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A ֱ student and professor wearing collared, button-up, long sleeve shirts sit at a table having a discussion.

Humanities and Sciences

Leora Bar-el

Professor & Director, Linguistics Program, Department of Anthropology

Contact

Office
Social Sciences 207
Email
leora.bar-el@umontana.edu
Office Hours

Spring 2025

Drop-in office hours are held in person (no appointment necessary):

  • Mondays 3pm-4pm
  • Wednesdays 10:30am-11:30am
  • Thursdays 4pm-5pm

If you are unable to meet at any of the above times, contact me by email to schedule a meeting at another time.

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My pronouns are

The ֱ is in the aboriginal territories of the people. We honor the path they have always shown us in caring for this place for the generations to come.

To learn more about these communities, visit the .

Website
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Leora Bar-el

Personal Summary

I am a Professor of Linguistics and Director of the Linguistics Program in the Department of Anthropology. My research interests lie in a variety of areas of linguistics, and I have done research in phonology, morphology, syntax and semantics. My doctoral dissertation, based on original fieldwork, focused on the aspectual system of Skwxwú7mesh (a.k.a. Squamish), a Central Salish language spoken in British Columbia, Canada (and related to the Séliš-Ql̓ispé language spoken here in Montana). My interests include language description and analysis (in particular, Indigenous languages of North America and (more recently) underdocumented Bantu languages of East Africa), issues in language documentation and revitalization, data collection and research methodologies in linguistic fieldwork, dialect variation (especially Montana English), tense and aspect systems, valency-in/decreasing morphology, among others. I have experience conducting fieldwork with speakers of Salish languages, Algonquian languages, and East Ruvu Bantu languages of Tanzania. I am particularly interested in dispelling myths about language and promoting an appreciation of linguistic diversity - check out on this topic!

I'm honored to have been the 2023-2024 in the (FLoV) at the in Sweden. Read more about and the , and an interview that I gave to (full length interview in , shorter interview in ).

Education

  • PhD in Linguistics, University of British Columbia, 2005

Dissertation:

  • MA in Linguistics, University of British Columbia, 1998

Thesis:

  • BA (Honors), University of Western Ontario, 1996
  • Certificate in Second Language Teaching, University of Western Ontario, 1996

Courses Taught

Spring 2025 Course

  • LING 375: Linguistic Ecology & Language Endangerment (Tuesdays & Thursdays 11am-12:20pm LA 302)

Courses I teach (fairly regularly)

  • LING 375: Linguistic Ecology & Language Endangerment (Intermediate Writing course; GenEd Group X Cultural and International Diversity)
  • LING 470: Linguistic Analysis
  • LING 472/572: Syntax
  • LING 475/575: Linguistic Field Methods
    • Spring 2021: Lani (Trans New Guinea; Papua)
    • Spring 2019: Kirundi (Bantu; Burundi)
    • Spring 2017: Javanese (Austronesian; Indonesia)
    • Spring 2015: Tajik (Indo-Iranian; Tajikistan)
    • Spring 2013: Gã (Kwa; Ghana)
    • Spring 2011: Georgian (Kartvelian; Georgia)
    • Spring 2009: Blackfoot (Algonquian; US/Canada)
  • LING 484/584: North American Indigenous Languages and Linguistics (advanced writing course for Anthropology major and Linguistics major)
  • LING 570: Tense and Aspect Systems (a.k.a. Temporal/Aspectual Systems)
  • LING 570: Issues in Language Documenation

Courses I teach/have taught (less regularly)

  • LING 270: Introduction to Linguistics
  • LING 473/573: Language and Culture
  • LING 491: Sociolinguistics
  • LING 570: Events and States
  • LING 570: Language Documentation, Preservation and Revitalization
  • LING 570: Number Systems Across Languages

Other past & present teaching activitites

  • "Language Myths (and Realities)" for the program.
  • "Success in American Society: Linguistic & Sociological Perspectives (co-taught with Dr. Daisy Rooks, UM Department of Sociology) for the program.
  • Global Leadership Initiative (GLI) first-year seminar "Linguistic Diversity: Myths, Realities, Challenges and Solutions".
  • I am a  fellow.

