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Gabriel Gilbert

Class of 2023
Image of Gabriel Gilbert '23; he is wearing a black aloha shirt with a red leaf pattern that runs from his shoulder down the left half of his shirt.

About 

Aloha to the page of a wanderlusting writer juggling college life and several other hobbies into an eternally-short 24-hour day. I hope to shed light on the Dartmouth experience as I explore the brave new world of Hanover, NH and everything going to college here has to offer. In my free time, you can find me trying to learn a new language or building the perfect Spotify playlist (alternative/indie, anyone?). I hope you enjoy!

Academic Program 

Linguistics

Favorite Thing Right Now 

Fantasy novels and homemade poke!

Hometown 

Stafford, Virginia

Pronouns 

he/him/his

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Gabriel's D-Plan

What's a D-Plan?

    • FallHanover, NH

      Favorite Class: Indigistory

      Taught by Gordon Henry, an Anishinaabe poet and author, this class taught me to explore Indigenous storytelling within digital contexts. I took this class with only seven other classmates, allowing us to really engage with films, comic books, and television shows in Indigenous languages or produced by Indigenous artists.

    • WinterHanover, NH

      Favorite Class: Historical Linguistics

      Taught by Timothy Pulju, this class taught me how to identify and understand how languages evolve over time and why. I analyzed and reconstructed fictional languages of imaginary nations in order to understand the link between language and culture, and ended up having such an appreciation for the complexity and beauty of language's place in history!

    • SpringMyrtle Beach, SC

      Favorite Class: The End of the World

      Taught by Lindsay Whaley, this class let me discover a newfound love for ancient apocalyptic literature. We analyzed ancient texts and compared them to modern apocalypses, looking at the zombie apocalypse phenomenon and other apocalypses in pop culture and comparing them to the ancient tradition of writing apocalypses. Additionally, I learned the Greek alphabet and now I can even stumble through ancient Greek passages.

    • FallNew Orleans, LA

      Favorite Class: Native American Literature and the Law

      Taught and organized by David Peterson, this class let me get into the shoes of a real linguist as we did fieldwork (virtually!!) with the Zophei language. I learned how to describe a never-before-learned language's phonology (sound system), how to characterize its grammar and words, and ultimately got to present my research to experts in the language family around the world in a workshop at the end of the term!

    • WinterHanover, NH

      Favorite Class: Native American Literature and the Law

      Taught by N. Bruce Duthu, this class taught me how Native literature can provide lens by which to evaluate, critique, and ultimately revise Federal Indian Law. During this class, I read works by Native authors like Tommy Orange and Louise Erdrich '76 alongside the opinions of definitive case opinions in American law and explained how literature can be a catalyst for Indigenous sovereignty.

    • SpringMyrtle Beach, SC

      Favorite Class: Undergraduate Research

      Supervised by N. Bruce Duthu, I spent this off-term performing research after being awarded a Sophomore Research Scholarship to study contemporary Hawaiian cultural and linguistic revitalization. I studied 19th-century newspapers and contemporary Hawaiian texts in order to understand how Hawaiian language revitalization both past and present has advanced and continues to enable a contemporary bodied Hawaiian politic of sovereignty.

    • SummerHanover, NH

      Favorite Class: Morphology

      Taught by Laura McPherson, this class taught me about how languages create meaning through words. During this class, I learned how to analyze different languages' morphological processes and compare different approaches within the field as to morphological structures.

    • FallHanover, NH

      Favorite Class: Indian Country Today

      Taught by N. Bruce Duthu, this class offered me a glimpse into the lived realities of Native people in Indian Country Today. I learned about the economic, social, cultural, and historical roots for the struggles of Indigenous people today within the United States, and was able to write about the contemporary battle for Native Hawaiian visibility and Hawaiian sovereignty.

    • WinterHilo, HI

      Favorite Class: Language Documentation

      Taught by Laura McPherson, this class taught me how to engage in language documentation and how, as a linguist, we can put our skills to use to help communities seeking to document and revitalize their languages. I worked on the Satawalese language, spoken on the island of Satawal in the Federated States of Micronesia. Ultimately, my team created two dictionaries - one in English, one in Hawaiian, a website, and several materials that focused on the Satawalese tradition of wayfinding and non-instrumental ocean navigation.

