Thomas Smith-Stark
American linguist (b. 1948, d. 2009)
Thomas Cedric Smith-Stark, also known as Thomas Smith-Stark or Thomas C. Smith-Stark (January 1, 1948 - May 17, 2009) was an American linguist known for his researches on Mesoamerican languages. Most of his academic career was developed in Mexico, where he lived for 28 years and he collaborated on 96 papers. Along with Terrence Kaufman and Lyle Campbell, he helped to define Mesoamerica as a linguistic area.
Smith-Stark was also part of the advisory board for the National Institute of Indigenous Languages and he took part in the discussions for drafting a Mexican policy on indigenous languages.
Early career
Thomas Smith-Stark developed an interest in linguistics when he was in high school. In the public library, he read classic works on the field. He chose linguistics as major when he went to Brown University. Smith-Stark worked two summers on Frederic Cassidy's Dictionary of American Regional English project. He spent one summer in highland Guatemala.
He spent 22 months in the Marines working in military intelligence at Cherry Point, North Carolina.
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This entry incorporates text from “Thomas Smith-Stark” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.