New Wiki: Frank Siebert

A New Yorker article “How Did a Self-Taught Linguist Come to Own an Indigenous Language?”, from 2021 left an impression on me. I have reread it many times. Thank you Alice Gregory. Judging by many discussion pieces, it appears I was not the only one taken with the article.

Reading about Frank Siebert, the article’s focus (yet) again, I was stunned to see Siebert did not have a wikipedia article, so I started one.

Although I have acquired fluent use of a second language, I do not possess a gift for languages or linguistics. So for those that do, kindly elucidate the wiki with your enlightened edits.

While the title takes the legal angle focusing on how an outsider came to own another people’s language, the primary focus and my interest is the biography of a consummate outsider, Frank Siebert himself. His disregard for society and his total dedication to what interested him resonates. His frugality and anti-materialism (other than books) is something I share. All the while, I find his abandonment of family repugnantly irresponsible.