Kay Williamson

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Kay Williamson
Born
Ruth Margaret Williamson

(1935-01-26)January 26, 1935
Hereford, England, United Kingdom
DiedJanuary 3, 2005(2005-01-03) (aged 69)
Brazil
NationalityBritish
Alma materSt Hilda's College, Oxford; BA in English, 1956, MA, 1960; Yale University, PhD, 1964
OccupationLinguist
Organization(s)University of Ibadan, University of Port Harcourt
Known for"The mother of Nigerian linguistics"; authority on the Ijaw languages
Parent(s)Harry Williamson
Harriett Eileen Williamson

Kay Williamson (January 26, 1935, Hereford, United Kingdom – January 3, 2005, Brazil), born Ruth Margaret Williamson, was a linguist who specialised in the study of African languages, particularly those of the Niger Delta in Nigeria, where she lived for nearly fifty years. She has been called "The Mother of Nigerian Linguistics"[1] and is also notable for proposing the Pan-Nigerian alphabet.

Early life

Professor Kay Williamson was born in Hereford, England, where she lived for the first 18 years of her life. She was the eldest of six children. Her father, Alfred Henry Williamson, also known as Harry, was the founder of Wyevale Nurseries. Her father and mother, Harriett Eileen Williamson, turned the Wyevale nurseries into one of the largest garden center chains in Europe. Williamson was educated at Hereford girls' high school and St Hilda's College, Oxford, where she took a BA in English in 1956, followed by an MA in 1960.[2]

Career

Her many publications include a grammar and dictionary of the

Ijo language, a dictionary of Igbo and numerous articles on diverse topics.[3]

Kay Williamson was known for her concern for social responsibility in linguistics. She was totally convinced that a linguist must help speakers of the languages of her research to produce texts in their languages.[3] She devoted a substantial part of her time to the Rivers Readers Project, an exercise designed to introduce reading and writing in primary schools in about 20 dialects or languages in the predominantly Ijo-speaking area. As a byproduct, several books (including primers, readers, teachers' notes, spelling manuals, and collection of folk-tales) were compiled by Williamson and her collaborators.

In 2002, she was appointed UNESCO Professor of Cultural Heritage, University of Port Harcourt, a position she held until her death.

Her unpublished work is being edited by Roger Blench.[4]

Later life

Williamson was brought up as a

Quaker in the early 1990s, and subsequently took peace activism very seriously.[5]

She died at the age of 69 in Brazil on 3 January 2005.[6][7]

The Kay Williamson Educational Foundation has been established to support to support work in Nigerian languages.[8]

Major publications

References

  1. ^ Bamgbose, Ayo (2005-02-28). "Obituary: Kay Williamson : An authority on Nigerian languages, she devoted herself to education in west Africa". The Guardian.
  2. ISSN 0261-3077
    . Retrieved 2020-06-08.
  3. ^ a b Bamgbose, Ayo (2005-02-28). "Obituary: Kay Williamson : An authority on Nigerian languages, she devoted herself to education in west Africa". The Guardian. Retrieved 2013-06-15.
  4. ^ "Memorial Events for Professor Kay (Ruth) Williamson". Archived from the original on February 23, 2012. Retrieved 2013-06-15.
  5. ^ "Memorial Events for Professor Kay (Ruth) Williamson". rogerblench.info. Retrieved 2020-06-08.
  6. ISSN 1750-0184
    .
  7. S2CID 144451135
    .
  8. ^ Website

External links

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