Desmond C. Derbyshire
Encyclopedia
Desmond Cyril Derbyshire (1924 – 19 December 2007) was a linguist
who specialized in Carib languages.
He is best known for his work on Hixkaryana
, known for its object–verb–subject word order
. Derbyshire's study of the language (as a linguist with the Summer Institute of Linguistics) resulted in the first description in the linguistics
literature of a language with this word order as its default.
The most surprising story Derbyshire told of the long period of work in the Hixkaryana village of remote northern Brazil concerned a day in November 1965, during the visit by then New York's US Senator Robert F. Kennedy. The recounting of that three-day visit included how Senator Kennedy declared his decision to run for President of the United States.
Linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....
who specialized in Carib languages.
He is best known for his work on Hixkaryana
Hixkaryana language
Hixkaryana is one of the Carib languages, spoken by just over 500 people on the Nhamundá River, a tributary of the Amazon River in Brazil. It is one of a few known natural languages that normally use object–verb–subject word order, and may have been the first such language to be described...
, known for its object–verb–subject word order
Word order
In linguistics, word order typology refers to the study of the order of the syntactic constituents of a language, and how different languages can employ different orders. Correlations between orders found in different syntactic subdomains are also of interest...
. Derbyshire's study of the language (as a linguist with the Summer Institute of Linguistics) resulted in the first description in the linguistics
Linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....
literature of a language with this word order as its default.
The most surprising story Derbyshire told of the long period of work in the Hixkaryana village of remote northern Brazil concerned a day in November 1965, during the visit by then New York's US Senator Robert F. Kennedy. The recounting of that three-day visit included how Senator Kennedy declared his decision to run for President of the United States.