Amy Fountain

About Amy Fountain

I earned my PhD in the Joint Program in Anthropology and Linguistics at the University of Arizona in 1998.  My primary role in the department is supporting undergraduate instruction in the major and in general education.  I grew up in Eastern Washington State, earned my undergraduate degree in Theatre from Northwestern University (1986), and a Master of Arts in Communication from the University of Arizona in 1988.  I have been at the University of Arizona in one capacity or another (with a short absence in which I worked at Pima Community College) since the Fall of 1986.

Areas of Study

I work in linguistics pedagogy, language revitalization and reclamation and community-based language technology development.   I have interests and background in linguistic anthropology, formal linguistic theory (especially morphophonology and prosodic phonology), and support collaborations with the American Indian Language Development Institute.  I have benefitted from language instruction in Diné Bizaad (Navajo) from Professor Mary Ann Willie and Tohono O’odham from Regents Professor Ofelia Zepeda.  I currently work for a community-based language technology project under the direction of the Coeur d’Alene Tribe’s Language Programs.

Research Interests

Research Interests:  language revitalization and reclamation.  Indigenous languages, particularly those of North America.  Human language technologies for the benefit of Indigenous language communities.  Linguistics pedagogy.  Morphology, Prosodic Phonology, Sociolinguistics. 

Selected Publications

Anderson, Skye, Shannon Bischoff, Jeff Punske and Amy Fountain. 2020.  Learning about language by language invention.  In Punske, et al (eds), Language Invention in Linguistics Pedagogy.  Oxford University Press. 

Bischoff, Shannon, Amy Fountain, Mizuki Miyashita, and Deborah Cole (eds). 2013. Persistence of Language: Constructing and confronting the past in the voices of Jane H. Hill. Edited volume. J. Benjamins. 

Bischoff, Shannon, Audra Vincent and Amy Fountain. 2018.  Tgwe’l nok’o’qin he spintch ‘itsmeyptsni’wes hiɬ ‘itsqhwaq’wpmi’wes ‘ul snchitsu’umshtsn: One hundred years of learning and analyzing the Coeur d’Alene language together. In Bischoff and Jany (eds), Perspectives on Language:  Community-based Research.  Cambridge University Press.   

Punske, Jeffrey, Nathan Sanders and Amy Fountain (eds). 2020.  Language Invention in Linguistics Pedagogy.  Edited volume. Oxford University Press 

Valentinsson, Mary-Caitlyn, Shiloh Drake and Amy Fountain.  (expected 2024) Languages and social issues:  An investigator’s toolkit.  Cambridge University Press.