LANGUAGE, CULTURE, AND ENVIRONMENT: My Early Years

Abstract

▪ Abstract  In this brief account of my childhood introduction to anthropology and the subsequent ways I began acquiring a more intimate and analytical understanding of languages, cultures, societies, and impinging relevant surroundings, I acknowledge my indebtedness to the people and institutions that have facilitated this enduring process and note how informal influences and associations—some from nonanthropological domains—may be of invaluable assistance to the field-oriented ethnologist. First educated in public schools on eastern Long Island, I went for my undergraduate and graduate work to Berkeley and Yale, respectively. Since then, I have been on the anthropology faculties at Columbia (1954–1962) and Yale (1962 to the present). Since World War II, my principal ethnographic, linguistic, and ecological field sites have been on Mindoro (Hanunóo) and Luzon (Ifugao), in the Philippines.