Catalog history: The Materials replace SCL Jacobsen, the "William H. Jacobsen Papers on Indigenous Languages of North America"
Historical information: William H. Jacobsen (1931-2014) was born on November 15, 1931 in San Diego, CA to Cmdr. William H. Jacobsen, USN ret., and Julie Froatz Jacobsen. He graduated from Point Loma High School, San Diego, in 1949, and went on to graduate from Harvard University in 1953. Jacobsen then pursued graduate studies at the University of California, Berkeley where he engaged in fieldwork on Salinan and Washo under the auspices of the Survey of California and Other Indian Languages. While at UC Berkeley, he also worked on an early machine language translation project. He received his Doctoral Degree from UC Berkeley in 1964 with a thesis entitled “A Grammar of the Washo Language”, supervised by Mary Haas, which endures as the most complete grammar of Washo published to date. He also worked as an assistant professor of anthropology (1961-1962) and linguistics (1962-1964) at the University of Washington, spending many of his summers in Neah Bay, WA, working with Makah elders to record their language. Most of Jacobsen’s academic career was spent as a professor of linguistics at the University of Nevada, Reno where he taught for thirty years (1965-1994). Throughout his academic career Jacobsen was a prolific and versatile scholar, devising writing systems, creating materials for teaching tribal members Washo and Makah, and publishing many papers on linguistic topics. Jacobsen was an active contributor within the Americanist linguistic community not only through his research, which touched upon a diverse array of languages from Hokan to Wakashan and beyond, but also through steady correspondence and collaboration with colleagues and students. In addition to his work on indigenous languages of North America, Jacobsen was well-known for his extensive work on Basque, which he engaged in through his involvement in the Center for Basque Studies at UNR. Altogether, Jacobsen was familiar with all the main Romance languages and Sanskrit in addition to being a specialist in Washo, Makah, Salinan, Nez Perce, Nootkan, and Basque. He served as president of the Society for the Study of Indigenous Languages of the Americas, received the Outstanding Researcher Award from the University of Nevada, and received the Nevada Humanities Award. Jacobsen officially retired from UNR in 1994 but continued to engage with the linguistics community as an emeritus professor. Jacobsen passed away on August 18, 2014 in Reno, NV, at age 82.
Scope and content: These materials document the linguistic work of William H. Jacobsen on various indigenous languages of North America, especially Washo, Makah, and Salinan, as well as on other languages and linguistic topics Jacobsen came into contact with throughout his academic career. The collection includes Jacobsen’s original field notebooks from work on Washo, Makah, and Salinan, as well as smaller aggregates of field notes on Diegueño, Northern Paiute, Kwak’wala, and Cowichan. In addition to original field notes, the collection includes derived research notes; many of these derived materials were organized by Jacobsen into separate folders by topic, and have been catalogued as they were found in order to reflect Jacobsen’s own organization. These research notes encompass work on Washo, Makah and other Southern Wakashan languages, Salinan, Yana and other Hokan languages, other Californian languages, and other topics related to general linguistic theory. A set of finished or near-finished manuscripts and handouts is also included, in many cases constituting completed work derived from Jacobsen’s research notes. Also included are transcriptions of texts and conversations in Washo and Makah, notes from collaborative work with Grace Dangberg on Washo texts, and materials Jacobsen developed in order to teach both Washo and Makah. Original file slips from Jacobsen’s work in organizing lexical material from Washo, Makah, Salinan, comparative Wakashan and Hokan, and Tagalog are also included. In addition to materials from Jacobsen’s original fieldwork and research, the collection includes a wealth of materials that Jacobsen obtained from other researchers. These obtained materials include an extensive collection of original Washo field notebooks originally belonging to Grace Dangberg, Gordon Marsh, Walter Dyk, Phillip Barker and William Shipley, and Brooke Mordy. In addition, the collection includes file slips and derived field notes from various sources. On Washo, these materials include Gordon Marsh’s file slips, research notes from Grace Dangberg and Walter Dyk, and photocopies of various vocabulary lists obtained from the Smithsonian Institution; on Wakashan, this includes a set of file slips from an unknown source; and on Yana, this includes a variety of research notes and a box of file slips obtained from Bruce Nevin, along with various photocopied materials on Yana obtained from museums. Other obtained materials include derived work on Washo texts by Brooke Mordy and on Yahi by T. T. Waterman, a collection of rare, unpublished, or difficult to obtain manuscripts concerning various North American indigenous languages, and published curricular materials on Washo and Makah. Various materials related to Jacobsen’s academic, scholarly, and teaching activities are catalogued as a separate series in the collection, in addition to being scattered throughout Jacobsen’s research notes. Finally, the collection includes a set of sound recordings that were discovered in Jacobsen’s possession but are not otherwise catalogued in earlier CLA collections. These recordings include recordings of Washo, Makah, Bella Coola, Ibo, Abaza, and at least one other unidentified language; some of the recordings were made by Jacobsen with various identified consultants, while others were obtained from colleagues including Brooke Mordy, Laura Fillmore, and Warren d’Azevedo, among possible others.
