Contributors' Column

William Bright is professor emeritus of linguistics and anthropology at the University of California, Los Angeles, and adjunct professor of linguistics at the University of Colorado at Boulder. He has been working on American Indian languages since 1949. His book Native American Placenames of the United States is forthcoming from the University of Oklahoma Press.

Richard W. Bailey is Fred Newton Scott Collegiate Professor of English at the University of Michigan. From 1987 to 1989 he was president of the American Dialect Society. His biography of a nineteenth-century American philologist and murderer has recently appeared: Rogue Scholar: The Sinister Life and Celebrated Death of Edward H. Rulloff (Ann Arbor: Univ. of Michigan Press, 2003).

Lamont Antieau holds a B.A. and M.A. from Eastern Michigan University and is a doctorial candidate in linguistics at the University of Georgia. His essay on Plains English in Colorado is based on his dissertation fieldwork.

Michael D. Picone is professor of French and linguistics at the University of Alabama. He conducts field research and archival research on francophone Louisiana and investigates a wide range of phenomena accompanying languages in contact. Since 1997, he has served as South Atlantic Regional Secretary of the American Dialect Society.