structure of language, and had an instinctive sense of
what all languages had in common. After his retirement from MIT in 1999, he
said he would �really get down to work�, an ambition he was unable to achieve.
And linguistics itself is a fairly recent discipline. He is likely to be remembered
by �The Green Book of Language Revitalisation�, which he helped to edit and
which was published shortly before he died. It was warmly welcomed, especially
by those who may be a touch aggrieved by the spread of English, which is
blamed for brutally sweeping other languages aside.
A scholarly argument surfaces from time to time about the desirability of
keeping alive languages that, in medical parlance, are brain dead. Occasionally
the argument turns nationalistic. For example, is what Mr Hale called the
�revitalisation� of Welsh merely a nuisance in Britain where, obviously, English
is the working language? Kenneth Hale had an indignant answer to that
question. �When you lose a language,� he told a reporter, �you lose a culture,
intellectual wealth, a work of art. It's like dropping a bomb on a museum, the
Louvre.�
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Note: bituary in Gaelic; The Irish Times
Tionscnamh teangacha
T� b�s faighte ag Ken Hale, Ollamh le Teangeola�ocht in Institi�id
Teicneola�ochta Massachusetts, in aois a 67 - "guth daoine gan aon
ghuth" mar a thug a chomhghleaca� Noam Chomsky air.
B� Hale a chruinnigh an cnuasach bun�sach aist� dar teideal Endangered
Languages - On endangered languages and the safeguarding of diversity
a foils�odh sa tr�imhseach�n Language i 1992. Is l�ir an t-�m�s at� ag
teangeolaithe a d'oil s�, agus ag a chuid iarscol�ir� ar fud an domhain
mh�ir d�, �n su�omh Idirl�n ag MIT.
Tuigeadh do Hale go r�mhaith go bhfuair teangacha b�s riamh i stair an
chine dhaonna, i gceantracha teoranta agus i bpobail cu�osach c�ng.
Tuigeadh d� chomh maith go bhfuil teangacha � scuabadh chun si�il san
aois reatha ar sc�la n�os forleithne agus le himpleachta� n�os bun�sa�
d'eiceach�ras �irithe agus domhanda teangacha agus do na pobail dar
d�obh iad, n� mar a tharla riamh cheana i stair an chine dhaonna.
M� t� a leith�id de thuiscint ann agus �iceatheangeola�ocht, n�
�iceach�ras teanga, n� bitheola�ocht teanga fi�, is � Ken Hale
pr�omh�idh na tuisceana sin. D�irt s�, agus � ag tagairt do chailli�int
teangacha: "It is part of a much larger process of loss of cultural and
intellectual diversity ... The process is not unrelated to the simultaneous
loss of diversity in the zoological and botanical worlds. An ecological
analogy is not altogether inappropriate."
Faoin teangeola� Michael Krauss a d'fh�g Hale an c�ram, picti�r
domhanda a rianadh de ch�s na dteangacha i mbaol. "The world's
languages in crisis," a thug Krauss ar a aiste si�d sa chnuasach.
Thagair Krauss don teilif�s go h�irithe mar "n�argh�s cult�rtha" agus b�
a mholadh i dtaobh na dteangacha i mbaol: "We should not only be
documenting these languages, but also working educationally, culturally,
and politically to increase their chances of survival ... we must learn from
biologists and conservationists the techniques of organization,
monitoring and lobbying, publicity, and activism. This we must do on
local, regional, national, and international scales."
Bh� impleachta� m�ra ag an mbreithni� seo faoi sti�ir Hale don
teangeola�ocht mar dhiscipl�n chomh maith, agus dhearbhaigh Krauss ina
aiste, n�r mh�r do theangeolaithe athmhachnamh a dh�anamh ar a
gcuid buntuiscint� f�in "lest linguistics go down in history as the only
science that presided obliviously over the disappearance of 90 per cent of
the field to which it is dedicated".
D� fhaid d� bhfuilimid ag pl� in �irinn le c�s �r dteangacha, n�l aon
staid�ar n� taifead cuimsitheach againn den Ghaeilge mar ch�adtheanga
ag leana�, chun gurbh fh�idir tuairisc a dh�anamh ar phatr�in
shealbhaithe na teanga, ar na patr�in earr�id�, n�, rud is measa ar
shlite, ar phatr�in shealbhaithe an Bh�arla mar dhara teanga ag
cainteoir� ch�adtheanga na Gaeilge.
