LINGUIST List 7.1632

Wed Nov 20 1996

All: In Memoriam: Mike Hall

Editor for this issue: Ljuba Veselinova <lveselinemunix.emich.edu>

Directory

1. Robert Vago, In Memoriam: Mike Hall

On November 11, 1996, R.M.R. Hall, Associate Professor of
Linguistics at Queens College of the City University of New York,
died of cardiac arrest following surgery. His funeral was held
on November 15.

Mike Hall was instrumental in founding the Department of
Linguistics at Queens College, one of the first undergraduate
institutions to offer training in TESOL, as well as the
Ph.D. Program in Linguistics at the Graduate Center of CUNY. He
received his doctorate from The John Hopkins University in 1953
and had been teaching at Queens College since 1967. He was a
Fulbright Scholar at the University of Bayreuth in Germany in
1976-77 and held teaching positions in the Sudan and in
Venezuela.

By training, Mike Hall was a historical linguist and
Indo-Europeanist. Later in his academic career, he acquired
interest and developed expertise in the structure of the Nilotic
group of languages. His published works in journals and
anthologies encompassed a wide range of topics in theoretical and
applied linguistics. At his death, he was completing his life's
work of compiling a Nilotic etymological dictionary, containing
some 1200 etymologies.

A memorial service will be held at Queens College sometime in the
Spring 1977 semester.