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A thread about teachers who taught me, mentored me, or gave me lasting appreciation for linguistics and languages over the years.
1. Francis Egbokhare (b. 1962) was the youngest professor of linguistics at the University of Ìbàdàn in 2002. He taught me phonology and fieldwork. He also supervised my final year long essay/project. He’s also been a mentor and friend. More about him: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_E…
2. Ronald P. Schaefer (b. 1949) supervised Egbokhare when the latter was a student at UNIBEN in the 70s. Together, they’ve published lots of work on Emai, Egbokhare’s first language. Schaefer taught me Syntax at SIUE and supervised my MA thesis. More here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_P.…
Professor Ayọ̀ Bámgbóṣé (b. 1932), who never taught me, but whom I saw on campus at least once a week as an undergrad, and whose work and impact on linguistics in Africa has been a guiding light: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayo_Bamgb….
4. Túndé Adégbọlá (b. 1955) is an Engineer and language technologist, founder of the African Language Technology Initiative (ALT-i) in Ìbàdàn. He’s a mentor, friend, and teacher, who never stops guilting me to go get a PhD. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunde_Ade…
Professor Oyètayọ̀ Bánkálẹ́, who was — for a long time (probably still till date) — the only woman in the linguistics department in Ìbàdàn teaching phonology. She was a lovely professor, and I enjoyed her classes a lot.
6. Professor Augusta Phil Omamor (1945-2018). Prof. Omamor taught Syntax, and she was one to be feared (as if Syntax wasn’t scary enough). She was outspoken, feisty, and unpretentious. Gave as much as she got. She did a lot of work for the standardization of Nigerian Pidgin.
Prof. Ben Elugbe is a linguistic giant, whose name pops up in almost every academic paper I’ve ever read on Edoid languages or on their phonology. He taught me in the third year. Very soft-spoken. He now works on the advisory board of the Nigeria Prize for Literature.
Professor Ọlátúndé Ọlátúnjí was a professor at the University of Ìbàdàn, but retired before I became an undergraduate. I still saw him occasionally before he retired. I knew him through the then annual JF Ọdúnjọ Memorial Lectures.
Démọ́lá Lewis, who joined the linguistics department in Ìbàdàn as a Youth Corper when I became an undergraduate. He had spent many years earlier trying to become a medical doctor, but found the light with linguistics and never looked back. Friend and colleague.
10. Prof. Ayọ̀ Bánjọ, like Bámgbóṣé, is a giant in the Nigerian academia, has done a lot of work for Nigerian English grammar, and published a lot of textbooks. He has led the Nigerian Academy of Letters, and is also on the Advisory Board of the Nigeria Prize for Literature.
I forgot to mention that Prof. Bámgbóṣé was the author of the last major revision to the Yorùbá orthography. It's because of him/his work that we write the language like we currently do. Before him, the only other work in that direction was from Samuel Àjàyí Crowther.
Ah, because I’ll regret if I don’t do this, I should also mention Kristine Hildebrandt, Larry LaFond, Joel Hardman, and Seran Aktuna, who taught me phonology/discourse analysis, teaching methods, pedagogy etc at SIUE. Prof. Hildebrandt now works with the Endangered Language Fund.