M�s f�idir l�ne a shamhl� idir an d� phr�omhtheanga in �irinn, n�l �r
nd�thain eolais againn fi� chun an l�ne sin a tharraingt, gan tr�cht ar
ghraf n� patr�n cuimsitheach. T�imid ar chuma na dteangeolaithe �d a
luann Krauss, ag su� ar �r dt�in fad at� an talamh ag tabhairt f�inn.
Is � f�rinne an sc�il anois go bhfuil tuairim is 500 leanbh ar a mh�id in
�irinn arb � an Ghaeilge a gc�ad theanga, glan ar Bh�arla, agus � sin ar
feadh tr� bliana sula dt�ann siad ar na�onra n� a leith�id. T� dorn�n eile
acu sna cathracha agus bailte faoi sc�th na nGaelscoileanna at� ag
sealbh� na Gaeilge mar ch�ad theanga lasmuigh de chomhluadair na
teanga stairi�il.
"T� muid a l�n difri�il � cad a cheapann siad a bhfuil muid mar," a
chuala � bhall den phobal sin le d�ana�. Agus a leith�id seo a mha�gh
leanbh le d�ana� go mustrach: "B�onn fhios agamsa na freagra� go dt�
ruda� go n� bh�onn fhios acu sin na freagra� go dt�"!
Muna bhfuil i gceist leis seo ach ceann de na strucht�ir shealbhaithe
teanga, c�n bonn compar�ide at� againn chun � a mheas?
Ina theannta sin t� Hiberno-English � scuabadh chun si�il gan aon
taifead cuimsitheach eola�ocht�il ach an m�id at� ar bun ag
cnuasaitheoir� aonair.
NUAIR a buna�odh Coimisi�n B�aloideasa �ireann tuigeadh go raibh s�
riachtanach oiread den sc�ala�ocht agus den seanchas a bhaili� agus ab
fh�idir sula raghadh an t-ioml�n ar l�r. Oileadh foireann agus chuathas i
mbun na hoibre.
Ionann is an Coimisi�n a theast�dh anois i gc�s na dteangacha chun a
bhfuil f�gtha ar an talamh a bhaili� ar chuma brobhanna i ngort f�ir. N�or
mh�r foireann a oili�int agus leagan an lae inniu de Thadhg � Murch�
lena eideaf�n ar ch�l a rothair a sheoladh i mbun oibre.
Is ionann glacadh lena leith�id de thionscnamh agus a admh�il nach
mairfidh an Ghaeilge mar ch�ad theanga teaghlaigh agus comhluadair in
�ineacht. Muna mbeadh ann ach bonn compar�ide a shol�thar do
ghl�nta at� romhainn a bheadh ag foghlaim na Gaeilge mar dhara
teanga.
Muna mbeadh ann ach sin.
� 2002 ireland.com
Obituary
Kenneth Locke Hale
August 15, 1934-October 8, 2001
A memorial service was held on 1 November 2001 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts at which participants
commented in English, Hebrew, Hopi, Navajo and Wampanoag (the latter three native American languages) and Walpiri (an Australian aboriginal
language). The service was being held for Kenneth Locke Hale, Professor of Linguistics at MIT since 1967 and the only man in the world who, had he
lived, would have been able to understand each of the speakers at his own memorial.
As a young man growing up in Canelo, Arizona, the unlikely worlds of exotic languages and the American SouthweNOTElended in him. He was, for
example, the bull-riding champion of the University of Arizona rodeo in his senior year at college. He wore the belt buckle that he won almost daily. Hale
discovered his Mozart-like facility for language as a ninth grader when he acquired Navajo with the ease young children display in acquiring their native
language. This ability, which every human being has and which appears to shut off at puberty, never closed down in Hale. From the point of view of
learning a language, he was a young child throughout his life. Although he had a speaking knowledge of over 50 languages, Hale always claimed that he
could only "talk" three, English, Spanish and Warlpiri. Those to whom he spoke in one of the other 47 languages would demur.
He told a New York Times interviewer in 1997 that when he discovered he knew Navajo, he would "�go out every day and sit on a rock and talk Navajo
to myself." He was fifteen years old at the time and a student at the Verde Valley School where he roomed first with a Hopi and then with a Jemez
speaker. He studied Spanish and French during the classroom hours and Hopi and Jemez after the bell had rung. Because the latter two languages had no
writing system, he devised his own. His teacher objected to his learning so many languages at once. Hale ignored her advice. He said that she never
understood that the more languages he studied, the faster he learned each of them. By the time he had left high school, he had added Polish and Tohono
O�odham (Papago) to his list.
