Karl V. Teeter

Karl van Duyn Teeter (March 2, 1929 – April 20, 2007 ) was an American linguist known especially for his work on the Algic languages.

Life and work Teeter was born in Berkeley, California, to Charles Edwin Teeter Jr., a college professor of physical chemistry, and Lura May (née Shaffner) Teeter, later in life a college professor in philosophy. Raised in Lexington, Massachusetts, he dropped out of high school and joined the United States Army, where he served as a Supply Sergeant from 1951 to 1954. In 1951, Teeter married Anita Maria Bonacorsi, the daughter of Sicilian immigrants. Sent to Japan to serve in the occupation forces, he became deeply interested in the Japanese language and on returning received a bachelor's degree in Oriental Languages from the University of California at Berkeley. There he continued his studies as a graduate student in linguistics. His dissertation, supervised by Mary Haas, was a description of the soon-to-be-extinct Wiyot language, on which he consulted with the last speaker of that language, Della Prince.

He continued to work far into his retirement, concentrating on completing the lexicon of Wiyot on which he had been working since his student days, and encouraging research on endangered languages through participation in such organizations as the Foundation for Endangered Languages.