Repository: Survey of California and Other Indian Languages
Preferred citation: William H. Jacobsen. William H. Jacobsen Materials on Indigenous Languages of North America, 2014-21, Survey of California and Other Indian Languages, University of California, Berkeley, http://dx.doi.org/doi:10.7297/X2028PGT.
Associated materials: Audio recordings associated with the Materials can be accessed online through the California Language Archive. In particular, audio recordings are located in The William H. Jacobsen, Jr. collection of Antoniaño Salinan sound recordings (LA 69), The William H. Jacobsen, Jr. collection of Washo sound recordings (LA 53), and the William H. Jacobsen, Jr. collection of Makah sound recordings (LA 52).
Description: Edited videotape of a lecture William H. Jacobsen gave to Lisa Wahnetah's Washo History Class at Western Nevada Community College. Beginning at 27 minutes into the original lecture, the microphone transmitter was accidentally turned off for 28 minutes. This silent portion of the lecture was subsequently edited out. The videotape is accompanied by a letter from Howard Collett Jr.
Repository: Survey of California and Other Indian Languages
Preferred citation: Dr. William H. Jacobsen Jr. - Lecture on Washo Language, Edited Version, 2014-21.005.013, in "William H. Jacobsen Materials on Indigenous Languages of North America", Survey of California and Other Indian Languages, University of California, Berkeley, http://dx.doi.org/doi:10.7297/X23R0QTH.
Description: The first three minutes contain an “Áŋ story” narrated by Marvin Dressler. The remaining 10:49 minutes contain a recording entitled “Storytime” which involves various male, female, and child voices singing and conversing; the original tape lists the participants as including Lisa Wahnetah, Tiva Bear W., Hunter Fillmore, and Herman Holbrook.
Repository: Survey of California and Other Indian Languages
Preferred citation: [Ang Story and Storytime], 2014-21.006.010, in "William H. Jacobsen Materials on Indigenous Languages of North America", Survey of California and Other Indian Languages, University of California, Berkeley, http://dx.doi.org/doi:10.7297/X28G8HNM.
Description: Printout of curricular materials for use in a Washo Head Start program, including lesson plans, parent letters, and language reference materials.
Repository: Survey of California and Other Indian Languages
Preferred citation: [Washo Head Start Curriculum], 2014-21.004.046, in "William H. Jacobsen Materials on Indigenous Languages of North America", Survey of California and Other Indian Languages, University of California, Berkeley, http://cla.berkeley.edu/item/23172.
Description: A mixture of materials, including: documents in Washo and English entitled “Responses to Pictures”, describing the stickman pictures catalogued in 2014-21.005.009; documents in Washo and English containing questions, answers, commands, and vocabulary related to everyday chores; handwritten notes related to everyday chores; and lesson plans for a Washo language class taught at the preschool level related to everyday chores and baby christening.
Repository: Survey of California and Other Indian Languages
Preferred citation: [Washo curriculum development and responses to pictures], 2014-21.002.108, in "William H. Jacobsen Materials on Indigenous Languages of North America", Survey of California and Other Indian Languages, University of California, Berkeley, http://cla.berkeley.edu/item/23083.
Description: Folder containing various paper materials related to the context of Jacobsen’s research and teaching of Washo, including: a thank-you letter from Lisa Wahnetah to William H. Jacobsen for helping to teach a Washo class; a speech prepared and delivered by Darla Garey-Sage entitled “Words in Washo: A Student’s Attempt to Learn the Language”, edited by William H. Jacobsen and providing details about a Washo class he taught in 1992-1993; application letters and a research proposal written by Darla Garey-Sage, related to her work with two Washo weavers; a letter from Laura Fillmore to Jacobsen concerning a Washo Language Circle Class; and photocopies and originals of newspaper articles related to language revitalization on Washo and other languages.
Repository: Survey of California and Other Indian Languages
Preferred citation: [Washo research context], 2014-21.005.001, in "William H. Jacobsen Materials on Indigenous Languages of North America", Survey of California and Other Indian Languages, University of California, Berkeley, http://cla.berkeley.edu/item/23174.
We acknowledge with respect the Ohlone people on whose traditional, ancestral, and unceded land we work and whose historical relationships with that land continue to this day.