{{short description|American linguist}} {{use mdy dates|date=March 2024}} {{Infobox person | name = Mary Joachina Yee | birth_name = Mary Joachina Ygnacio Rowe | birth_date = 1897 | birth_place = Near Santa Barbara, California, U.S. | death_date = {{death year and age|1965|1897}} | death_place = | citizenship = Chumash, United States | other_names = Mary J. Rowe<ref>{{Cite web |title=John P. Harrington and two of his principal Barbareno Chumash consultants at the site of their former adobe home, Indian Orchard, Goleta: 1931; left to right: Mary J. Yee (nee Rowe), holding her son John Yee, Lucrecia Garcia (nee Ygnacio), John Harrington holding Angela Yee. |url=http://www.oac.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/c8hh6hwg/?order=1 |access-date=2021-11-13 |website=Online Archive of California (OAC)}}</ref> | occupation = Linguist | known_for = Last first-language speaker of the Barbareño language | spouse = | children = Valentina Yee, Josie Yee, John Yee, Angela Yee, and Ernestine Ygnacio-De Soto | parents = Lucretia García (mother) | relatives = Luisa Ygnacio (grandmother) }}
'''Mary Joachina Yee''' ({{née|'''Ygnacio Rowe'''}}; 1897–1965)<ref>{{Cite book |last=Grant |first=Campbell |title=Handbook of North American Indians |publisher=Smithsonian Institution |year=1978 |isbn=978-0-16-004574-5 |editor-last=Heizer |editor-first=Robert F. |volume=8: California |location=Washington, DC |pages=505–508 |chapter=Chumash: Introduction}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=2013-03-21 |title=Yee, Mary J., 1897- |url=https://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n2005007839.html |access-date=2024-03-10 |website=LC Name Authority File (LCNAF) |publisher=Library of Congress}}</ref> was a Barbareño Chumash linguist. She was the last first-language speaker of the Barbareño language, a member of the Chumashan languages that were once spoken in southern California by the Chumash people.
== Biography == Mary Rowe-Yee was born in 1897 in an adobe house near Santa Barbara, California, the home of her grandmother. In the late 1890s, Mary was one of only a handful of children brought up to speak any Chumash language. She memorized several old Chumash stories.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Yee |first=Mary J. |title=The Sugar Bear Story |publisher=Sunbelt Publications in cooperation with the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History |others=illustrated by Ernestine Ygnacio-De Soto |year=2005 |isbn=978-0-932653-70-3 |location=San Diego |chapter=Introduction |lccn=2005003047}}</ref> In her fifties, Mary Yee began to take part in the analysis, description, and documentation of her language, for many years working closely with the linguist John Peabody Harrington, who had also worked with Mary's mother Lucretia García and her grandmother Luisa Ygnacio.<ref name="mithun1997regression">{{Cite book |last=Mithun |first=Marianne |author-link=Marianne Mithun |title=The Life of Language |publisher=Mouton de Gruyter |year=1997 |editor-last=Hill |editor-first=Jane |editor-link=Jane H. Hill |series=Trends in Linguistics. Studies and Monographs |volume=108 |location=Berlin |pages=221–242 |chapter=The regression of sibilant harmony through the life of Barbareño Chumash |doi=10.1515/9783110811155.221 |isbn=978-3-11-015633-1 |editor-last2=Mistry |editor-first2=P. J. |editor-last3=Campbell |editor-first3=Lyle |editor-link3=Lyle Campbell}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=1913 |title=Luisa Ygnacio, Barbareño Chumash, consultant to John P. Harrington: 1913 |url=https://calisphere.org/item/ark:/13030/c8s1819g/ |access-date=2021-11-13 |website=Online Archive of California (OAC) |language=English}}</ref> Yee and Harrington corresponded with each other in Chumash. After retiring in 1954, Yee worked with Harrington nearly every day.<ref name="poser2004status">{{Cite web |last=Poser |first=William J. |date=2004-06-13 |title=On the status of Chumash sibilant harmony |url=http://www.ai.mit.edu/projects/dm/featgeom/poser-chumashnew.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20041228093205/http://www.ai.mit.edu/projects/dm/featgeom/poser-chumashnew.pdf |archive-date=2004-12-28 |access-date=2010-09-22}}</ref> She also worked with linguist Madison S. Beeler.<ref>{{Cite news |date=1989-03-07 |title=Madison S. Beeler; Linguistics Scholar, Chumash Expert |url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1989-03-07-mn-86-story.html |access-date=21 September 2010 |work=Los Angeles Times}}</ref> Over the course of her work she became a linguist in her own right, analyzing paradigms and word structure.<ref name=mithun1997regression/>
Yee's story appears in the documentary film, ''6 Generations: A Chumash Family History'' (2010) which was co-written by her daughter Ernestine Ygnacio-De Soto.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Kettmann |first=Matt |date=2011-01-27 |title=Santa Barbara on Screen |url=http://www.independent.com/news/2011/jan/27/santa-barbara-screen/ |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130117234301/http://www.independent.com/news/2011/jan/27/santa-barbara-screen/ |archive-date=2013-01-17 |access-date=2013-05-08 |work=The Santa Barbara Independent}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Hurst Thomas |first=David |date=2011-02-01 |title=Listening to Six Generations of Chumash Women |url=https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/657926 |journal=Current Anthropology |volume=52 |issue=1 |pages=127–128 |doi=10.1086/657926 |issn=0011-3204 |s2cid=224791797|url-access=subscription }}</ref> Posthumously, she published a children's book, ''The Sugar Bear Story'' (2005), illustrated by Ygnacio-De Soto.<ref>{{Cite podcast |url=https://www.independent.com/multimedia/ep-87-the-barbareno-language-the-first-language-of-santa-barbara/ |title=Ep. 87: The Barbareño Language: the First Language of Santa Barbara |website=The Indy: A Podcast |publisher=Santa Barbara Independent |host=Alexandra Goldberg |date=2023-09-05}}</ref>
== Publication ==
* {{Cite book |last=Yee |first=Mary J. |title=The Sugar Bear Story |publisher=Sunbelt Publications in cooperation with the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History |others=illustrated by Ernestine Ygnacio-De Soto |year=2005 |isbn=978-0-932653-70-3 |location=San Diego |chapter=Introduction |lccn=2005003047}}
==See also== *List of last known speakers of languages
==References== {{Reflist}}
== External links ==
* Image collection: [https://calisphere.org/collections/26869/ Native Americans on the Central Coast] from OAC include photos of Yee, her mother, grandmother, and extended family and tribe {{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Yee, Mary}} Category:1897 births Category:1965 deaths Category:American women linguists Category:Native American linguists Category:Last known speakers of a Native American language Category:Chumash people Category:20th-century American linguists Category:Linguists of Chumashan languages Category:Native American people from California Category:20th-century Native American women Category:20th-century Native American people Category:Academics from Santa Barbara, California Category:Chumash women