Armik Mirzayan

  • Armik Mirzayan has been an Assistant Professor in Native Studies, Lakota Language, and the Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics at the University of South Dakota since 2011. He earned his PhD in Linguistics from University of Colorado at Boulder in 2010. Armik has been studying Lakota and doing linguistic research on Siouan and Caddoan languages since 1999. His specific research within linguistics is focused on phonetics and sound patterns of languages, language change, and language revitalization. He completed his dissertation on Lakota Intonation and Prosody, a topic that he continues to study as a professor. Throughout his graduate career he was a research assistant in Language Documentation and Revitalization, working extensively in the field among several indigenous communities. He has recorded, digitized, and managed video/audio databases for Wichita, an endangered Indigenous American language of the Caddoan family. Currently, Armik teaches and coordinates the Lakota Language and Linguistics programs at USD. Between 2011 and 2013 he also served as the language and linguistics instructor for the Lakota Language Education Action Program, a federally funded program held jointly at USD and at Sitting Bull College. During the summertime Armik travels, chases storms, writes, and frequently teaches for the Lakota and MHA Summer Institutes. He has been teaching Arikara at the MHA Summer Institute since 2014.