"The mother of Nigerian linguistics"; authority on the Ijaw languages
Parent(s)
Harry Williamson Harriett Eileen Williamson
Kay Williamson (January 26, 1935, Hereford, United Kingdom – January 3, 2005, Brazil), born Ruth Margaret Williamson, was a linguist who specialised in the study of African languages, particularly those of the Niger Delta in Nigeria, where she lived for nearly fifty years. She has been called "The Mother of Nigerian Linguistics"[1] and is also notable for proposing the Pan-Nigerian alphabet.
Early life
Professor Kay Williamson was born in Hereford, England, where she lived for the first 18 years of her life. She was the eldest of six children. Her father, Alfred Henry Williamson, also known as Harry, was the founder of Wyevale Nurseries. Her father and mother, Harriett Eileen Williamson, turned the Wyevale nurseries into one of the largest garden center chains in Europe. Williamson was educated at Hereford girls' high school and St Hilda's College, Oxford, where she took a BA in English in 1956, followed by an MA in 1960.[2]
Career
Her many publications include a grammar and dictionary of the Ijo language, a dictionary of Igbo and numerous articles on diverse topics.[3]
Kay Williamson was known for her concern for social responsibility in linguistics. She was totally convinced that a linguist must help speakers of the languages of her research to produce texts in their languages.[3] She devoted a substantial part of her time to the Rivers Readers Project, an exercise designed to introduce reading and writing in primary schools in about 20 dialects or languages in the predominantly Ijo-speaking area. As a byproduct, several books (including primers, readers, teachers' notes, spelling manuals, and collection of folk-tales) were compiled by Williamson and her collaborators.
Williamson, Kay. 1971. "The Benue-Congo languages and Ịjọ". In: Current Trends in Linguistics, Vol. 7, series ed. by T. A. Sebeok, 245-306.
Williamson, Kay. 1979. "Small languages in primary education: the Rivers Readers Project as a case history". African Languages/Langues Africaines 5:2.95-l05.
Williamson, Kay. 1989. "Benue-Congo Overview". In: The Niger-Congo languages, ed. by John Bendor-Samuel, 246-274. University Press of America. ISBN0819173754
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