LINGUIST List 20.3455
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Wed Oct 14 2009
All: Obituary: Thomas M. Hess
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Obituary: Thomas M. Hess
Message 1: Obituary: Thomas M. Hess
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Date: 14-Oct-2009
From: David Beck <dbeckualberta.ca>
Subject: Obituary: Thomas M. Hess
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Thom Hess, who died on August 27, 2009, was a giant of twentieth century
linguistics, invisible to those whose eyes could not reach high enough to
take the true measure of his greatness, but in plain sight to those whose
minds are open to clear thinking, unbiased analysis and true commitment to
one’s tasks. Although his life’s work was geographically limited to a few
Amerindian languages of the northwest, its scope was boundless in the range
of topics covered within his field of study, and few could match the depth
of his insights or the clarity with which he explained them. His impact on
Native American linguistics will be deep and lasting.
Thom was born in 1936, in Flint, Michigan. He did his undergraduate work at
the University of Colorado (1959), and his Master’s (1964) and PhD (1967)
at the University of Washington. It is unfortunate that his PhD
dissertation, Snohomish Grammatical Structure, hitherto has remained
unpublished, because it is the first detailed description of the Snohomish
dialect of Lushootseed, a Coast Salish language to which Thom would
dedicate many more years of his professional life. Over time, Thom would
also make contributions to Saanich and Nitinaht, respectively a Salish and
a Wakashan language of southern Vancouver Island.
It is typical of Thom’s humility that he generally shied away from
publications that would only benefit the academic world, but that he
concentrated on works that would be useful to the Native language
communities where he obtained his data. Aside from a number of publications
in scholarly journals, and contributions to the annual conferences on
Salish and neighboring languages, the bulk of his work is pedagogically
based, such as his two-part Lushootseed: The language of the Skagit,
Nisqually, and Other Tribes of Puget Sound, co-authored with his long-time
Lushootseed consultant Vi Hilbert, and his three-volume series of
Lushootseed text collections, with translations, glossaries and grammatical
analysis, published between 1995 and 2006 in the University of Montana
Occasional Papers in Linguistics. In these works, and in his purely
academic publications, Thom managed to explain difficult topics in clear
language that eschews theoretical jargon but cuts to the core of the matter
without fuss or obfuscation. His outstanding 'Central Coast Salish Words
for Deer: Their Wave-Like Distribution' (IJAL 45:5-16) is just one example
of his complete mastery of profound analysis and insightful academic
writing. His discussion of agent- and patient-oriented stems in his first
Lushootseed text collection (1996, see above) is another.
It is indeed a hallmark of Thom’s work that he always combined pedagogical
usefulness with academic rigour, and that his scholarly contributions
remain accessible even to undergraduate students without losing any of
their theoretical depth, while his pedagogical work never suffered from an
ill-advised attempt to popularize (and trivialize) his writing style. As
such he was a teacher in the purest and best sense of the word. The
students at the University of Victoria, where he taught from 1968 to 2000
were very lucky to have him as their teacher and mentor. Amongst his many
students, Thom earned a reputation for generosity and fairness.
Ever-willing to share his experience and wisdom, he was also ever-willing
to share (even give away) the data he had collected and his insights on it
with the next generation of academics. His attitude towards students’ work
was always supportive, even on those occasions where their ideas were at
odds with his own, and more than a few current researchers in Northwest and
other languages owe their success to Thom’s guidance, equanimity, and
forbearance.
Thom’s intellectual talents were more than matched by his emotional and
moral qualities, and I have rarely if ever met a more generous and caring
individual in my life. I remember with particular fondness his moral
support during the years 1985 to 1989 when my family and I lived in
Victoria, B.C., and long-term jobs in linguistics had basically dried up.
Not only was Thom there always with genuine concern, heartfelt words, and
useful advice, but he also offered to help us out financially for as long
as it would take for me to find a decently paying job. (Fortunately I did
not have to take him up on his offer, due to the fact that I obtained an
appointment at First Nations University of Canada in 1989, but Thom’s
generosity allowed me to coin the term "Hessian loan" for what is in fact
an outright monetary gift.)
Finally, and most poignantly, I should mention the exemplary courage with
which Thom faced his final, difficult years when he was stricken with
cancer. It is a source of profound consolation to his many friends that
during this period he was supported and cared for by his long-time partner
Rob Taylor in a manner that we all wish for, should we have to face the
ordeal that Thom did. We can be grateful that Thom was accorded as much
love and compassion as he always devoted to others, and that his end was
peaceful. We shall reward his kindness with the sweetness of our memories
of him. As a linguist he was superb, as a human being he was sublime.
Jan van Eijk
Department of Indian Languages, Literaures and Linguistics
First Nations University of Canada
[Thanks are due to David Beck (University of Alberta) and Leslie Saxon
(University of Victoria) for providing some of the personal memories and
biographical details that have been entered into this obituary.]
Linguistic Field(s):
Not Applicable
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