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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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Native Community During 21X!

As a member of Dartmouth's Native community, just a few weeks into my sophomore summer, we've been busy revitalizing our community and making Dartmouth, once again, feel like home. Even though it's been almost a year and a half since myself and the other sophomores (aka the class of 2023, aka the best class) have seen each other altogether, it feels like we're picking up exactly where our community left off. Here's just a few pictures that capture the vibes thus far.

  1. No. 1

    Saturday Afternoons on the Green

    Spikeball game on the Green

    Even though the weather alternates nowadays between rainier days and beautiful ones, I think we've been blessed with some pretty gorgeous Saturdays. When the Green isn't dewy, my friends and I take a spikeball set (or rent one from the nearby Collis Student Center!) to play on the Green. I didn't know this game existed before coming to Dartmouth, but it's a ton of fun and if you're at all competitive, occasionally very infuriating. Especially when your friends are virtual spikeball gods and you can't score. 

    At any rate, the Upper Valley is blessed with some incredible weather during this time of the year when it isn't raining, and there's no better time to let out some classroom stress through some serious dedication and energy to something that gets your blood pumping. It's nothing short of a wonderful time, always.

  2. No. 2

    Community Planning at the Native American House!

    Planning events at the Native American House

    With mostly sophomores on campus, my friends and I compose the summer executive board for the Native community at Dartmouth this summer term — 21X is the abbreviation we use for this term, where 21 stands for 2021 and X stands for summer (S means spring). We meet every week to discuss potential plans and events and figure out fun ways for us to create spaces and events for our community, but also so that we can find ways to connect with other communities on campus. 

    Because of Dartmouth's size as a school, and because of the passion among the student body about anything and everything community-oriented, whether cultural or linguistics or identity-based or interest-based, involvement is easy. If you're a driven, passionate individual who wants to jump into planning something substantive or organizing, there are so many spaces where that's possible. We're a bunch of sophomores running the show and it's going beautifully — never be afraid to get into leadership positions where your interests and affinities lie!

  3. No. 3

    River Days!

    Azariah Javillonar '23 fishing on the River

    Dartmouth's proximity to the Connecticut River and so many other beautiful areas in the Upper Valley means that if you're into anything water-related — canoeing, kayaking, fishing, or even just swimming — you're in luck. My friends and I organized a river float for the Native community just a weekend ago from my writing this post, and it was such a great way to cool down and enjoy some serious sunlight. A weekend before that, my friends and I took a little, brief roadtrip to a beautiful spot further away from campus, where we all took to swimming and, as you can see from the picture, a little bit of fishing. 

    I never had the opportunity to get into fishing when growing up, so I've been blessed with some pretty talented friends whom are trained anglers in their own right. In the picture, my friend Azariah '23 was making some serious casts with some homemade lures he brought from Hawaiʻi. Through the Dartmouth Outing Club (DOC), plenty of opportunities for fishing and other water-related activities are common. In my opinion, one of the best ways to relax and forget about all of the readings you've been putting off. Try it sometime!

Posted 07/19/2021 at 9:00 AMAll List Posts

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