Draft:Glenn Gilbert

Glenn Gilbert has made significant contributions to the study of Texas German, of pidgin and creole languages and contact languages in general. He began his career by analyzing the German dialects spoken in Kendall and Gillespie counties of Texas.^[7] In his doctoral thesis, he was the first to systematically document the phonological, morphological, and lexical features of German varieties spoken in the western portion of the Texas German Belt, including the effects of long-term contact with English.^[8] After graduating Harvard with a PhD in 1963, Gilbert was an Instructor and Assistant Professor at the University of Texas at Austin for several years. During this time, he expanded his research on Texas German to cover over 40 counties in central and south-central Texas. In 1972, he published The Linguistic Atlas of Texas German, which has been described as one of the most comprehensive accounts of Texas German as it was spoken in the 1960s^[9][10][11]

In 1970, he began working at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale as a Professor of Linguistics, German, and Anthropology. During his time there, he turned to the study of pidgin and creole languages. His first major contribution in this area was the translation of the writings of Hugo Schuchardt from German into English. In the course of this work, Gilbert introduced terms such as go-between languages, auxiliary languages, and languages of exigency. In the United States, Gilbert played a key role in the launch of the Society for Pidgin and Creole Linguistics (SPCL), which began holding joint meetings with the Linguistic Society of America in 1989.^[12] He is also the founding editor of the Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages. He is often credited with helping to bring creolistics into mainstream linguistics.^[13]

In 2006, a festschrift was published in his honor.^[14]

• Gilbert, Glenn G. (1964). The German Dialect of Kendall and Gillespie Counties, Texas. Zeitschrift für Mundartforschung, 31(2–3), 138–172. JSTOR 40500126.
• Gilbert, Glenn G. (ed.). (1971): The German Language in America: A Symposium. Austin: University of Texas Press. ISBN 0-292-70149-7
• Gilbert, Glenn G. (1972): Linguistic Atlas of Texas German / Deutscher Sprachatlas: Regionale Sprachatlanten Nr. 5. Austin: University of Texas Press. ISBN 0-292-70088-1
• Gilbert, Glenn G. (1980). "The German Language in Texas: Some Needed Research." In German Culture in Texas: A Free Earth. Essays from the 1978 Southwest Symposium, edited by Glen E. Lich and Dona B. Reeves, pp. 229–240. Boston: Twayne.
• Gilbert, Glenn G. (ed.). (1980): Pidgin and Creole Languages: Selected essays by Hugo Schuchardt. Translated by G. Gilbert. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-10890-X
• Gilbert, Glenn G. (1985). Hugo Schuchardt and the Atlantic Creoles: A Newly Discovered Manuscript “On the Negro English of West Africa” American Speech, 69(1), 31–63. doi:10.2307/454645.
• Gilbert, Glenn G. (ed.). (1987). Pidgin and Creole Languages: Essays in Memory of John E. Reinecke. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaiʻi Press.
• Gilbert, Glenn G. (2005). "The Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages and the Society for Pidgin and Creole Linguistics, in retrospect." Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages, 20(1), 167–174.