Teeter, Karl V., 1929-....

Karl van Duyn Teeter (1929-2007) was an American linguist who specialized in endangered Algic and Algonquian languages, most notably Wiyot and Maliseet-Passamaquoddy (also known as Malecite-Passamaquoddy).

Born to Charles Edwin Teeter, Jr. (Harvard College Class of 1927) and Lura May Shaffner on March 2, 1929, Teeter was raised in Lexington, Massachusetts. He married Anita Maria Bonacorsi Teeter (Radcliffe AB 1951, Harvard EdM 1967, Ed 1978) in 1951; together they had four daughters.

After dropping out of high school in Lexington and holding a variety of jobs, Teeter joined the United States Army, serving from 1951-1954. While stationed in Japan, Teeter became interested in studying the Japanese language and linguistics in general. Upon returning to the United States in 1955, he enrolled at the University of California, Berkeley, where he studied linguistics under Mary Haas. After receiving his BA in Oriental Languages in 1956, Teeter continued linguistic studies as a graduate student, concentrating on the endangered Native American language of Wiyot, spoken in Northern California. From 1956 to 1959, he made several field trips to study the language, working in particular with Della Prince, the last living speaker of Wiyot. His dissertation, The Wiyot Language, was completed in 1962 and published in 1964.

From 1959 to 1962, Teeter was a Junior Fellow in the Society of Fellows at Harvard University. Appointed Assistant Professor of Linguistics in 1962, he remained at Harvard for his entire teaching career, retiring as Professor of Linguistics in 1989. At Harvard, Teeter regularly taught courses on Japanese linguistics, field methods in linguistics, history and theory of linguistics, and a survey course on the native languages of North America.

From 1969-1970, Teeter studied at the University of Tokyo under a Fulbright research fellowship. After his return to Harvard, however, he chose to concentrate his studies on Native American linguistics, rather than Japanese studies. In 1963, Teeter began his study of the Maliseet-Passamaquoddy (alternately known as Malecite-Passamaquoddy) language spoken in Maine and in New Brunswick, Canada. Together with Wiyot, Maliseet-Passamaquoddy became the main focus of Teeter’s linguistic study. After his retirement in 1989, Teeter published a Wiyot Handbook in two volumes to follow up on his dissertation, and began working with Philip LeSourd on Maliseet texts Teeter gathered during his 1963 fieldwork. These texts were published in 2007 as Tales from Maliseet country : the Maliseet texts of Karl V. Teeter.

Teeter had a great interest in endangered languages, serving on the Board of Directors for the Endangered Language Fund from 1998 until his death on April 20, 2007.

From the guide to the Papers of Karl V. Teeter, 1769-2003 (inclusive), 1953-1998 (bulk)., (Harvard University Archives)