Speas, Peggy
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Email Address
Birth Date
Job Title
Professor, Department of Linguistics
Last Name
Speas
First Name
Peggy
Discipline
Expertise
Syntax, typology, morphology, linguistics and education
Introduction
For more than 20 years, Professor of Linguistics Margaret “Peggy” Speas has worked alongside native speakers and community members to preserve the Navajo language, one of several hundred endangered Native American languages dubbed “national treasures” by The National Alliance to Save Native Languages, an intertribal leadership coalition.
Peggy has co-taught classes with Navajo scholars at the Navajo Language Academy and also has collaborated on projects analyzing Navajo syntax. Additionally, she worked with Evangeline Parsons-Yazzie, a native speaker and professor of Navajo at Northern Arizona University, on an introductory Navajo language textbook. Published in 2008, the book was the first such text by a native speaker, and is used in high schools on and around the Navajo reservation.
Peggy has co-taught classes with Navajo scholars at the Navajo Language Academy and also has collaborated on projects analyzing Navajo syntax. Additionally, she worked with Evangeline Parsons-Yazzie, a native speaker and professor of Navajo at Northern Arizona University, on an introductory Navajo language textbook. Published in 2008, the book was the first such text by a native speaker, and is used in high schools on and around the Navajo reservation.