The Victor Golla Prize
The Victor Golla Prize is presented in recognition of a significant history of both linguistic scholarship and service to the scholarly community, with service that expands the quality and/or dissemination of such scholarship.
The linguistic scholarship can take the form of either the documentation, philology, or revitalization of one or more Indigenous languages of the Americas, such that the scholarly community knows significantly more about the language or languages of study as a result of that work. Service can take the form of providing opportunities for others to communicate their work on Indigenous languages, primarily through editorial work, organization of conferences, workshops or institutes, or responsibility for a major archive. Service must expand the opportunities of scholarly communities and should expand opportunities of Indigenous communities as well.
The Prize, which bestows a life membership in SSILA on the recipient, seeks especially to honor those who strive to carry out interdisciplinary scholarship in the spirit of Victor Golla, combining excellent linguistic scholarship in one or more other allied fields, such as anthropology, education, history, or literature.
Nomination Process
The nominating package includes the following
Cover Sheet (download and fill out)
Letter of nomination
A version of the nominee’s CV
Two letters of support reflecting the nominee’s scholarship and service
Nominations must be made by a member of SSILA for a member of SSILA.
Nominees need not know of their nomination. The prize will be awarded when a worthy scholar is selected, and will be announced at the Annual Meeting.
The deadline for receipt of nominations is June 15 (extended through August 1 for 2024).
To submit a nomination for the Victor Golla Prize, send the nominating package in PDF format by email to the SSILA Secretary.
About Victor Golla
Victor Golla (born 1939) is a linguist and a leading expert on the indigenous languages of California and Oregon, especially the Pacific Coast Athabaskan subgroup of the Athabaskan language family and the languages of the region that belong to the Penutian phylum. He is emeritus professor of anthropology at Humboldt State University and lives in Trinidad, California.
Wikipedia has additional information on the work of Victor Golla. Also read the accolades given at the ceremony for Victor Gollaʼs Leonard Bloomfield Book Award by the Linguistic Society of America.
previous recipients
Photo Credits
Victor Golla Award image: Image from the Biological Anthropology Research Center (BioARC), Humboldt State University.