Desmond Cyril Derbyshire (10 September 1924 – 19 December 2007) was a linguist who specialized in Carib languages.
Background
He is best known for his work on Hixkaryana, known for its object–verb–subject word order. Derbyshire's study of the language (as a linguist with the Summer Institute of Linguistics) resulted in the first description in the linguistics literature of a language with this word order as its default.
The most surprising story Derbyshire told of the long period of work in the Hixkaryana village of remote northern Brazil concerned a day in November 1965, during the visit by then New York's US Senator Robert F. Kennedy. The recounting of that three-day visit included how Senator Kennedy declared his decision to run for President of the United States.
References
- "LINGUIST List 19.1: Obituary: Desmond Derbyshire (1924-2007)". 3 January 2008.
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