History of Athabaskan Language Studies
The history of Athabaskan language studies contains some interesting episodes. Krauss (2005) offers some humorous side notes on the work of Edward Sapir and his students in the early reconstruction Proto-Athabaskan. He presents some scandalous events, such as the reason why Gladys Reichard was not particularly positive about Sapir’s work: “it was in fact common knowledge in some circles that she was shacked up, living in sin, in Greenwich Village for years with none other than P.E. Goddard” (p. 63), with whom Sapir had “strange and strained relations” (p. 64). The same situation probably deprived later linguists of P.E. Goddard’s monumental comparative Athabaskan dictionary which is now lost: “Goddard’s wife naturally evinced some displeasure, which may well explain why the whereabouts of the Goddard papers, including his life’s work, the comparative dictionary of Athabaskan, have been unknown since his death” (id.).
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