Research Interests

  • Indigenous languages of North America
  • Salish languages
  • Algonquian languages
  • Bantu languages of East Africa
  • Montana dialects of English
  • Issues in language documentation, description, and analysis
  • Issues in language endangerment and revitalization
  • Fieldwork methodologies
  • Tense and aspect systems
  • Valency increasinǵdecreasing alternations

Projects

Selected Publications

Dom, Sebastian, Leora Bar-el, Ponsiano Kanijo, and Malin Petzell. Forthcoming. The noncausal/causal alternation in Luguru. To appear in Proceedings of the 24th Afrikanist*innentag. Cologne: Rüdiger Köppe Verlag. Fanego, Axel & Pratchett, Lee (eds.).

Bar-el, Leora and Malin Petzell. 2024. On the behaviour of the Bantu morpheme -ag- in East Ruvu. In . James Essegbey, Brent Henderson, Fiona McLaughlin & Michael Diercks (eds.). Berlin: Language Science Press. 227–249. .

Dom, Sebastian, Leora Bar-el, Ponsiano Kanijo, and Malin Petzell. 2023. The noncausal/causal alternation in Kagulu, an East Ruvu Bantu language of Tanzania. .

Dom, Sebastian, Leora Bar-el, Ponsiano Kanijo & Malin Petzell. 2023. Middle voice in Bantu: in- and detransitivizing morphology in Kagulu. .

Dom, Sebastian, Leora Bar-el, Ponsiano Kanijo, and Malin Petzell. 2022. Variation in the coding of the noncausal/causal alternation: Causative *-i in East Bantu languages. . Special Issue on the noncausal/causal alternation in African languages. Sebastian Dom, Leora Bar-el, Ponsiano Kanijo & Malin Petzell (eds.).

Dom, Sebastian, Leora Bar-el, Ponsiano Kanijo, and Malin Petzell. 2022. The noncausal/causal alternation in African languages: An introduction. . Special Issue on the noncausal/causal alternation in African languages. Sebastian Dom, Leora Bar-el, Ponsiano Kanijo & Malin Petzell (eds.).

Bar-el, Leora & Malin Petzell. 2021. (Im)perfectivity and actionality in East Ruvu Bantu. In T. Crane, J. Nichols and B. Persohn (eds.), STUF – Language Typology and Universals, 74(3-4), 533-559. .

Bar-el, Leora, Megan. Stark, and Samantha Prins. 2021. Resources for and about Indigenous Languages: Examining Online Collections. . Lisa Crowshoe, Inge Genee, Mahaliah. Peddle, Joslin Smith and Conor Snoek (eds.). Northern Arizona University. p141-155.

Petzell, Malin, Leora Bar-el and Lotta Aunio (eds.). 2020. .

Bar-el, Leora. 2018. Another Look at the Salish Stative prefix. In . Lisa Matthewson, Erin Guntly, Marianne Huijsmans and Michael Rochemont (eds.). Pp 583-596.

Bar-el, Leora. 2017. Fieldworkers and Sociolinguists: What we can learn from each other. . Lisa Sprowls, Craig Alcantara and Tosin Gbogi (eds.).

Bar-el, Leora, Felton Rosulek, Laura. and Lisa. Sprowls. 2017. Montana English and its Place in the West. Speech in the Western States Volume 2: The Mountain West. Valerie Fridland, Alicia Beckford Wassink, Tyler Kendall and Betsy Evans (eds.). . Pp 107-138.

Bar-el, Leora. 2015. Documenting and classifying aspectual classes across languages. In . Lisa Matthewson and Ryan Bochnak (eds.). New York: Oxford University Press. pp 75-109.

Professional Experience

  • 2020-Present, Professor, Linguistics Program, Department of Anthropology, ֱ
  • 2013-2020, Associate Professor, Linguistics Program, Department of Anthropology, ֱ
  • 2007-2013, Assistant Professor, Linguistics Program, Department of Anthropology, ֱ
  • 2005-2007, Post-Doctoral Teaching and Research Fellow, Endangered Languages Academic Program, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London

International Experience

  • , , Sweden (2023-2024)
  • Visiting Research Scholar, , Sweden (Autumn 2019)
  • Visiting Research Scholar, , Sweden (May 2017)

Honors / Awards

  • Torgny Segerstedt Visiting Professorship, University of Gothenburg, Sweden (2023-2024) - ,
  • Helen and Winston Cox Educational Excellence Award, 2012