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The Wampanoag language had no speakers left for over a century. Jessie Little Doe Baird taught herself to read it from old documents, rebuilt it word by word, and raised her daughter as its first native speaker in generations.

Jessie Little Doe Baird (b. 1963)

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Why it matters

The idea in context

The language survived only in writing — including a seventeenth-century Bible translation and land deeds written by Wampanoag people themselves, an unusually rich written record for a Native American language. Baird began the work after a series of dreams, took a master's in linguistics to do it properly, and produced a dictionary of more than ten thousand words. Her daughter Mae grew up speaking it. Baird received a MacArthur Fellowship in 2010. Reviving a language with no living speaker had been considered essentially impossible.

Türkçe

Aynı kart, başka bir dilde.

Wampanoag dilinin bir yüzyıldan uzun süredir hiç konuşanı kalmamıştı. Jessie Little Doe Baird onu eski belgelerden okumayı kendi kendine öğrendi, sözcük sözcük yeniden kurdu ve kızını kuşaklar sonra dilin ilk ana dili konuşanı olarak büyüttü.
Jessie Little Doe Baird (d. 1963)

Dil yalnızca yazıda kalmıştı — on yedinci yüzyıldan bir İncil çevirisi ve Wampanoag halkının kendi yazdığı tapu belgeleri dahil; bir Yerli Amerika dili için alışılmadık ölçüde zengin bir yazılı kayıt. Baird çalışmaya bir dizi rüyanın ardından başladı, işi düzgün yapmak için dilbilim yüksek lisansı yaptı ve on binden fazla sözcüklük bir sözlük üretti. Kızı Mae bu dili konuşarak büyüdü. Baird 2010'da MacArthur Bursu aldı. Yaşayan konuşanı olmayan bir dili diriltmek esasen olanaksız sayılıyordu.

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Background reading: Jessie Little Doe BairdAttribution and context are revised when stronger evidence appears. Corrections are welcome through the editorial page.
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