Linguist Dr Tyler Peterson has just joined the Faculty of Arts, fresh from the University of Arizona.
In Arizona Tyler was the interim head of and taught in the NAMA programme, the Master of Arts in Native American Languages and Linguistics.
NAMA is oriented towards community language activists who wish to train in the kinds of skills and experience needed to work on maintaining, revitalising, and documenting their native languages. It attracts a range of non-traditional students from diverse backgrounds.
Alongside his work at the University, Tyler would spend a lot of time heading out into the desert in his pickup truck to teach linguistics and language documentation in small Native American communities, and to talk about language with chiefs in council meetings.
“I would help them with linguistics education, documentation — whatever they needed to advance their cause.”
He remembers that over and over again in these remote communities, Navajo would talk about the revitalisation of Māori language and race relations in New Zealand. He says that Māori language and experiences would likewise be regularly cited in the remote Indigenous communities that he has worked with in both in northern Canada and in Vancouver.
Tyler is excited to be teaching in New Zealand, having heard so much about our Indigenous language in such remote places.
For Tyler, there are two sides to what he does: the academic study of endangered Indigenous languages, and making linguistics education useful in the community.
When asked about how he became a linguist, he explains that “it kind of chose me”.
Tyler grew up in Smithers, a tiny railroad town in northern Canada. He comes from a family of immigrants from Europe who had been given land packages in the area, right in the middle of a diverse area of Indigenous people.
