Kay Williamson | |
---|---|
Born | January 26, 1935 |
Died | January 3, 2005 Brazil |
(aged 69)
Alma mater | St Hilda's College, Oxford; BA in English, 1956, MA, 1960; Yale University, Ph.D., 1964 |
Occupation | Linguist |
Organization | University of Ibadan, University of Port Harcourt |
Known for | "The mother of Nigerian linguistics," authority on the Ijaw languages |
Parent(s) | Harry Williamson |
Kay Williamson (1935 – January 3, 2005, Brazil), born Ruth Margaret Williamson was a linguist who specialised in the study of African languages, particularly those of the Niger Delta in Nigeria, where she lived for nearly fifty years. She has been called "The Mother of Nigerian Linguistics." Her many publications include a grammar and dictionary of the Ijo language, a dictionary of Igbo and numerous articles on diverse topics. She is also notable for proposing the Pan-Nigerian Alphabet.
Kay Williamson was known for her "concern for social responsibility in linguistics."
She devoted a substantial part of her time to the Rivers Readers Project, an exercise designed to introduce reading and writing in primary schools in about 20 dialects or languages in the predominantly Ijo-speaking area. As a byproduct, several books (including primers, readers, teachers' notes, spelling manuals, and collection of folk-tales) were compiled by Kay and her collaborators.
It did not bother her that such works do not earn plaudits as academic publications. She was totally convinced that a linguist must help speakers of the languages of her research to produce texts in their languages.
Her unpublished work is being edited by Roger Blench.