It was not simply that Hale was a remarkable polyglot. He coupled his facility for language with a creative theoretical imagination that has had a major
impact on the shape of linguistic studies over the past quarter century. His work on so-called "non-configurational languages" set an agenda that is still
being energetically explored. So, too, with his work on "lexical argument structure," an interest which began with his involvement in the Warlpiri
Dictionary Project at MIT�s Center for Cognitive Science in 1979.
The majority of Hale�s theoretical contributions are embodied in over 130 scholarly articles. Just two months before his death Hale managed to finish the
only book he ever wrote, A Prolegomenon to a Theory of Lexical Argument Structure (MIT Press, forthcoming). It was also the last linguistics he was
able to do. (As co-author of this volume I am acutely aware of how much more he had to offer if only his body had let him.)
Hale�s work in language reclamation was as important to him as anything else in his academic life. His work on dictionaries as a way of preserving an
endangered language ranges from the Warlpiri Dictionary Project to work on Ulwa and Miskitu (two Misumalpan languages native to Nicaragua). Part of
the reason for the importance of this work to him, as well as his efforts on behalf of bilingual education?Hale co-authored a recommendation with Geoff
O�Grady that formed the foundation of bilingual education in the Northern Territory of Australia?is that it had a moral dimension for him. Hale was
driven by the need to help those whose resources left them helpless. In a tribute to Hale, Noam Chomsky referred to him as "a voice for the voiceless."
For thirty years he was an active member of the anti-war organization, Resist.
Over the course of his life a number of honors fell on Hale�s shoulders, uncomfortably so, because he was a genuinely modest man. In 1989 he was elected
to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and in the following year to the National Academy of Sciences. He was elected President of the Linguistic
Society of America for the years 1994-95. In 1981 he was appointed the Ferrari P. Ward Professor of Linguistics at MIT. I was department head at the
time and it was my duty to confer this honor on him. I knew that were he to hear of it before the fact, he would refuse it on the grounds that others were
more deserving. Since his appointment to the chair was unanimously recommended by his colleagues in an informal poll, I was able to confer the chair
without his prior knowledge. When the appointment was finalized, I told him there was good news and bad news. The good news was that the Ferrari P.
Ward Chair had a new recipient. The bad news was that he was it.
Recently I received an e-mail account of an event that more than anything takes the measure of the man. One of Hale�s sons, Caleb, is a medical student at
Emory University. A fellow student wrote to tell him about something that happened during an orientation meeting with a well-known and
"old-fashioned" neurological doctor. The doctor, to impress upon his students the need to think things through in order to learn them well, pulled out a
copy of the New York Times and read from an obituary published there. The doctor told his students how impressed he was by this incredible linguist�s
ability to learn and to think. He had no idea this linguist�s son was a member of the class he was lecturing to. The doctor singled out Hale�s speaking
Navajo to himself while sitting on a rock in the desert as an example of coming to terms with an extraordinarily complicated body of knowledge. The
fellow student concluded her account by saying, "It�s pretty amazing that your father can have that kind of an impact on such a wide circle."
As time goes on, we will feel our loss less, but the impact his life has had on all of us, more.
Hale died of cancer in his own home surrounded by family and friends at 11:20am, October 8, 2001. He leaves behind his wife, Sara Whitaker Hale, fours
sons Whit, Ian, and twins Caleb and Ezra, and his younger brother, Steve and his family.
Samuel Jay Keyser
Professor Emeritus, MIT
Cambridge, MA 02140
� 2001
Shortened version published in the Guardian, 10 November 2001
To appear in Resist Newsletter, 10.1(November 2001),2
Ken Hale, a founding member of Resist, died on Monday, 8 October 2001 at age 67 after a long illness.
Ken openly joined the resistance on 16 October 1967, when as part of a national draft-card turn-in, he handed in his selective service registration at the
Arlington Street Church in Boston. At roughly the same time, Ken became a member of Resist, remaining active until illness forced him to curtail his
work on the Board. Nevertheless, he continued to comment, when asked, on grant proposals and on issues into which he had special insight.
Among linguists, Ken is held in awe because of the great number of languages he knew, fifty or more - and still counting at the time of his death!
