Frank T. Siebert Jr. (1912 – 1998) was a medical doctor who became a leading authority on Algonquian languages, including Penobscot, for which he published a dictionary.[1][2][3]
Frank Siebert | |
|---|---|
| Born | April 2, 1912 |
| Died | January 23, 1998 (aged 85) |
| Burial place | West Laurel Hill Cemetery, Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania |
Professional career
Siebert start as a medical pathologist before leaving medicine to focus on linguistics. He studied medicine at the University of Pennsylvania where apart from his medical studies he was influenced by anthropologist Frank Speck in his interest in Native American languages.[1] In 1969, he became a Guggenheim fellow.[4]
In 1980, he received a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities for the creation of a Penobscot dictionary.[2]
Ives Goddard of the Smithsonian Institution called Siebert "clearly the most brilliant and most competent avocational linguist working on Native American languages that there has ever been, hands down."[2]
Siebert bequeathed his papers to the American Philosophical Society.
Personal life
Siebert was born in Louisville and grew in the suburban Philadelphia. He was described as an eccentric and recluse.[1]
References
- ^ a b c Goddard, Ives (1998). "Frank T. Siebert, Jr. (1912-1998)". Anthropological Linguistics. 40 (3): 481–498. ISSN 0003-5483.
- ^ a b c Gregory, Alice (2021-04-12). "How Did a Self-Taught Linguist Come to Own an Indigenous Language?". The New Yorker. ISSN 0028-792X. Retrieved 2023-12-17.
- ^ McCorison, Marcus (1998). "Obituaries: FRANK THOMAS SIEBERT, JR" (PDF). Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society: 299–304.
- ^ "Search Results - John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation". web.archive.org. 2012-08-19. Retrieved 2023-12-17.
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