My first encounter with Dr. Kenneth L Pike was during the early morning class I had with him as professor. It was the morning after Janet and I had arrived at SIL that first summer. You may remember it was 3 a.m. when we got in, so we hadn't slept much. Somehow we managed to make it to class on time, but the only seats left were in the front row.
Dr. Pike lectured my very tired brain all about tagmemics. I’m sure he gave a thorough foundation for the whole grammar process. Then, five minutes before the end of class, he announced a short quiz. I panicked and quickly looked over my notes. I hadn't noticed that Dr. Pike had turned on the overhead projector with the quiz questions lit up. Just as I closed my notebook and picked up my paper and pencil, he walked up to my desk, took my piece of paper for answering the questions and tore it to pieces in front of the whole class (about 100 students). He said, “We’ll have none of that in this class!” I was horrified and just sat and waited for class to be over. I never got to take that quiz.
What happened next is forever etched in my mind and heart. I knew I needed to apologize so waited until after class. Then I went up and told him I hadn't been cheating, but was very, very sorry for not closing my notebook quickly enough. He looked up at me with a gentleness and sincerity that overwhelmed me, and said, “No, it is not you, but I who must apologize to you. I have such a problem with my temper. Please forgive me.” Forever after we were friends for life and Ken gave the wedding prayer for us during our marriage ceremony. And I learned over the years of his deep faith in Jesus that was the foundation for this man's life.
Wikipedia has a fairly accurate description of the man and his accomplishments.
Somehow tagmemics must have got into my brain that summer anyway. But before telling you my strange etic-emic dream, let me give you the background--read ahead if you don't want a mini-linguistic lesson! That summer I learned that etics deals with each individual part of a language (for instance, in phonetics it includes each individual sound that the human mouth can make), and emics is the system of how the parts work together to make meaning (in phonemics it's how all the sounds work together). Here's an example in English: when we say dogs, the s says the zzz sound because the g is voiced (we're using our vocal cords). And when we sat cats, the s says the sss sound because the t is voiceless (no vocal cords involved). As English speakers, we naturally think of both as just an s at the end. But a linguist hears the difference.
Dr. Pike lectured my very tired brain all about tagmemics. I’m sure he gave a thorough foundation for the whole grammar process. Then, five minutes before the end of class, he announced a short quiz. I panicked and quickly looked over my notes. I hadn't noticed that Dr. Pike had turned on the overhead projector with the quiz questions lit up. Just as I closed my notebook and picked up my paper and pencil, he walked up to my desk, took my piece of paper for answering the questions and tore it to pieces in front of the whole class (about 100 students). He said, “We’ll have none of that in this class!” I was horrified and just sat and waited for class to be over. I never got to take that quiz.
What happened next is forever etched in my mind and heart. I knew I needed to apologize so waited until after class. Then I went up and told him I hadn't been cheating, but was very, very sorry for not closing my notebook quickly enough. He looked up at me with a gentleness and sincerity that overwhelmed me, and said, “No, it is not you, but I who must apologize to you. I have such a problem with my temper. Please forgive me.” Forever after we were friends for life and Ken gave the wedding prayer for us during our marriage ceremony. And I learned over the years of his deep faith in Jesus that was the foundation for this man's life.
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| Kenneth Lee Pike |
Somehow tagmemics must have got into my brain that summer anyway. But before telling you my strange etic-emic dream, let me give you the background--read ahead if you don't want a mini-linguistic lesson! That summer I learned that etics deals with each individual part of a language (for instance, in phonetics it includes each individual sound that the human mouth can make), and emics is the system of how the parts work together to make meaning (in phonemics it's how all the sounds work together). Here's an example in English: when we say dogs, the s says the zzz sound because the g is voiced (we're using our vocal cords). And when we sat cats, the s says the sss sound because the t is voiceless (no vocal cords involved). As English speakers, we naturally think of both as just an s at the end. But a linguist hears the difference.
So, now back to the dream. One night that first summer (before Bill and I were dating), I was still confused about the difference between etic and emic. I tried to get many people to explain it clearly. Then one night I had a dream in which I was about to get married. But in the dream I suddenly realized that we couldn't get married! When I told my finance, he asked why. I simply said, “Because we get along fine etically but not emically.” When I awoke I understood a bit more about tagmemics and the difference between etics and emics. And I’m grateful to report that Bill and I get along fine emically.
Two summers later, after the proposal, I ended up working as Ken Pike's secretary. He, a Nobel Peace Prize nominee, was still a very intimidating man, and I was afraid to ask him for some days off for our honeymoon until a week before the wedding. He was very gracious in his gentle rebuke that I should have asked sooner. It would have been professional and respectful. He knew about the wedding because his wife Evie, and Bill’s mother, Mary, were helping to organize the wedding for us and gave us a great shower—we still have the complete set of stainless silverware we were given!
Later after we were married, when Bill was at UC Berkeley, Ken and Evie were living in the area. Ken had a sabbatical year studying at Stanford. During that year we were able to get together and share lives. He even read us some of his poetry! It was interesting, and rather like the man, a bit intriguing and challenging. Several years after that, when we were working in Nepal, Ken came to help us and our SIL colleagues figure out and analyze the unwritten languages with which we were working.
How grateful I am for how God has populated my life with amazing people. He wrote many books, published many things, made some incredible monolingual demonstrations, but I will forever remember his kind and humble heart.
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