It was just announced that Gene Buckley has passed away. I took nearly all of his classes in graduate school, TAed for him, and he served on my dissertation committee, so he definitely had a profound influence on me and my work. I particularly remember his seminar on opacity, which introduced me to substance-free phonology, and his seminar on Kashaya, where I learned about the ancient, mysterious i → d / _ u rule and the many Russian loanwords from their contact with Fort Ross (e.g., [jaːpalka] ‘apple’ < яблоко, with devoicing, stress-conditioned lengthening, and CV-metathesis). Gene was an island of relative sanity and calm during my turbulent grad school year. He’ll be missed.
[Gene’s colleague Rolf Noyer wrote a brief memorial here.]
Gene was kind, generous, and incredibly gifted as a linguist. I first met him in 2008, when I presented a poster on Proto Pomo at SSILA at the LSA in Chicago. I was 3 years into grad school, and though I’d never met Gene before, I’d bought a copy of his book on Kashaya Phonology 7 years earlier. It was a thrill to meet him, and was very gentle with me (there were some things I had not considered when making the poster). Over the years, he remained a kind force. While writing my dissertation some years later, he sent me a pdf of his book (without my asking for it) to help me search it more easily during the writing process. In 2014, I invited him to attend the Southern Pomo language class I taught for the Dry Creek Rancheria Band of Pomo Indians. Gene was the perfect guest and impressed me with his correct behavior around Tribal elders he’d never met before. Over the years, he would always reply to my questions and support my research. Our last email interaction was at the beginning of April, and I’d wondered why I hadn’t heard a reply. He is greatly missed 🙁
It comes to me as no surprise at all that Gene knew the appropriate protocols for interacting with the elders. The man was a machine for protocol and diplomacy.
Very sad news. Gene was my first formal phonology teacher when I was a visiting grad student at Penn (to work w Cardona) in ’99. I still refer back to his handouts 26yrs later. Amazing phonologist, but better yet a really kind, thoughtful, and witty guy.