Margaret Langdon | |
---|---|
Born | c. 1926 |
Died | October 25, 2005 |
Nationality | American |
Occupation | Linguist |
Academic background | |
Alma mater | University of California-Berkeley (Ph.D., 1966) |
Doctoral advisor | Mary Haas |
Academic work | |
Notable students | Pamela Munro, Leanne Hinton |
Main interests | Languages of the American Southwest and California |
Margaret Langdon (c. 1926 in Louvain, Belgium – October 25, 2005) was a US linguist who studied and documented many languages of the American Southwest and California, including Kumeyaay, Northern Diegueño (Ipai), and Luiseño.[1]
Langdon (née Storms) was born in Belgium and immigrated to the United States following World War II. She grew up speaking French and Flemish. She earned her PhD in 1966 at the University of California-Berkeley under Mary Haas.[2] Her doctoral thesis was a dictionary of the Mesa Grande dialect of Diegueño.[1][3]
She taught at the Linguistics Department of the University of California, San Diego from 1965 to 1991, where she served as chair of the department from 1985 to 1988.[3]
Langdon worked with various tribal elders throughout her career on southwestern languages. She compiled the first dictionary of the Mesa Grande language.[4] She was a leading figure in the field of Yuman language studies.[5][6]
She was an advisor to 17 graduate dissertations in linguistics, addressing such languages as Navajo, Palauan, Mojave, Havasupai, Seri, and others.[7] Among her students at UCSD were linguists Pamela Munro, Leanne Hinton, Cheryl Hinton, Steve Elster, and Loni Langdon.