Linguistics as History: Preserving Linguistic Oral Records

Abstract

Introduction. As many linguists know, the Library of the American Philosophical Society is a major repository for linguistic research, especially related to native American languages. The Society administers the Phillips Fund, an endowment established in 1892 that sponsors research into native American ethnohistory, language, and culture.' Anthropologists and other researchers are asked to deposit copies of their Phillips Fund-sponsored research in the Library. Consequently, over the years an important body of primary resource materials has developed. In its earliest years, the fund was used for the purchase of books in classical philology. Later, grants were devoted to classical archaeology and linguistics. The Phillips Fund attained its present character in 1948, when support was devoted exclusively to American Indian linguistics and archaeology. Stephen Catlett, in his study of the grants program at the APS, has calculated that during the period 1933-81, the APS allocated a total of $474,978 through Phillips and another endowment (the Penrose Fund) for the study of American Indian cultures and languages. The Phillips Fund itself awarded $312,553 from 1945-81 to 456 grantees.2 Recipients of Phillips Fund grants in the past have included Dell Hymes, Charles Voegelin, Frederica De Laguna, and dozens of other influential researchers. The fund has proved an excellent way to supplement and support major anthropological and linguistic collections in the Library, including the papers of Franz Boas, Frank Speck, Edward Sapir, and others.3