Linguistics Major Nat Thompson Awarded American Philosophical Society Fellowship

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Linguistics major Nat Thompson has received a 2026–2027 Daythal L. Kendall Fellowship from the American Philosophical Society (APS), which supports research in Native American and Indigenous studies using the collections of the society's library and museum in Philadelphia. According to the Department of Linguistics, Thompson is the first undergraduate to receive the fellowship. 

Thompson's project, "Hahtsináywaʔawsaʔ: Recovering Hasínay Prosody and Language Sovereignty," draws on the APS's audio and video recordings of the Caddo language along with related archival materials, including linguists' correspondence and notes. He will also work to copy and return materials to the Caddo Nation of Oklahoma, among them stories, voices, and images of Caddo ancestors.

"My work at the American Philosophical Society is first and foremost on behalf of the Caddo Nation of Oklahoma, who I am beyond grateful for in their trust and support. I am working with a collection of linguists' personal correspondences and notes alongside 15 hours of elicitation and classroom recordings of the Caddo language," says Thompson. "My research is twofold: while I am seeking to document and establish the first-ever prosodic overview and analysis of Caddo, as the language was woefully under-described before going dormant, I also hope to work with personal notes and my own reflections to establish a 'critical' or 'reparational' linguistic ethic, and to meaningfully examine the ways in which linguistic inquiry has the choice and power to either be deeply extractive, or deeply reparative to the communities whose languages we handle."

The Kendall Fellowship supports one to three months of residential research at the APS. Thompson is one of two recipients this year, along with a doctoral researcher from Boston University.