Martha Ratliff

Martha Ratliff is an American linguist and Professor Emerita at Wayne State University.^[1] She is a leading specialist in Hmong–Mien languages and also notable for her reconstruction of Proto-Hmong–Mien.^[2]

Martha Ratliff
Born	1946 (age 78–79)
Nationality	American
Occupation	Linguist
Academic background
Alma mater	University of Chicago
Thesis	The Morphological Functions of Tone in White Hmong (1986)
Academic work
Institutions	Wayne State University
Main interests	Hmong–Mien languages
Notable works	Hmong-Mien language history (2010)

Ratliff earned a B.A. in English from Carleton College in 1968, an M.A.T. in English Education from University of Chicago in 1970, and a Ph.D. in Linguistics from University of Chicago in 1986, with a dissertation entitled The Morphological Functions of Tone in White Hmong.^[3][4]

She currently serves as an associate editor for the historical linguistics journal Diachronica.^[5] She is co-founder of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society along with Eric Schiller.^[6]

Publications

• Ratliff, Martha (1992). Meaningful Tone: A Study of Tonal Morphology in Compounds, Form Classes, and Expressive Phrases in White Hmong. Dekalb, Illinois: Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Northern Illinois University. ISBN 1-877979-77-5.
• Ratliff, Martha (2004). "Vocabulary of Environment and Subsistence in the Hmong–Mien Protolanguage". In Tapp; Michaud; Culas; Lee (eds.). Symposium on the Hmong/Miao in Asia. Chiang Mai, Thailand: Silkworm Books. pp. 147–165. Manuscript.
• Ratliff, Martha (2010). Hmong-Mien language history. Canberra, Australia: Pacific Linguistics. ISBN 978-0-85883-615-0.
• Newman, Paul and Martha Ratliff. 2001. Linguistic Fieldwork. Cambridge University Press.
• 玛莎·拉特利夫 [Martha Ratliff] (2019). Miao Yao yuyan lishi yanjiu [苗瑶语言历史研究]. Beijing: China Social Sciences Press. ISBN 9787520351775 (Chinese translation of Ratliff's 2010 book, Hmong-Mien language history)
• Newman, Paul; Ratliff, Martha, eds. (2001). Linguistic Fieldwork. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/cbo9780511810206. ISBN 978-0-521-66937-5.