Although Ken actually worked very hard at it, he seemed to learn them through simple and brief exposure, in the way that we normal folks catch a cold.
Since Ken worked most particularly with the indigenous people of the Americas and of Australia, Ken was admired by those of us who worked with him
politically not only for his linguistics, but also for his sense of how to put his incomparable knowledge to work for social change. His extensive work on
aboriginal land claims in Australia is a case in point, as is his educational work there, among the Navajo, and on the Caribbean coast of Nicaragua.
Ken's special importance for Resist goes back to its earliest days when Resist had a tripartite structure: a board, a staff, and a set of "area persons". Area
persons were volunteers who took on the task of encouraging and developing grant proposals from a particular area of the country. Ken, because of his
extensive knowledge of American Indian communities, was Resist's link to Native America. Ken's understanding of Native America and his trusted role in
it enabled Resist to support important work in American Indian communities.
When asked to comment on Ken's death, Noam Chomsky (also a founding member of Resist) said, "Ken Hale was ... a colleague whose contributions are
incomparable and of immense intellectual distinction, and above all, a person of honor and courage, who dedicated himself with passion and endless
energy to protecting the rights of poor and suffering people throughout the world. One of the world's leading scholars, dear to countless people, he was
also one of those very few people who truly merits the term 'a voice for the voiceless.' The loss is immeasurable."
But Ken was not only "a voice for the voiceless"; for he also made sure that the voices of the voiceless were heard directly: in land-claims hearings in
Australia, by legislators and boards of education in the Americas, and by Resist.
We will all miss Ken's voice, but we must continue to hear and listen to the people that Ken empowered.
Wayne O'Neil
Kenneth L. Hale, linguist and activist
on behalf of endangered languages, dies
Contact Information
Speaking over 50 langauges, Professor Hale was 'truly
a voice for the voiceless,' said Noam Chomsky
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- Kenneth Locke Hale, a professor of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
known for his lifelong dedication to the study and preservation of endangered languages, died in his home in
Lexington, Mass., on Monday, Oct. 8. He was 67.
Hale, who came to MIT in 1967, was internationally renowned for his ability to quickly learn and communicate in
dozens of diverse languages.
Institute Professor Noam Chomsky, a colleague during the MIT years, responded "with inexpressible sadness and
distress," he said, to the news of Hale's death.
"Ken Hale was a close and cherished friend for many years, a colleague whose contributions are incomparable and of
immense intellectual distinction, and above all, a person of honor and courage, who dedicated himself with passion
and endless energy to protecting the rights of poor and suffering people throughout the world. One of the world's
leading scholars, dear to countless people, he was also one of those very few people who truly merits the term 'a
voice for the voiceless.' The loss is immeasurable," Chomsky said.
Throughout his career, Hale sought to obtain training in linguistics for the native speakers of indigenous languages.
Hale felt that the study and preservation of native languages should be conducted by members of the affected culture,
in addition to outsiders. Two of his graduate students at MIT -- Paul R. Platero, a Navajo, and LaVerne Masayesva
Jeanne, a Hopi -- are believed to be the first Native Americans to receive doctorates in linguistics.
In a paper entitled "The Human Value of Local Languages," Hale wrote,"The loss of local languages and of the cultural systems which they express, has meant irretrievable loss of
diverse and interesting intellectual wealth. Only with diversity can it be guaranteed that all avenues of human intellectual progress will be traveled." In an interview in 1995, Hale said,
"When you lose a language, a large part of the culture goes, too, because much of that culture is encoded in the language."
"Ken viewed languages as if they were works of art. Every person who spoke a language was a curator of a masterpiece," said Samuel Jay Keyser, MIT professor of linguistics,
emeritus, and a close friend and colleague of Hale for over 20 years.
Keyser emphasized that Hale was one of the most significant linguists in the world and also, a man of grace and humility who believed that speaking to a person in his or her own
language was above all, an act of courtesy.
"Many people have that ability to gain near-native command of language, but few have Ken Hale's theoretical imagination. I was constantly mesmerized by his creativity," Keyser said.
Philip S. Khoury, dean of the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences at MIT, recalled Hale's expertise and good humor. "Ken Hale was a giant in linguistics and a great,
compassionate human being. He had the ability to learn and speak languages by the dozens and he did. Once I asked him about this, and he said, 'the problem is that many of the
languages I've learned are extinct, or close to extinction, and I have no one to speak them with!'" Khoury said.
