The history of language is a history of people.
It’s a history of generations, cultures, and individuals. It’s a story about how we communicate with each other and how we define ourselves as a species.
But the way we communicate has evolved throughout history. As a society that continuously seeks improvement, we have made adjustments to perfect the way we learn, listen, speak, and overall communicate. There are people throughout history who have made valuable contributions to significantly improve the way we understand each other. They are linguists—people who made it their job to study the human language. Today we want to pay tribute to some of the most brilliant women in language history who went a step beyond and took on the task of bridging gaps between language and comprehension across the globe.
Here are some female linguists and translators who made an impact on history:
1. CLAUDINE PICARDET (1735-1820)
Claudine Picardet was a French scientist and translator with expertise in chemistry, mineralogy, and meteorology. She was fluent in several languages and translated numerous scientific papers as a member of the Dijon Academy, contributing to the “chemical revolution” in France.
2. LA MALINCHE (DOÑA MARINA) (1501-1529)
La Malinche, also known as Doña Marina, was an early interpreter who served as a translator and mediator between the Spaniards and the indigenous people of Mexico in the 16th century. Despite being remembered mainly as Cortés’ mistress, she made a significant contribution as a linguist and paved the way for other notable female linguists.
3. CAROL CHOMSKY (1930-2008)
Carol Chomsky, the wife of Noam Chomsky, was a renowned linguist in her own right. While Noam’s work focused on abstract concepts, Carol’s research was more practical, studying the ways in which children acquire syntax and written language. She developed the technique of repeated reading to help struggling readers improve their fluency and created software to improve reading comprehension. In 1969, Carol published a comprehensive study on how children learn and understand their native language and how that knowledge is applied to interpreting more complex sentences later in life.
4. TSVIA WALDEN (B. 1946)
Tsvia Walden is a professor of linguistics at Ben Gurion University of the Negev in Israel. She is a psycholinguist, specializing in the social context and meaning of language, and is proficient in several languages. In her teaching, she uses the Whole Language approach, which emphasizes context and social meaning and teaches students to recognize words as whole pieces rather than as individual letters.
CONCLUSION
The best way women can break through the glass ceiling is by taking a stand for their place in history. The role of language and translation is an integral part of the creation of history itself. In the meantime, we’ll continue to celebrate women translators and other language heroines—not only in commemoration of their impact on past generations but also in honor of the future generations that will benefit from a more diverse and inclusive history.