Sérgio Meira

Sérgio Meira de Santa Cruz Oliveira (born December 31, 1968) is a Brazilian linguist who specializes in the Cariban and Tupian language families of lowland South America and in the Tiriyó language in particular. He has worked on the classification of the Cariban language family,[1][2] and has collected primary linguistic data from speakers of 14 Cariban languages[lower-alpha 1] and 5 non-Cariban languages.[lower-alpha 2]

Sérgio Meira
Born
Sérgio Meira de Santa Cruz Oliveira

(1968-12-31)December 31, 1968
Recife, Brazil
NationalityBrazilian
Alma materRice University
AwardsLodieska Stockbridge Vaughan Fellowship, Rice University (1998)
John W. Gardner Award, Rice University (1999)
Mary R. Haas Book Award (2000)
Scientific career
FieldsCariban languages, Anthropology
InstitutionsRice University
Radboud University Nijmegen
Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi
Leiden University
Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics
KNAW
ThesisA grammar of Tiriyo (1999)
Doctoral advisorSpike Gildea

Education and personal life

Meira holds a BA and a PhD in Linguistics Theory and Analysis from Rice University.[5] His doctoral research was in collaboration with his supervisor Spike Gildea. Sérgio Meira is a member of the American Anthropological Association (AAA) and of the Society for the Study of the Indigenous Languages of the Americas (SSILA).[4]

In addition to his native Portuguese, Sérgio Meira is proficient in English,[lower-alpha 3] French,[lower-alpha 4] and Spanish,[lower-alpha 5] is moderately fluent in Esperanto,[lower-alpha 6] Italian, German, Dutch, Volapük,[lower-alpha 7] Romanian, and has a good command of Catalan, Russian, Latin, and other languages.[5]

Career

He is currently a researcher at the Radboud University Nijmegen.[5] His research focuses on historical linguistics, fieldwork and description of the Cariban and Tupian language families, as well as language and cognition.[3]

His work helped in the development of the South American Phonological Inventory Database (SAPhon),[8] the World Atlas of Language Structures (WALS),[1] and Glottolog.[9]

Volapük

Sérgio Meira is one of eight academicians at the International Volapük Academy. He was appointed in 2007 by Brian Reynold Bishop, the seventh cifal and the academy's president at that time.[10] He is also an active member of the Volapük discussion group, which unites most living volapükologists.

Meira translated articles, including Rasmus Malling-Hansen's obituary, from Volapük into English for the International Rasmus Malling-Hansen Society.[11] He also did translation work on the Volapük Wikisource, but later suggested that his work be deleted because it would be considered copyright infringement.[12] Sérgio Meira is one of Andrew Drummond's correspondents who contributed to his knowledge of Volapük material prior to the writing of A Hand-Book of Volapük.

In late October 2006, Sérgio Meira started contributing to the Volapük Wikipedia. He is the main author of most of the featured articles.

Selected publications

Meira has a number of publications; an overview of some highlights is given below:

Cariban family
  • On the Origin of Ablaut in the Cariban Family (2010)
  • 'Natural concepts' in the spatial topological domain—adpositional meanings in cross-linguistic perspective: an exercise in semantic typology (2003)
  • The Southern Cariban languages and the Cariban family (2005)
  • Sobre an origem histórica dos 'prefixos relacionais' das línguas tupí-guaraní (2013)

Tiriyó
  • Rhythmic stress in Tiriyó (Cariban)

Notes
  1. Akawaio, Akurio, Apalaí, Bakairi, Carijona, Hixkaryana, Kalina, Katxúyana, Kuhikuru, Macushi, Tiriyó, Waiwai, Wayana, and Yukpa.[3]
  2. Yaathê/Fulniô (Macro-Je), Kinaray-a (Austronesian), Mawayana (Arawak), Dholuo (Nilo-Saharan), Mawé (Tupian)[4]
  3. He has completed his higher education in English, and most of his published works are in English.
  4. He holds a Certificat d'études de français pratique from the Alliance française and taught French in Brazil.[4]
  5. He has published in Spanish.[6]
  6. He holds a Basic Course Certificate from the Brazilian Esperanto Association, and is a self-proclaimed Esperantist whose ideology most closely resembles raumism.[4][7]
  7. He is an academician at the International Volapük Academy, translated from Volapük for the International Rasmus Malling-Hansen Society, and wrote multiple articles for the Volapük Wikipedia.
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References
  1. Dryer, Matthew S.; Haspelmath, Martin (eds.). "Language Tiriyo". World Atlas of Language Structures. Retrieved 29 June 2014.
  2. Meira, Sérgio (2007). "Cariban Languages" (PDF). In Brown, Keith (ed.). Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics (2. ed.). Amsterdam: Elsevier. pp. 199–203. ISBN 978-0080442990. Retrieved 29 June 2014.
  3. Berez, Andrea L.; Mulder, Jean; Rosenblum, Daisy, eds. (May 2010). Fieldwork and Linguistic Analysis in Indigenous Languages of the Americas. University of Hawaiʻi Press. ISBN 978-0-8248-3530-9. Retrieved 6 July 2014.
  4. Meira, Sérgio (6 November 2006). "CURRICULUM VITAE". Brazilian Linguistics Association (in Portuguese). Retrieved 16 July 2014. Alt URL
  5. "Sérgio Meira de Santa Cruz Oliveira". Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (in Portuguese). 4 November 2014. Retrieved 29 June 2014.
  6. Meira, Sérgio (2003). "Primeras observaciones sobre la lengua yukpa" (in Spanish). Maricabo: Lingua Americana: 113–138 v. 12. hdl:2152/10141. Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  7. Smeira (15 September 2007). "Volapuko jam superas Esperanton en Vikipedio - Smeira diras". Libera Folio (in Esperanto). Retrieved 6 July 2014. Laux mi mem, mi estas Esperantisto, cxar tiel oni (mi kredas) cxiam nomis tiujn, kiuj scipovas Esperanton. Samideano? Se la difino estas: tiu, al kiu placxas la ekzisto de Esperanto kaj ties kulturo, jes; sed se la difino estas: tiu, kiu volas kunlabori, por ke Esperanto farigxu internacia lingvo, ne. Miaj ideoj tiurilate estas pli prok simaj al rauxmismo.
  8. Lev, Michael; Stark, Tammy; Chang Will (compilers). "Acknowledgements". South American Phonological Inventory Database. Berkeley: University of California. Retrieved 29 June 2014.CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  9. Nordhoff, Sebastian; Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2013). "Glottolog 2.2 - Cariban". Glottolog 2.2. Liepzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. Retrieved 29 June 2014.
  10. Ralph Midgley; Michael Everson. "Dö kadäm Volapüka". Flenef bevünetik Volapüka (in Volapük and English). Retrieved 25 June 2014.
  11. "Malling-Hansen, the Volapykist". The International Rasmus Malling-Hansen Society (in Danish, English, and Volapük). Retrieved 28 June 2014. We are very happy to bring on our website, an English version of this article, kindly translated by Sérgio Meira from Brazil. Mr. Meira is a sincere spokesman in favour of the artificial world language, Volapük, and is also working on an article about Malling-Hansen on the Volapük version of Wikipedia. [...] The obituary is translated from Volapük to English by Sérgio Meira from Brazil. We want to express our deepest gratidude to him for his very generous contribution to the understanding of Malling-Hansen's interest in the artificial world language, Volapük.
  12. Meira, Sérgio (10 October 2007). "Wikisource:Proposed_deletions/Archive_2007". Wikisource. Retrieved 17 July 2014.
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