THEORETICAL INTERESTS
Hale's theoretical interests focused on the cross-linguistic study of language universals -- that is, he studied as many structurally diverse languages as possible in order to discover laws
governing them all.
Sabine Iatridou, a professor of linguistics at MIT and a colleague of Hale, explained, "The idea is that if a particular phenomenon holds in a variety of languages, chances are it is
reflection of what is called Universal Grammar, the properties of human language proper, not a result of accidental or historical reasons. A lot of theoretical linguistics relies on finding
generalizations that hold across languages that are genetically unrelated."
Over the course of his long, passionately disciplined and devoted career, Hale contributed significantly to the development of a general theory of the human capacity for language, his
colleagues agreed.
"Ken was the world's foremost crosslinguistic linguist. His knowledge of language and languages was legendary. Many of his hypotheses over the years had borne fruit, remarkable
fruit, in fact. He also spearheaded many projects about endangered languages, all over the world. Just about every theoretical linguist teaching in this country was in some way or other
a student of Ken's," Iatridou said.
A NEW HOME ON THE RANGE
Following the sudden death of his grandfather when he was six, Hale's family moved from Chicago to a ranch in Canelo, Arizona. There, Hale's pursuits included trapping and
gunsmithing. He attended grade school in a one-room schoolhouse that he reached on horseback each day.
Hale's interests in language blossomed in 1948, when he was sent to the Verde Valley School in Sedona, Arizona. There, according to Keyser, "Ken first roomed with a Hopi boy and
learned Hopi, then with a boy from Jemez, and learned Jemez. He had to figure out a way to write the languages since there was no writing system for them.
"I learned faster by working on more than one language at a time," Hale said, moving quickly on, in Tucson High School, to studying Navajo, O'odam, Pachuco, Polish and whatever
else came along.
With characteristic passion, Hale also enjoyed rodeo bull riding. During his undergraduate days at the University of Arizona, he divided his time between weekend "jackpot" rodeos
and studying anthropology and Native American languages. In his senior year, he won the bull-riding event in the University of Arizona Rodeo, and wore the trophy belt buckle for the
rest of his life.
Hale received the B.A. in anthropology from the University of Arizona in 1955, the M.A. in linguistics from Indiana University, Bloomington, in 1956 and the Ph.D. in linguistics
from Indiana University in 1958. From 1958 to 1961 he received a NSF grant to conduct research on Australian Aboriginal languages.
Before coming to MIT, Hale taught at the University of Illinois, Urbana (1961 -1964) and at the University of Arizona (1964-1966).
Hale also taught a course on Walbiri literacy for Walbiri-speaking teachers in the Yuendumu School in Central Australia (1974) and a course on Navajo linguistics in Kinlichee, Arizona
(1975).
From 1985 until the present, Hale made many trips to the Atlantic coast of Nicaragua, to mentor native linguists in four indigenous languages of the region. During the last five
summers of his life, Hale taught for, and served on the board of directors of, the Navajo Language Academy. He was also actively involved with the language revitalization project of
the Wampanoag tribe in New England.
Dr. Hale is survived by his wife, Sara Hale of Lexington, Mass.; his brother, Stephen F. Hale of Tucson, Ariz.; and by four sons: Whitaker of Arlington, Mass., Ian of Tucson, Ariz.,
Caleb of Atlanta, Georgia, and Ezra of Lexington, Mass.
A memorial for Professor Hale will be held at MIT on Thursday, Nov. 1 at 2 p.m. in the Wong Auditorium. Burial will be private. ( In the Whitaker Plot, North Adams, Ma.)
Donations in Hale's memory may be sent to the Navajo Language Academy, Attn: Peggy Speas, Treasurer, Department of Linguistics, University of Massachusetts at Amherst,
Amherst, Mass., 01003.
--END--
From: Tom Givon <tgivon@OREGON.UOREGON.EDU>
Subject: Ken Hale
Comments: To: FUNKNET@listserv.rice.edu
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Dear friends & fellow travelers,
I was hoping someone else would beat me to this sad debt, but it seems
no one has, and it has been a peculiar year to say the least. So-- on
Monday morning, Oct. 8, one of our best & most beloved, Ken Hale, passed
away after a long illness.
