Jessica Fae Nelson is a linguistic anthropologist whose work focuses on community-based language revitalization, indigeneity, and language and social meaning. Her research interests also include gender and language, filmmaking, and videogames as virtual worlds and tools for language reclamation work. Some of her favorite projects have been a Pataxó Hãhãhãe community dictionary and comparative historical linguistic reconstruction, Berenstein Bears cartoons dubbed into the Lakota language, and a Patxohã mobile dictionary app (ongoing). As a Lakota language learner herself, she also enjoys teaching Beginning and Intermediate Lakota here at UW.
Selected Publications
2023 “On Pataxó Hãhãhãe and Maxakalí” International Journal of American Linguistics 89, no. 4: 531-563.
2021 “Retaking Hãhãhãe: Revitalization and Reindigenization in a Context of Indigenous Erasure” In Metalinguistic Communities: Case Studies of Agency, Ideology, and Symbolic Uses of Language. Netta Avineri and Jesse Harasta (eds). Palgrave Studies in Minority Languages and Communities. Palgrave MacMullin. 161-179. https://doi.org/10.1111/jola.12268
2016 "Lakota Men’s and Women’s speech: Gender, Metapragmatic Discourse, and Language Revitalization." In Gender, Language and the Periphery. Julie Abbou and Fabienne Baider (eds). Amsterdam, NL: John Benjamins. 257-284.
2011 (coordinating producer) “Matȟó Waúƞšila Thiwáhe.” (Lakota Berenstein Bears) DVD. PBS. lakotabears.com
In collaboration with the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and Lakota Language Consortium.