    • SpringHanover, NH

      Favorite Class: Sound Relations

      Taught by Charles Eastman fellow Sunaina Kale, this class taught me about the role of sound in delineating, conceiving, and comprehending relations between people and the land in Indigenous musical traditions. Over the course of the class, we discussed Indigenous musicians, listened to music from Native peoples around the world, heard from masterful Indigenous musicians, and ultimately presented a project that creatively analyzed a song of our choice. My project focused on the song "Ask Yourself" by Foster the People, and I wrote a poem that integrated aspects of Indigenous languages and worldviews to answer questions posed by the song.

    • SummerHanover, NH

      Favorite Class: Honors Thesis Research

      This term, I formally began the research process for my upcoming honors thesis in the Linguistics department on Hawaiian semantics! While living in Hanover, I also began working as a Senior Fellow with the Admissions department—a position I will be holding for the entirety of my last year at Dartmouth.

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My Schedule for 20Spring!

When I left campus just a handful of weeks ago, I had no idea that I would be bidding farewell to my beloved Green for longer than spring break. I write to you from my house in sunny Myrtle Beach, South Carolina where it almost feels like I never left - this time, though, I brought Dartmouth with me.

Immediately after my friends and I heard the news about Dartmouth switching to a remote learning format for the spring, we realized that the idea of a "classroom" was quickly going to change. Now that we would be at home, the entire Dartmouth experience we were just getting used to was going to be redefined. 

For spring, I actually had to change up almost all of my classes because of last-minute changes to the course structure. This term, I decided to take four classes and try some very new things. Here's my courseload and how my classes look so far.

  1. No. 1

    Linguistics 20: Experimental Phonetics

    Gabe with friends on Zoom

    Taught by Professor Stanford, this is a class all about language and how we make the sounds that constitute every language on earth. As part of a long-term research project, I’ll be looking at my mom’s native language of Waray with two of my friends over the course of the term. It’s not a language I know, and there’s barely any research online, which is a great example of Dartmouth allowing us to do some really novel research as part of the course curriculum. I will definitely have more to say about this as time goes on, but so far I’ve recorded my own voice to notice the tiniest details about my pronunciation that relate to human anatomy, my own accent of English (everyone has one!), and little quirks about the languages I heard growing up that influenced how I talk! As someone who’s not a STEM major, this is a perfect mix of science and culture, and I’m loving every bit.

  2. No. 2

    Classical Studies 10.12 / Greek 30.07: The End of the World

    Taught by Professor Whaley, this is a class about ancient literature, including the Bible, and the literary depiction of apocalypse. We’re looking at how history and apocalyptic texts are married, and how humanity really loves the genre of apocalyptic literature. It’s a really interesting mix of classical history, religion, and the language of ancient Greece. So far, I’ve learned the Greek alphabet and read a book of the Bible in two languages. Even though it’s virtual, class discussions are colorful, and involve every one of the dozen of us in the class — I already know a lot of my classmates by name and their voice, even though we’ve only met on Zoom. Just another part of the Dartmouth Difference.

  3. No. 3

    Classical Studies 14: Greek History

    Taught by Professor Christesen, this is a class all about the colorful history of ancient Greece. When I was younger, I loved Percy Jackson and the movie Troy. I bet a bunch of you guys have heard about 300. Even though I studied classics in high school, this is the first class I’ve had that is truly deep-diving into ancient Greece. The lectures are funny and not boring in the slightest, which is hard to believe unless you’ve had a good professor (go Dartmouth!) Even the quizzes are really engaging, and ask for us to give our own questions that are immediately answered by our professor within a few days. I will most definitely be taking more Classics classes in the future because of my experience so far, and I'm just a week in.

  4. No. 4

    Native American Studies 85: Independent Study

    Books for Independent Study

    If you’re an Indigenous student at Dartmouth, there’s a way for you to meet the college’s language requirement by learning your heritage language (see this post!) I planned out my own independent study for the term with my advisor Professor Reo, and I’m really excited to develop my language skills and get academic credit for it from the comfort of my own home. The Native American Studies department is incredible, and their involvement in allowing students to receive academic credit for the study of our often endangered heritage languages is a special feature that I didn't know about when I applied to Dartmouth, but couldn't be more grateful for.

Posted 04/16/2020 at 11:30 AMAll List Posts

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