Katherine Langan

Katherine Langan is a linguist who has worked as a full time or occasional translator/interpreter since 1979 starting with the Summer Institute of Linguistics in Guatemala. She has worked with various combinations of Indo-European and Mayan languages including English, Spanish, Poqomam, K’ichee’, Kaqchikel, Koiné Greek, and French; and has worked as a consultant with many other languages. She has been involved in the training of interpreters and translators and has taught courses in linguistics and Spanish at various colleges and universities in the U.S. and Guatemala. She earned her M.S. and Ph.D. at Georgetown University in Washington D.C. Her main area of emphasis was sociolinguistics with secondary foci in applied and theoretical linguistics. She has a deep and abiding passion for language rights, language maintenance and the issues facing speakers of and interpreters for languages of lesser diffusion. She is working as a freelance interpreter and translator in Des Moines, Iowa.