Perhaps the best testimony to Ken's magnificent life was that he was
beloved and appreciated in equal measures on both sides of the
linguistic divide. For he combined a life-long infatuation with the
minutiae of far-flung languages with an unquenchable curiosity about
what made Human Language tick; that, and deep concern for the
survival of endangered languages and cultures.
Ken was a polyglot who loved theory, a country boy who loved the open
range and the Western fiddle, a buddy to go up the desert mountain with.
Above all perhaps, he was a true sweetheart who never had a sour word to
say about anybody. In linguistics, that alone must earn him a citation,
alas posthumous, for supreme valor.
We will all miss him. CON CUIDADO, JEFE!
Tomas
Comments: To: T dieivon <tgivon@OREGON.UOREGON.EDU>
From: Dan Everett <Dan.Everett@MAN.AC.UK>
Subject: Re: Ken Hale
Comments: To: FUNKNET@listserv.rice.edu
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
Tom's eulogy to Ken Hale indeed captures much of the spirit that made Ken so
beloved.
Words cannot express how much Ken helped me personally, inspired me in so
many ways.
I remember once waiting to talk to Ken in his MIT office. There was a
Visiting Scholar from China ahead of me. When he came out, I asked him how
Ken's Mandarin was. He replied "Just like being home". Another time I asked
Dean & Lucille Saxton, SIL workers among the O'odham (Papago) how well Ken
spoke that language. They said something like, 'we have been here for 30
years working on this language and everytime Ken visits he puts us to shame
with his flawless Papago.' I repeated this story to Ken once and he said
"That's silly. I don't speak it nearly as good as they do."
Humilty, patience, love for language, security, noncompetitive with others.
The greatest fieldworker I have ever known.
MIT has lost an entire library of knowledge and a colleague whom Chomsky
once called 'the Bach of linguistics'. We are all much the poorer for his
loss. I hope that many of us can follow more closely his example of
kindness.
Dan Everett
Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2001 23:38:56 -0700
Reply-To: Tom Givon <tgivon@OREGON.UOREGON.EDU>
Sender: Discussion of issues in Functional Linguistics
<FUNKNET@LISTSERV.RICE.EDU>
From: Tom Givon <tgivon@OREGON.UOREGON.EDU>
Subject: Re: Ken Hale
Comments: To: FUNKNET@listserv.rice.edu
Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
A MESSAGE FORWARDED FROM JOHN HAIMAN:
My teacher Ken Hale
In the spring of 1969, as a second year grad student, I took Field
Methods
from Ken Hale. The language of study was Papago, which, as Dan Everett
has
reminded us, Ken spoke perfectly, along with who knows how many other
languages. You would never know it from that class, where Ken's spoken
Papago was confined to some brief and totally inaudible murmurs to Al
Alvarez. What I remember from that class is not Ken's phenomenal
linguistic gift, but another one which is maybe almost as rare. He had
the
gift of admiration. He was enthusiastic and appreciative without a hint
of
condescension -- not only to us, his privileged students, but, as I
later
learned, to almost everyone. To all of us, his inferiors. I've met with
this kind of generosity in two or three people in my life.
John Haiman
n August of 1997, my father and I had stopped for breakfast at a restaurant outside of Tsaile, Arizona, on the Navajo reservation. It was a day typical of those I recall
during my childhood here: windy, bright, with clouds moving across the broad expanse of sky, casting sharply demarcated shadows which sped across the contours of
the beautiful and rugged landscape. As we walked across a dusty lot, passing cattle grazing on the median between the restaurant and the roadside, we were approached
by a Navajo man. He asked if we had any change to spare. My father gave him several dollars and began conversing with the man in Navajo. In all of the many times
that I have seen my father speak beautifully in diverse and indigenous languages, my amazement and wonder at his gift for language have never abated.
This unexpected fluency obviously surprised the Navajo man as well, whose face lit up with a smile and a look of comfort and familiarity. My father and the man
continued with a short conversation, the meaning of which escaped me beyond the familiar Navaho salutations. As we walked into the restaurant, I asked: "What did
you say, Dad?" He answered by saying only: "He used a word [in referring to us] reserved for those who are considered friends of the tribe, as close as a white man
can be without being Navajo."
Papa, I am very proud of you and your accomplishments, and grateful for the wealth of experiences you have exposed me to. I know you look forward to retirement as
a time to "really get down to work" as you have said. I hope that during this time you continue to do the work that you love in a way that you are uniquely capable of.
