Robert L. Rankin

Robert Louis Rankin (January 17, 1939 – February 24, 2014) was an American linguist and scholar of the Siouan languages. He is best known for his contributions to the preservation of the Kansa language and to the study of Proto-Siouan, the reconstructed last common ancestor of all Siouan languages. He has been described as one of the most influential Siouanists, mentoring numerous other linguists in the field and being made an honorary citizen of the Sioux Nation for his language preservation efforts. Credited with single-handedly preserving the Kansa language, his ashes were given to the Kaw Nation following his death.

After developing an interest in linguistics after hearing foreign languages from Europe and Asia on his ham radio as a child, Rankin began studying Romance linguistics at Emory University. He earned his master's and doctoral degrees at the University of Chicago studying Romanian dialects in the country between 1966 and 1968 after earning a Fulbright Fellowship. After he was encouraged by his colleague at the University of Kansas, he began studying the Siouan languages, namely Quapaw and Kansa; Rankin worked with all three of the last speakers of Kansa and the last speaker of Quapaw, compiling dictionaries and grammars of both. Apart from his work in Siouan linguistics, Rankin also made contributions to historical linguistics, lexicography, and other Native American language families such as Iroquoian and Muskogean.

Robert Louis Rankin was the eldest son born to Harvey W. and Helen E. Rankin in Bellefonte, Pennsylvania, on January 17, 1939.^[1][2] Although the family moved around from Pennsylvania to New York to Louisiana to Florida, the family ultimately settled in Tifton, Georgia, where Rankin spent the majority of his childhood.^[3][1] As a young man, Rankin established the Tifton chapter of the local Ground Observer Corps and was active in his local Boy Scout troop. He developed an interest in languages after toying around with his ham radios and hearing languages from Europe and Asia.^[4][2] In 1956, Rankin graduated from Tifton High School, going on to study the Romance languages, Spanish, and French at Emory University in Atlanta, graduating in 1960.^[1][5]

After his acceptance at the University of Chicago's graduate school, Rankin was made a Fulbright Fellow and both he and his wife headed to Communist Romania, where they stayed from 1966 until 1968 while he studied the nation's regional dialects.^[6] The year of his return, he was granted a master's degree in linguistics.^[1][7] In 1969, Rankin was hired by the University of Kansas as acting assistant professor of linguistics.^[8] Three years later, he was awarded his doctorate in linguistics from the University of Chicago.^[1][7] His dissertation, which remained focused on his work in Romania, was entitled Word Final High Vowels in Rumanian: Problems in Synchronic and Diachronic Dialectology.^[9]

When Rankin arrived at the University of Kansas, his work largely remained focused on European languages.^[11] At the urging of his colleague, Dale Nicklas, Rankin began looking into Native American languages in the area; Nicklas argued that "it was the duty of every American linguist to try to document at least one Native American language".^[12]

After failing to find sufficient resources to begin a study of Quapaw, Rankin began work on the Kansa language in the summer of 1973,^[a] looking for the last three speakers of the language in Shidler, Oklahoma.^[13][14] One of the speakers, Maude McCauley Rowe, agreed to collaborate, but refused to share stories until the winter time, in accordance with Plains Indian tradition.^[16][17] Rankin recorded her recitation of the Lord's Prayer. When he returned the next day, he brought with him a transcription and recited it back to her, shocking her.^[18][19] Believing her language to be unable to be written down and doomed to extinction, she requested a photocopy of the transcription which she then disseminated throughout the tribe.^[20] Rankin and Rowe then met for two hours every weekday afternoon to record in two-week intervals.^[15]

Rankin worked alongside Rowe and the two other speakers, Ralph Pepper and Walter Kekahbah, for three years, taking meticulous notes and dozens of hours of recordings and comparing notes from James Owen Dorsey's notes from the 1880s.^[21] After being granted a $40,000 ($64,399 in 2024) fellowship by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the project culminated in a dictionary and grammar.^[22][23] Rankin eventually had to cease recording after a back injury which required surgery and his informants died shortly thereafter, the last speakers of the Kansa language.^[24]

