Ofelia Zepeda | |
---|---|
Nationality | American |
Title | Professor |
Awards | Macarthur Fellow [1] |
Academic background | |
Alma mater |
|
Thesis | Topics in Papago Morphology (1984) |
Doctoral advisor | Susan Steele |
Academic work | |
Discipline | Linguistics |
Sub-discipline | Language documentation,language activism,Tohono O'odham,indigenous languages of America |
Institutions | The University of Arizona |
Website | University of Arizona Faculty Page |
Ofelia Zepeda (born in Stanfield,Arizona,1952) is a Tohono O'odham poet and intellectual. She is Regents' Professor of Tohono O'odham language and linguistics and Director of the American Indian Language Development Institute (AILDI) [2] at The University of Arizona. [3] Zepeda is the editor for Sun Tracks,a series of books that focuses on the work of Native American artists and writers,published by the University of Arizona Press. [4]
Zepeda is a professor of linguistics at the University of Arizona and is well-known for her efforts in the preservation of and promotion of literacy in Tohono O'odham. She served as director of the American Indian Studies Program at the University of Arizona from 1986 to 1991. [5] She is a consultant and advocate on behalf of some American indigenous languages. She is the author of A Papago Grammar and co-author of the article "Derived Words in Tohono O'odham",published in the International Journal of American Linguistics . [6] She was a student of MIT linguistics professor Ken Hale. [7]
Zepeda has worked with her tribe to improve literacy in both English and Tohono O'odham. [8] In 1983,she developed A Papago Grammar from tapes of Native speakers because no textbook existed for the classes she taught. [8] Her work with the reservation committee for Tohono O'odham language policy yielded an official policy that encourages the speaking of the Native language at all grade levels. [8]
In 1995 she published a book of poetry,Ocean Power:Poems from the Desert,and she titled the introduction,"Things That Help Me Begin to Remember".
In 1999,Zepeda received a MacArthur Fellowship. [9] She was a member of the literary advisory committee for Sun Tracks,a publishing program featuring Native American works,and is the series editor. [6] In 2012,her book of poetry was banned by Tucson schools. [10]
The Tohono Oʼodham are a Native American people of the Sonoran Desert, residing primarily in the U.S. state of Arizona and the northern Mexican state of Sonora. The United States federally recognized tribe is the Tohono Oʼodham Nation.
Phaseolus acutifolius, also known as the tepary bean, is a legume native to the southwestern United States and Mexico and has been grown there by the native peoples since pre-Columbian times. It is more drought-resistant than the common bean and is grown in desert and semi-desert conditions from Arizona through Mexico to Costa Rica. The water requirements are low. The crop will grow in areas where annual rainfall is less than 400 mm (16 in).
Oʼodham or Papago-Pima is a Uto-Aztecan language of southern Arizona and northern Sonora, Mexico, where the Tohono Oʼodham and Akimel Oʼodham reside. In 2000 there were estimated to be approximately 9,750 speakers in the United States and Mexico combined, although there may be more due to underreporting.
Chicken scratch is a kind of dance music developed by the Tohono O'odham people. The genre evolved out of acoustic fiddle bands in southern Arizona, in the Sonoran desert. These bands began playing European and Mexican tunes, in styles that include the polka, schottisch and mazurka.
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Kenneth Locke Hale, also known as Ken Hale, was an American linguist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who studied a huge variety of previously unstudied and often endangered languages—especially indigenous languages of North America and Australia. Languages investigated by Hale include Navajo, O'odham, Warlpiri, and Ulwa.
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Juan Dolores, was a Tohono O'odham Native American of the Koló:di dialect, acting as one of the first linguists of the O'odham language. He is the first person to document traditional Tohono O'odham fables and myths, and worked with Alfred L. Kroeber to document the first studies into the O'odham language's grammar, which would eventually be compiled and published alongside other documents in The Language of the Papago of Arizona by John Alden Mason.
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