Love,
Caleb
Ezra Hale: The Cowboy in Ken Hale
It's interesting to see all these pictures of dad as a kid growing up on his parents' ranch. The cowboy in Ken Hale is something most people never get a chance to see.
If you have an eye for detail, you might notice the belt buckle he won in the Tucson rodeo in '55 or his slightly bowed legs or perhaps a faint accent, which mom
swears, is unmistakably southern Arizona. In the world of academia, this might seem a mere footnote to his character, dwarfed in its relevance by his far more
imposing genius as a linguist. But if you think that, then you're missing the best and perhaps most telling part. A couple of years ago I asked my dad why he chose to
do field work in Australia. As a linguist, his answer was surprising, "Because it was a desert, it looked like Arizona."
As a kid I relished our family trips to Arizona. The west represented something completely alien to life in New England. It was in Arizona that dad taught us how to
ride a horse. A really bored old white mare as I remember. We must have ridden that horse around in circles for hours. "Oh, oh, now my turn, my turn, me next, me
next." Our fun ended when "Sugar" showed her displeasure by taking a bite out of the corral. It wasn't a hasty or angry chomp but the implications were clear: "you're
next."
We spent dad's first sabbatical in Tucson and rented a vacation house down near where he grew up. Every other weekend, dad took us hiking through the hills of
Canelo. For the first time, we saw everything from deer skeletons and rattle snakes to jackrabbits and coyotes. Caleb even saw a couple of mountain lions, a story
which, out of jealousy, I claimed not to believe. We built forts in a dry riverbed during the day and at night, we lay awake listening to the coyotes howling in the
distance. In that year, dad shared with us something that is as much a part of him as his love of language, and we took to it like fish to water. Arizona was the untamed
wild, it was beautiful and dangerous and most of all exciting.
One summer when I was ten years old, mom shuttled me off with Ann Farmer and Jim Huang to visit dad who was teaching at the Summer Linguistics Institute in
Albuquerque. Caleb refused to go and probably out of some seemingly endless competition with him, I agreed to travel with the two, then MIT grad. Students, out to
New Mexico. The plan was that I would fly out, stay with my dad while he finished the term in Albuquerque and then we would drive west to Flagstaff and finally
down through Tucson to Canelo.
The trip to Albuquerque didn't go so well. We were so late packing everyone up that we almost missed the flight. At the last minute I had to rush down the gangway
and onto the plane with no real time to say goodbye to my mother or to somehow psychologically prepare myself for my first trip alone. We were the last people on the
plane so they had to separate us. I sat across the isle from Ann, and Jim had to sit in smoking. I think, at that point I really started crying.
When I got to New Mexico things went from bad to worse. I don't know if I picked something up on the plane or if I was just having trouble being separated from
Caleb but I got sick. The first thing I did was throw up in my dad's office. He was in the bathroom when I started and I have this vision of myself standing in a big
gray hallway outside his office alternating between crying "Dad!?" and throwing up all over the nice new carpeting.
As if to add insult to injury, one night when we were driving out to dinner, I was sitting in the back seat, when a passing car drove through a puddle and splashed
water in through the driver's window. The water missed everyone else but totally drenched me. I remember even the adults marveling at how the water had missed
everyone but me. To them this was mere chance, the angle of reflection of the water off the tire, the speed of the car, etc., but I knew it was more than that. I wasn't
supposed to be in New Mexico, that wasn't part of the deal, or at least not a part that I had paid much attention to. We were going to Arizona. I was going out to meet
dad and we were going down to Tucson and Canelo. We were going to hike through the hills, ride horses, shoot guns. I felt like a frog jumping between lily pads that
had somehow ended up in the water.
It was probably about that time that I started asking when we were going to get to Arizona. To this day I can still feel how important that was to me. Dad and me in
Arizona - me and dad in Arizona - Arizona with me and dad in it. That was the picture I was shooting for, that was my part of the deal.
I must have been pretty vocal about it because a week later as we crossed over the border from New Mexico dad pointed out a sign welcoming us to Arizona. With a
smile he said "Look, Ezra, now we're in Arizona, do you feel any better?" I looked at the landscape, it hadn't changed. The air hadn't really changed. The sun was still
shining the way it had for the last hundred miles. At ten I knew it was totally illogical but I turned to him just the same and said, "Yea." Dad just smiled as if that made
perfect sense to him too.
Ezra
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