Dear Prof. Pulleyblank, I wish your retirement years are even more pleasant than we all wish for you!
I was first introduced to Prof. Pulleyblank (feels ‘somehow’ to type Doug, Douglas or Pulleyblank! Yeah, the ‘Yorubaness’) in 2013 or 2014 at the University of Ibadan during the LAN/WALS conference. It was a brief meeting but it was indeed a pleasant introduction and I hoped to see him again in the future. So, I was all smiles when I met him again at the African Linguistics School (ALS) in the ‘future’. Needless to say, I attended his classes and I wasn’t disappointed.
Among the many after class discussions that we had, a particular meeting where he encouraged me comes to mind often. In 2019 at ALS5 in South Africa, I remember telling him how his classes were making me rethink my data and my theses because with the newly attained knowledge, I felt I should maybe have done things differently. However, he told me that I don’t need to feel bad about such because that was what I knew at the time and that it was sufficient to get the work done. He also said that knowledge is not static so we only get better and have more to gain and much more to contribute if we seek to know more. That gaining more knowledge doesn’t invalidate my previous submissions but that it should rather propel me to see if I could improve previous findings; I should look for what I might had marginalized.
All in all, my perception about him is that he is that professor who though is a VERY senior colleague, he doesn’t look down on us, the ‘upcoming’ linguists. He doesn’t make us feel inadequate about our limited knowledge of linguistics. Indeed, he is a very pleasant person in the classroom as well as on the corridors, parties, tearooms, etc. Oh, and he can dance! (see the blurry pictures). Attached pictures were taken in South Africa and Canada.
Professor Douglas Pulleyblank, na oga you be! Na you be the ogbonge Professor! After you, na you!!!
Adebola Isaiah, from Nigeria.
