About Me

I am a linguist interested in language documentation and description. My research focuses on the Zapotec languages (Otomanguean) spoken in Oaxaca, Mexico, in particular Valley Zapotec in both its modern and colonial forms. I'm interested in how the study of documents written in Colonial Zapotec can inform our understanding of modern Zapotec languages, and vice versa. I am a current graduate student at the Univeristy of Texas at Austin.

My recent work includes fieldwork on San Jerónimo Tlacochahuaya Zapotec and collaboration on an initiative to support Zapotec high school students in writing their language on Twitter (#UsaTuVoz). I am also a collaborator on the Ticha Project, a digital text explorer for Colonial Zapotec.

My Research »

By age 35, everyone you know should be familiar garden path sentences because you say them all the time will fail to parse this sentence on the first try.

— May Helena Plumb (@mayhplumb) May 20, 2018

Yeah sure I started grad school and resubmitted a journal article but my proudest accomplishment of 2017 is this embroidered English vowel chart pic.twitter.com/d78m8KADHm

— May Helena Plumb (@mayhplumb) December 6, 2017