Howren, Robert

Robert (Bob) Howren, a native of Georgia, received his BA from Wake Forest in 1950 and MA from the University of Connecticut in 1952 (both in English), and his PhD from Indiana University in 1958 (in English linguistics). Following a teaching term at Wake Forest, he moved to the University of Iowa in 1962, where he chaired the Interdepartmental Program in Linguistics 1965-70 and was the founding chair of the Department of Linguistics 1970-75. In the summer of 1965 Howren did a summer season of fieldwork in Fort Rae (Behchokǫ̀), following up with research assistant Charles Pyle in 1967. During the 1960's he also served as a language-training consultant to the Peace Corps in Malaya and was a Fulbright Lecturer in English at the University of Mandalay in Burma. He came to Chapel Hill in 1976, where he chaired the Dept. of Linguistics and Non-Western Languages 1976-81, retiring in 1994. While his research interests included American English dialects and the history of English, his primary specialization was phonology, with concentration on the Northeastern Athapaskan languages of the Canadian Northwest. He conducted fieldwork in these languages, most notably Tłı̨chǫ, some in collaboration with his second wife, Phyllis. This work was supported by the National Museum of Canada, among other funders. Following his retirement, he began a new project on Yucatec Maya, carrying out fieldwork in the vicinity of Xocen, Mexico and delivering a paper on the topic at a conference in Guadalajara. Robert R. Howren, Professor Emeritus of Linguistics at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, died on September 5, 1997, at the age of 68.

"Contributions to Canadian Linguistics," by Eric P. Hamp, Robert Howren, Quindel King, Brenda M. Lowery and Richard Walker. National Museum of Man Mercury Series, Canadian Ethnology Service Paper no. 50. Ottawa, 1979. p 7-40.

Added fieldwork notes and funding May 2, 2024 ES