Ceil Lucas

Ceil (Kovac) Lucas (born March 19, 1951) is an American linguist and a professor emerita of Gallaudet University, best known for her research on American Sign Language. Early life and education Lucas was born in the United States but raised from ages five through twenty-one in Guatemala City and in Rome, Italy.

Lucas studied at Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington, and received her BA in French and art history. Later, she earned her M.S. and PhD (1980) in linguistics from Georgetown University. (She also holds an M.A. from the University of Texas at Austin.)

Career In 1973, Lucas started teaching Italian and continues to do so. The results of this study are summarized in the book The Hidden Treasure of Black ASL: Its History and Structure (McCaskill et al. 2011).

Honors Lucas was editor of Sign Language Studies at Gallaudet University Press from 2009 to 2021.

In 2022, Lucas was one of the recipients of the LSA's Linguistics, Language and the Public award. In 2023, she was inducted as a Fellow of the Linguistic Society of America.