CILLA

CILLA Director

Nora C. England, Nowlin Regents Professor of Liberal Arts, Department of Linguistics

Nora England is a specialist in Mayan linguistics, with principal research interests in the analysis and description of contemporary Mayan languages, language identity, language politics, and language ideologies. Representative publications include: A Grammar of Mam, a Mayan Language (1983), Autonomía de los idiomas Mayas: Historia e identidad (1992), Introducción a la lingüística: idiomas Mayas (1988, 1996), Introducción a la gramática de los idiomas Mayas (2001), "The Role of Language Standardization in Revitalization" (1996), and "Mayan Efforts toward Language Preservation" (1998).

She is the founder of and adviser to Oxlajuuj Keej Maya' Ajtz'iib' (OKMA), a Guatemalan Mayan institute devoted to research and teaching on Mayan languages and linguistics. Throughout her career she has been principally concerned with conveying linguistic knowledge to speakers of Mayan languages so that they have the necessary tools for linguistic research and for applying that knowledge to language maintenance and Mayan education. She was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in 1993 for her work in Guatemala.