In Memoriam : Carlos Alberto Solé (1935–2020)

Abstract

In Memoriam : Carlos Alberto Solé (1935–2020) Elizabeth Moore Willingham Keywords Hispanic Linguistics, Old Spanish Click for larger view View full resolution Carlos Alberto Solé. Photo courtesy of Elizabeth Moore Willingham. Carlos Alberto Solé, Jr., Professor Emeritus in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at the University of Texas at Austin, passed away on January 7, 2020, at his home in Houston, Texas. Carlos was born in Panama on September 9,1935, the son of Carlos Solé Bosch and Mercedes Icaza de Solé Bosch. Daughter-in-law Kendall Solé recalls that Carlos “often reminisced about swimming in the Bay of Panama and the many wonderful memories of his childhood with his two sisters, brother and many cousins in their family home right off the Avenida Balboa along the Pacific Ocean.” Carlos’s father was a leading Panamanian journalist and newspaper editor and acted as official translator for the Government of Panama, traveling with Panama’s delegation to the United Nations to serve in that capacity. According to Kendall, it was his Carlos’s [End Page 11] father’s work in the United States that encouraged Carlos to come to Washington, DC, in 1958 to study at Georgetown University, where he earned a BS in Law (BSL) in 1959 and went on to pursue doctoral studies in Spanish linguistics. For two years during his graduate work, Carlos was an instructor at Georgetown, where he married—in Kendall’s words—“one of his most formidable [Georgetown] classmates,” Yolanda Russinovich. Carlos was awarded the PhD in 1966. His family notes that Carlos enjoyed reminiscing about his years in Georgetown, where, for a time, the young Senator John F. Kennedy was a nearby neighbor. Carlos’s first faculty position was at Harvard University, where he remained for four years, until 1970, when he and Yolanda took up tenured professorships at the University of Texas at Austin (UT). Carlos was promoted to full rank in 1985 and remained at UT Austin until his retirement in 2008. Over the years, Carlos was committed to shaping UT’s graduate programs in linguistics and literature, and he guided its graduate students through Old Spanish and Spanish dialectology for nearly four decades. In August 2000, the Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese (AATSP) held two sessions honoring Carlos’s and Yolanda’s contributions to the profession (Febles). Among their joint projects is the still-indispensable reference volume, Modern Spanish Syntax: A Study in Contrast, released in 1977, when it superseded older standby works on Spanish syntax. Carlos’s Bibliografía sobre el español en América: 1920– 1967 (1970) and the updated Bibliografía sobre el español en América: 1920–1986 (1990) compiled several thousand entries, with all major works critically annotated. UT linguist Joseph Matluck, presiding at the AATSP session honoring Carlos, described these volumes as having “infinite value to the field of Hispanic American linguistics in general and dialectology in particular.” In the field of literature Carlos edited with María Isabel Abreu Latin America. Carlos collaborated on later editions of Foundation Course in Spanish (1957–1998) with Laurel Herbert Turk and Aurelio M. Espinosa, as he did in Spanish on your Own (2000). Carlos and Yolanda published an advanced language text, Español: Ampliación y repaso (1982). Carlos [End Page 12] served as general editor for Scribner-Macmillan’s College Spanish Textbook Series from 1972 until his retirement and as an editorial board member for Hispanic Linguistics. Carlos published articles in sociolinguistics and dialectology in the U.S., Mexico, Colombia, and Spain. In 1985 he was inducted as Miembro Vitalicio by the Sociedad Argentina de la Historia; in 1990, he was named an Académico de Número by the Academia Norteamericana de la Lengua Epañola; and Académico Correspondente by the Real Academic Española de la Lengua and by the Academia Panameña de la Lengua Epañola; elected an Honorary Fellow of the Hispanic Society of America. Carlos’s former doctoral students recall his comfortable erudition, his great kindness, and gentle, sound advice, along with his impeccable grooming, stylish attire, and a sporty “ride”—bearing “CAROLUS” on its license plate—parked outside Batts Hall. Mark Davies, Professor...