Kenneth Cushman Hill

Kenneth C. Hill (October 3,1938 - ) is an American linguist who has worked extensively with Native American languages of the Uto-Aztecan languages family. 
== Early life and career ==
Hill was born in Orange, New Jersey, to Henry Eric Hill and Ruth Allerton Cushman Hill.
He received a B.A. in Linguistics from Georgetown University in Washington DC in 1960, then matriculated at University of California, Los Angeles to pursue a Doctor of Philosophy which he completed in 1967 under the direction of William Bright. While at UCLA, he met Jane Hassler. They married in 1962 and had their first of their three children the same year.
Hill’s first academic position was as Acting Assistant Professor of Linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley from 1964-65. In academic year 1965-66, he began a 20 year career in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan, MI – moving through the ranks from lecturer to assistant professor to associate professor. He also served as department chair from 1977 to 1982. On sabbatical leave from 1974–1975, he and Jane began work on Nahuatl. In 1985, he left Michigan to became a Research Associate in the Bureau of Applied Research in Anthropology at the University of Arizona in Tucson, Arizona. 
Hill is the author or co-author of over 50 articles, book chapters, and reviews, as well as the co-author of five books. His professional service includes a term as President of the Society for the Study of the Indigenous Languages of American.
== Native American languages ==
Hill's work with indigenous American languages began with his dissertation on the Cupeño language, a member of the Uto-Aztecan language family spoken in Southern California. The data upon which the dissertation was based was elicited from Sarah Martin and Louis Marcus, among the last living speakers of Serrano. His contributions to the study of this language family continued with the joint work with his wife on Nahuatl and comparative Takic, culminating with the monumental Hopi dictionary project. This last, based on a long-term collaboration with Emory Sekaquaptewa, received major funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
== Representative publications ==
2015 (with Emory Sekaquaptewa and Dorothy K. Washburn) Hopi Katsina Songs. Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 978-0-8032-6288-1. Pp. i-xii, 1-421.
2002 (editor, with William Frawley and Pamela Munro) Making Dictionaries: Preserving Indigenous Languages of the Americas. Berkeley - Los Angeles - London: University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-22996-7. Pp. i-vi, 1-449.
1998 (with Emory Sekaquaptewa, Mary E. Black, Ekkehart Malotki) Hopi Dictionary/Hopìikwa Lavàytutuveni: A Hopi-English dictionary of the Third Mesa dialect. With an English-Hopi finder list and asketch of Hopi grammar. Compiled by the Hopi Dictionary Project, Bureau of Applied Anthropology, University of Arizona. Tucson: University of Arizona Press. ISBN 0-8165-1789-4. Pp. i-xx, 1-900.
1986 (with Jane H. Hill) Speaking Mexicano. Tucson: University of Arizona Press. ISBN 0-8165-0898-4. Pp. i-xiii, 1-493. 
Category:People from Orange, New Jersey
Category:American linguists
Category:1938 births