Jessie Little Doe Baird

Jessie Little Doe Baird
Born (1963-11-18) November 18, 1963
Wareham, Massachusetts, United States
CitizenshipMashpee Wampanoag Tribe and U.S.
Alma materMassachusetts Institute of Technology
OccupationLinguist
Known forRevitalization of Wôpanâak language
AwardsMacArthur Fellowship

Jessie Little Doe Baird (also Jessie Little Doe Fermino,[1][2] born 18 November 1963)[3] is a linguist known for her efforts to revive the Wampanoag (Wôpanâak) language. She is the co-founder of the Wôpanâak Language Reclamation Project.[4]

She lives in Mashpee, Massachusetts.[5]

Background

In 1992 or 1993, Baird experienced many dreams that she believed to be visions of her ancestors meeting her and speaking in their language, which she did not understand at first. According to a prophecy of her Wampanoag community, a woman of their kind would leave her home to bring back their language and "the children of those who had had a hand in breaking the language cycle would help heal it."[6] These legends and visions were big motivators for Jessie to start teaching and working towards recovering Wôpanâak language and culture. She began raising funds for this project along with teaching the Wôpanâak language at tribal sites in Mashpee and Aquinnah.[7][8]

Baird modeled her program after the Hawaiian immersion school system, which was implemented in Hawaii to help revitalize Hawaii's language and culture. [9] This system starts with a master speaker, who works with other adult apprentices individually or a small group of people. They work intensively for 20 - 30 hours per week to master the language under a certain time period. Once those people have learned the language, they go on to teach younger, more inexperienced people so the language can be spread.[10] Implementing this system allowed the (WLRP) to begin rekindling the Wampanoag language.

Education, database and dictionary

Baird studied for a master's degree at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she studied with linguist Dr. Kenneth L. Hale, who was a scholar of indigenous languages.[11][12] Together they worked on deciphering grammatical patterns and depicted vocabulary lists from archival Wôpanâak documents. [13] They collaborated to create a language database based on official written records, government correspondences and religious texts. An example being a 1663 Bible printed by Puritan minister John Eliot kept in the archives of MIT.[14][12]

This led Baird and Hale to begin compiling a Wôpanâak-English dictionary in 1996, with more than 10,000 words.[12] This is still being updated and added to by Baird to help her students, historians and other linguists interested in learning the Wôpanâak language.[15]

Advocacy and public service

Jessie Little Doe Baird set up the Wôpanâak Language Reclamation Project to revitalize the Wampanoag language. The project helped the Mashpee Wampanoag to create a language immersion school.[4]

Baird and her work on Wôpanâak language reconstruction and revival are the subject of a PBS documentary, We Still Live Here: Âs Nutayuneân, directed by Anne Makepeace.[16] The film goes over the story of how the Wôpanâak language was revived. It also goes into Wôpanâak history, how their land was taken from them, and other hardships that these people have faced. [17]

Baird is the vice-chairwoman of the Mashpee Wampanoag Indian Tribal Council. [18]

Awards and honors

She received a MacArthur Fellowship in 2010.[19] A week after receiving this award, "the tribe’s language project received a federal grant to implement a master-apprentice program with jessie as the master speaker to three full-time language apprentices, Nitana Hicks, Tracy Kelly, and Melanie Roderick, who share her long-term commitment to opening a tribal charter school."[20]

In 2017, Jessie Little Doe Baird received an honorary doctorate in social sciences from Yale University.[21]

In 2020, Baird was named one of USA Today's "Women of the Century" for her work in reviving the Wampanoag language.[22]

References

  1. ^ "Inspired By A Dream". MIT Spectrum. Spring 2001.
  2. ^ "languagehat.com : MACARTHUR GRANT FOR WAMPANOAG REVIVAL". languagehat.com. Retrieved 18 May 2015.
  3. ^ Jessie Little Doe (official website): CV Archived 2013-08-10 at the Wayback Machine, Aquinnah MA, 2003.
  4. ^ a b Hilleary, Cecily (8 May 2019). "Coining New Words Key to Revitalizing Native American Languages". Voice of America. Retrieved 12 November 2023.
  5. ^ Jessie Little Doe Fermino (2000). An introduction to Wampanoag grammar (Master's thesis) (PDF) (Thesis). MIT.
  6. ^ Shatwell, Justin (December 2012). "The Long-Dead Native Language Wopânâak is Revived". Yankee Magazine. Retrieved 18 May 2016.
  7. ^ Sukiennik, Greg (March 24, 2001). "Woman Brings Tribe's Dead Language to Life". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 31 October 2013.
  8. ^ Alexander Stille (September 30, 2000). "Speak, Cultural Memory: A Dead-Language Debate". The New York Times.
  9. ^ "Awakening a Sleeping Language on Cape Cod: The Wampanoag Language Reclamation Project | Cultural Survival". www.culturalsurvival.org. 2011-12-06. Retrieved 2025-11-20.
  10. ^ "Awakening a Sleeping Language on Cape Cod: The Wampanoag Language Reclamation Project | Cultural Survival". www.culturalsurvival.org. 2011-12-06. Retrieved 2025-11-20.
  11. ^ "Jessie Little Doe Baird". MacArthur Foundation. Retrieved 27 August 2012.
  12. ^ a b c Mifflin, Jeffrey (22 April 2008). "Saving a Language: A rare book in MIT's archives helps linguists revive a long-unused Native American language". Technology Review. No. May/June 2008. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Retrieved 18 June 2021.
  13. ^ "Jessie Little Doe Baird". www.macfound.org. Retrieved 2025-11-21.
  14. ^ Shatwell, Justin (December 2012). "The Long-Dead Native Language Wopânâak is Revived". Yankee Magazine. Retrieved 18 May 2016.
  15. ^ "Jessie Little Doe Baird". www.macfound.org. Retrieved 2025-11-21.
  16. ^ Anne Makepeace (Director) (17 November 2011). "We Still Live Here: Âs Nutayuneân". PBS Independent Lens. Retrieved 14 November 2022. 56 min.
  17. ^ Den Ouden, Amy E. (2012). "Review of We Still Live Here—Âs Nutayuneân". American Anthropologist. 114 (4): 691–694. ISSN 0002-7294.
  18. ^ "Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe: Tribal Council". Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe. Archived from the original on 2014-12-15. Retrieved 24 December 2014.
  19. ^ "Jessie Little Doe Baird". www.macfound.org. Retrieved 2025-03-08.
  20. ^ "Awakening a Sleeping Language on Cape Cod: The Wampanoag Language Reclamation Project | Cultural Survival". www.culturalsurvival.org. 2011-12-06. Retrieved 2025-11-04.
  21. ^ "Jessie Little Doe Baird Receives Honorary Doctorate in Social Sciences | Yale Group for the Study of Native America (YGSNA)". ygsna.sites.yale.edu. Retrieved 2017-06-09.
  22. ^ "Julia Child, Ayanna Pressley and Gwen Ifill among influential women from Massachusetts". www.usatoday.com. 13 August 2020. Retrieved 2023-02-15.
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