Given the vacuum of historical linguists involved in Siouan linguistics, Rankin began taking it on and combining it with his efforts in documentation and preservation.^[25] He ultimately pursued an interest in the Siouan languages which were spoken nearby, in part because of their endangered status.^[26] During his career, Rankin primarily focused on historical phonology of the Siouan languages, namely the Dhegiha subfamily and the Kansa language in particular. He was also an active lexicographer and philologist and published works on the Iroquoian and Muskogean languages as well as more broadly in archeology, typology, and the history of linguistics itself.^[23] Rankin later returned to Quapaw, working with its last speaker and later creating a dictionary and grammar as he had with Kansa.^[26] His outline of the Ofo language, another Siouan language, corrected massive failures and mistakes of previous literature.^[1]

Rankin retired in 2005, though he continued to be involved in academia afterward.^[8] His final publication was made in 2012, entitled Kaaⁿze Ie Wayaje: An Annotated Dictionary of Kaw (Kanza).^[8]

After a years-long bout of prostate cancer and kidney disease, Rankin died on February 24, 2014, at the age of 75.^[1] Following his cremation, his wife called the Kaw Nation to inform them of his death and offer them his ashes.^[27] A spokesman for the Kaw, James Pepper Henry, remarked that Rankin had "single-handed[ly] preserved our language" and that "the gift of Mr. Rankin's ashes is a high honor".^[28][29] Although he was cremated, he was given a memorial headstone, which reads in Kansa: Wíblahaⁿ Káⁿze íe shóⁿshoⁿ ni ('Thanks to you, the Kansa language lives on').^[30] He was also given the name Kaanze Koya ('Kaw Friend') by the Kaw Nation.^[31]

Rankin has been described as a towering figure in Siouan linguistics.^[32] In a book posthumously dedicated in his honor, he was described by its editors as "a mentor to nearly all living Siouanists".^[23] The Sioux Nation made him an honorary citizen for his contributions to the preservation of their languages.^[2] Rankin's recordings of Kansa were given to some members of the tribe; Johnnie Ray McCauley, Rowe's nephew, received copies in 1996 and died a few months later while listening to Rankin's recordings of his aunt speaking the language.^[33]

Rankin married Carolyn Ann Leverance on September 11, 1965.^[8][34] The two met while they were both students at the University of Chicago and were both later employed as researchers at the University of Kansas. Carolyn was a cellular biologist whose research focused on brain diseases relating to the Parkin protein.^[34]

Rankin's interest in ham radios continued throughout his life and he served as a storm spotter for Leavenworth County, Kansas.^[1] Aside from his native English, Rankin could also read Latin.^[24]

• "From verb to auxiliary to noun classifier and definite article: Grammaticalization of the Siouan verbs 'sit', 'stand', 'lie'" (1977)
• "The unmarking of Quapaw phonology" (1978)
• "A Quapaw vocabulary" (1982)"
• "Ponca, Biloxi, and Hitdatsa glottal stop and Quapaw gemination are historically related accentual phenomena" (1988)
• "A relic of Proto-Siouan *ro 'one' in Mississippi Valley Siouan" (1993)
• "On the source and scope of Siouan Aspiration" (1993)
• "Deeper genetic relationships in North America: some tempered pessimism" (1996)
• "Siouan–Catawban–Yuchi genetic relationship: with a note on Caddoan" (1998)
• "The Kaw nation in prehistory: What the Kaw language and place names tell us" (2001)
• "An Ofo grammar sketch" (2002, revised in 2004)
• A Diachronic Perspective on Active/Stative Alignment in Siouan (2002)
• "On Quapaw (and Siouan) 'Ablaut'" (2003)
• "The history and development of Siouan positionals with special attention to polygrammaticalization in Dhegiha" (2004)
• English to Kanza dictionary (2007)
• "The place of Mandan in the Siouan language family" (2010)
• Kaaⁿze Ie Wayaje: An Annotated Dictionary of Kaw (Kanza) (2012)

• Rankin working with the last Quapaw speaker, hosted by the Smithsonian Online Virtual Archives