Keepers of a Lost Language:
an 82-year-old linguist and his young protege are among the last speakers of a native California language—and its final chance

First Published in Mother Jones
July/August 2004
Dashka Slater

AFTER DEVOTING HIS LIFE to understanding the mechanics and music of languages, William Shipley speaks fewer than you might expect. The 82-year-old linguist studied Latin and Greek as a youth, learned Mandarin during World War II, and is fluent in Spanish and Portuguese. But the language Shipley is most proud of knowing, the one that has shaped his career and much of the course of his life, is understood by less than a dozen people on earth. It is Mountain Maidu, and it was once spoken by some two to three thousand California Indians who lived in the northern Sierra Nevada.

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HuMouse
Legal Affairs, November/December 2002

A design for creatures that are half man, half animal has raised fundamental questions about what it means to be human. Two critics of biotechnology want the U.S. Patent Office to answer them.

by Dashka Slater

Dr. Stuart Newman doesn't look like a mad scientist. He is a quiet, thoughtful man who walks with his head leading the way. He's tall, slightly stooped, with deep-set eyes that give him a kind of hangdog look. His sandy brown hair is orderly, his speech is unaccented, and he's not in the habit of rubbing his hands together, bursting into peals of maniacal laughter, and chortling, "With the help of my creature, I will someday rule the world!"

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