Department of Linguistics
222 Oxley Hall
1712 Neil Avenue
Columbus, OH 43210-1298
Phone: 614-292-4052
FAX: 614-292-4273
E-mail: lingadmin@ling.ohio-state.edu
April 15, 2002
W. Bruce Walsh, Chair
Honorary Degrees Committee
238 Townshend Hall
1885 Neil Avenue Mall
Columbus, OH 43210-1222
Dear Dr. Walsh,
It is a pleasure to recommend Mr. Durbin Feeling for an honorary
doctorate from Ohio State University. Mr. Feeling is a speaker of
Cherokee who has dedicated his life to the study and teaching of his
language. There are native linguists in many tribes in the US but none
has had the impact or sustained success that Mr. Feeling has achieved
in his 30 year career. The former chief of the Cherokees Wilma
Mankiller called him “a new Sequoia” comparing his
contributions for the preservation of Cherokee to those of the famous
inventor of the Cherokee writing system.
Mr. Feeling has indeed made significant contributions to our academic
knowledge of Cherokee. His Cherokee-English Dictionary (edited by
William Pulte) is a landmark achievement. Dr. Pam Munro (UCLA) said
in her letter of support that despite the challenges of describing
such a “difficult” language as Cherokee, this Feeling &
Pulte dictionary “is exactly on target - clear, correct, and
inspiring”. Dr. Marcia Haag (University of Oklahoma)
described this work as “the core of our knowledge of the
language”. Beyond this early work, Mr. Feeling has continued to
publish articles on the academic linguistic description of Cherokee,
including most significantly “A structured approach to the
learning the basic inflections of the Cherokee verb” and with
William Pulte “Cherokee: A tone language or a pitch accent
language”.
However, it may be that Mr. Feeling’s greatest achievement in the
preservation of the Cherokee language has been in his sustained
activity as a Cherokee teacher. He has developed Cherokee language
instruction programs at the University of Oklahoma, Rogers State
University in Claremore, Oklahoma, the University of Tulsa, the
University of California, Irvine, the adult education program of the
city of Tahlequah, Oklahoma, and for 10 years as the tribal linguist
of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma. Over the years he has produced a
slew of teaching materials culminating in his “method of teaching
Cherokee literacy” called SEE-SAY-WRITE. He has even translated
two books of poems into Cherokee. One striking fact in his career as a
teacher of a popular “new-age” language is that he has never
produced language materials for personal profit - his dictionary,
grammar and pedagogical material, published by the Cherokee Nation of
Oklahoma, benefit the Cherokee people financially as well as
linguistically.
In addition to his work as a scholar and teacher, Mr. Feeling has an
impressive record of service. He has served as a program consultant
for language education programs for the eastern Cherokee in North
Carolina, the Summer Institute of Linguistics in Norman, OK, and a
program evaluator for the Mississippi Choctaw Bilingual Education
program. Mr. Feeling has served on the board of directors of the
Endangered Language Fund since its inception in 1995. Dr. Douglas
Whalen, the president of the ELF, states in his letter of support that
Mr. Feeling “has argued persuasively for some of the
community-based submissions whose overall presentation was not as
convincing as it might have been.” Mr. Dallas Proctor, Chief of
the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians, states with
characteristic understatement that Mr. Feeling “has always been
an upstanding citizen, involved in some research, writing, and
teaching of our Cherokee language.”
Mr. Feeling’s service extends beyond language work. He is a
decorated Vietnam veteran (Purple Heart), and a lay minister in the
Baptist church.
In sum, I nominate Durbin Feeling for an honorary doctorate without
any reservations. His contributions to linguistic knowledge are
extraordinary, and his dedication to his people and his language is
exemplary.
Sincerely,
Keith Johnson