M U R R AY B A R N S O N E M E N E A U

28 february 1904 . 29 august 2005

PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY

VOL. 152, NO. 1, MARCH 2008

biographical memoirs

ORN IN LUNENBURG, Nova Scotia, Emeneau had an unusually long and productive career as professor of Sanskrit and linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley, where he was a founder of the linguistics department and of the Survey of California Indian Languages; he was elected to the APS in 1952. He died peacefully at his home in Berkeley on 29 August 2005, aged 101. In his later years, he was often asked whether he owed his longevity to any particular regimen of life; he always answered, No, just genes. In fact, medical researchers have discovered in recent years that Emeneaus hometown of Lunenburg produces the highest percentage of centenarians in North America. Emeneau was first trained in classics at Dalhousie University, Halifax, and at Oxford University. In 1926 he began the study of Sanskrit and comparative Indo-European at Yale, where he received his doctorate in 1931 with a dissertation on Sanskrit. From then until 1935, he did postdoctoral study at Yale under the direction of the leading anthropologist and linguist Edward Sapir. From him Emeneau eagerly absorbed not only the then-new structural linguistics, but also Sapirs distinctive approach to what was later called anthropological linguistics. As he wrote in later years, I was exposed to methods of fieldwork on non-literary languages, including intensive phonetic practice and analysis of material, but especially to Sapirs approach to anthropological linguistics, in which language is only part of the total culture, but a most important part, since in it the community expresses in its own way, verbifies its culture. With Sapirs help and guidance, and with grants from sources including the APS, Emeneau spent the years 193538 doing fieldwork on unwritten Dravidian languages of India, in particular on Toda. Back in the U.S., after teaching linguistics at Yale for a year, Emeneau was hired in 1940 as assistant professor of Sanskrit and general linguistics at Berkeley; he rose rapidly, becoming full professor by 1946, and later chair. He was a prolific interdisciplinary writer throughout his career, in areas ranging from Sanskrit philology to Dravidian linguistics to cultural anthropology, and he constantly urged his students to begin their own publication records. In 1971 he retired to emeritus status, but he continued his research, publication, and participation in academic activities well into his nineties. At the time of Emeneaus death, he was unquestionably the worlds most outstanding scholar in Dravidian linguistics. Many of his works in this field were published by the APS, including Ritual Structure and Language Structure of the Todas in 1974 and Toda Grammar and Texts in 1984. His last publication was, in fact, a letter written to the APS when he was 98 years old, acknowledging the Societys policy of sup[ 142 ]

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port for young scholars and . . . its generous and expert publication policy (News from Philosophical Hall, March 2003, p. 3). Still later, the APS Member Video Project visited him in Berkeley to videotape his reminiscences (News, March 2004, p. 3). Along with his Berkeley colleagues A. L. Kroeber and Mary R. Haas, Emeneau was instrumental in organizing the Survey of California Indian Languages. Since its inception, the Survey (later renamed the Survey of California and Other Indian Languages) has become the major project of its type in the U.S., sending dozens of students to do fieldwork. This work produced a long list of doctoral degrees and whole bookshelves of monographs published in the series University of California Publications in Linguistics; Emeneau served on the editorial board for many years. The many honors bestowed on Emeneau included the presidency of the Linguistic Society of America and of the American Oriental Society, four honorary doctorates, and numerous medals and citations. Emeneau was a teacher and researcher of amazing erudition and of meticulous habit; his students learned from him the meaning of professionalism in scholarship. In his younger days, getting to know him was not easy, but later he mellowed quite noticeably. Throughout his career, he was distinguished by his generosity and supportiveness toward his students. His memory will continue to inspire his academic children, grandchildren, and still further descendants.
Elected 1952

William Bright 1
Emeritus Professor of Linguistics and Anthropology University of California, Los Angeles

Bright estimated while working on this essay that he was Professor Emeneaus oldest living student (and perhaps the only one who, like Professor Emeneau, studied American Indian as well as Indic languages). He attended Professor Emeneaus 95th and 100th birthday parties. Professor Bright died on 15 October 2006.

1 Professor