The committee includes the following criteria when making their decisions:

• breadth, depth and originality of topic coverage;

• originality of analytical insight;

• significant and enduring contribution to new knowledge;

• clarity of presentation; meticulous writing (spelling, format, references…);

• broader social significance (please read our page on Social Impact/Outcomes/Implications under Meetings), including attention to issues of accessibility, Indigenous data sovereignty, and long-term preservation of language and research materials. (These may be explained either in the manuscript or in the nominating letter.)

Although the award carries no financial stipend, the winning manuscript will be considered for publication under the Society’s auspices in the University of Nebraska Press series “Studies in the Native Languages of the Americas.”

For winning manuscripts in languages other than English, the Society will provide letters of recommendation for any potential publisher. For example, the Language Science Press series “Estudios de Lingüística Amerindia / Studies of Amerindian Linguistics” publishes books in several languages.

Nomination Process

Manuscripts may be submitted in English, French, German, Portuguese or Spanish.

The manuscript submission should be accompanied by a letter of recommendation from the a member of author’s dissertation committee, detailing why the nominated dissertation is worthy of the Haas award, and include the nominee’s email address.

The nominating package includes the following:

1. Cover Sheet (download and fill out)

2. Letter of recommendation

3. Manuscript

The nominator does not need to be a member of SSILA. The recipient must be a member of SSILA.

The deadline for receipt of nominations is June 15 (extended through August 1 for 2024).

To submit a nomination for the Mary R. Haas Book Award, send the manuscript and letter of recommendation in PDF format by email to the SSILA Secretary. Please verify that it has in fact been received.

About Mary R. Haas

The award honors the memory of Mary R. Haas (1910–1996), Professor of Linguistics at the University of California at Berkeley and a founding member of the Linguistics Department, of which she was Chair from 1957–1964. There she founded the Survey of California Indian Languages and supervised the field work of dozens of doctoral students.

Haas was a notable scholar of many Indigenous languages of the Americas. Her doctoral dissertation, supervised by Edward Sapir, was a description of Tunica carried out with Sesostrie Youchigant, the last fluent first-language speaker of the language. She also worked with speakers of Natchez and Creek, while also publishing on Biloxi, Koasati, Choctaw, Alabama, Hichiti, Nitanat, Mobilian Jargon, as well as on Thai and Burmese.

The Wikipedia entry on Mary R. Haas contains a fuller biography.

previous recipients

Photo Credits

Mary Haas Award image: Image from the Muskogee (Seminole/Creek) Documentation Project, William and Mary.