Terrence Kaufman

Terrence Kaufman (June 12, 1937 – March 3, 2022) was an American linguist who specialized in lexicography, Mesoamerican historical linguistics, the documentation of unwritten languages, and language contact phenomena. In the 1960s to the 2000s, he was considered a central figure in documenting Indigenous languages in Mexico and Central America. He served as professor emeritus of linguistics and anthropology at the University of Pittsburgh.

Early life and education Kaufman was born on June 12, 1937 in Portland, Oregon to James Edward Kaufman (1906–1991), a mechanic, and Mary Katherine Kaufman (; 1910–2001). Kaufman was of Russian German descent on his father’s side.

Career

Kaufman taught at Ohio State University from 1963 to 1964, the University of California, Berkeley, from 1964 to 1970, and at the University of Pittsburgh until his retirement in 2011. Along with Campbell and Thomas Smith-Stark, Kaufman carried out research published in Language (1986) which led to the recognition of Mesoamerica as a linguistic area.

In his book Language Contact, Creolization, and Genetic Linguistics (1988), Kaufman and Thomason developed a theoretical framework on the mechanisms of contact-induced language-change.

In 1993, along with John Justeson, Kaufman claimed to have successfully deciphered the Isthmian or Epi-Olmec script. However, this claim was refuted by anthropologists Michael Coe and Stephen Houston in 2004, after using the decipher key on a recently discovered jade mask. Coe states that the result "turns out to be total nonsense and gobbledygook".

Kaufman published in 2016 his Proto-Sapotek(an) Reconstructions, where his work in the language's reconstruction, including Zapotecan verbal morphology, contributed to a growing database of Proto-Zapotek/Sapotek(an) knowledge.

Additionally, together with a PLFM linguistic aide whom he had trained, Jo Froman, Kaufman completed his nationwide linguistic surveys and a dialect boundary mapping exercise. He then published a proposed classification for the Mayan languages. Translated and edited by Lic. Flavio Rojas Lima of the Seminario de Integración Social, PLFM volunteer, Margarita Cruz, PLFM Director, Tony Jackson, and supported by Ministry of Education language advisor, Salvador Aguado Andreut, the proposal was published in Spanish as ('Languages of Mesoamerica'), in 1974. thumb

Early advocate and activist for the role of native speakers In the early 1970s, Kaufman visited Guatemala to conduct linguistic surveys in the Mayan highlands, leading to a proposal for a classification of the Mayan languages. He cofounded the Proyecto Lingüistico "Francisco Marroquín (PLFM, 1970-1979), which trained native speakers of Indigenous languages of Guatemala in practical linguistics, including 100 Mayan native speakers, and oversaw the documentation of twelve Mayan languages. He conducted training sessions alongside a group of doctoral students, including Nora England and Judith Maxwell. Each served for several years under the auspices of the Peace Corps to provide year-round, follow-up training.

The Mayan trainees assumed leadership of the PLFM in 1976 and worked on a new alphabet proposal for each Mayan language, named the Proposal for alphabets and orthographies for writing the Mayan languages The proposal was published in Spanish in January 1976 under Kaufman's name by the Guatemalan Ministry of Education, which supported the proposal. However, due to political polarization in Guatemala in the 1970s, the proposal faced opposition from some proponents of orthographies that imposed Spanish language orthography on the Mayan languages. A corps of PLFM Mayan linguists joined national congresses and debates. In 1987, the Congress of the Republic of Guatemala enacted legislation establishing the orthography developed by the Proyecto Lingüístico Francisco Marroquín (PLFM) as the official national alphabet. The legally adopted version incorporated a single minor modification to the original proposal.

Throughout his career, he set up field schools training linguists and community language activists in field methods for developing language scripts and documentation projects.

Kaufman also ran the El Proyecto para la Documentación de las Lenguas de Mesoamérica or the Project for the Documentation of the Languages of Mesoamerica (PDLMA, 1993-2010), with John Justeson, and Roberto Zavala Maldonado to bring many linguists together with native speakers of Mesoamerican Indigenous languages. Their goal was to document the lexicon, phonology, and morphosyntax of selected Mixe-Zoquean (also, Mije-Sokean) languages, which by 1995 was extended to all living Mixe-Zoquean languages. The PDLMA documented 30 Mesoamerican languages, and conducted dialectal surveys on five language groups.

Personal life In June of 1964, Kaufman married Elaine Diana Marlowe. They later divorced in 1972.

Selected bibliography Articles

Books