Dyami Millarson (dee-AH-mee MI-luh-suhn; Amsterdam, 19 May 1994) is a full-time linguist who performs field research and writes dictionaries together with his father Kenneth Millarson. He writes columns and poems for De Dorpsbode and Lytje Pole in the indigenous language of Schiermonnikoog. He is a language blogger and the editor-in-chief of the languagedeath.com blog.
He studies linguistics since 2008 and is based in Frisia since 2009, together with his father Kenneth Millarson. He conducted his first fieldwork in 2011 in Puglia, Italy. As far back as 2012, he already conceived of the plan to study West Frisian, East Frisian, and North Frisian. He studies Frisian languages since 2016. As a result of his studies, he considers West Frisian, East Frisian, and North Frisian to be language families. Due to the nature of his work, he does not identify as a language activist.
He and his father are the founders of Foundation Operation X for languages, cultures, and perspectives (also known as the Operation X Foundation), which is a non-profit research organisation and should not be mistaken for an activist organisation. One of the basic objectives of the Operation X Foundation is the promotion of artistic exploration, philosophical inquiry, and scientific research into languages, cultures, and religions, including those of minorities.
Biography
Pre-Birth Period From 1993 to 1994: What Is in a Name
The story of Dyami began before his birth when his parents had to decide on a name. His parents conducted extensive research into minority language names, chiefly Native American ones.
Contrary to some online claims, Dyami is not a Hopi name. Dyami means eagle in Keresan, which is an endangered language family. The speakers of the Keresan languages are known as the Pueblo Indians, who are indigenous to New Mexico, the United States of America. Pueblo signifies people in Spanish. Dyami is the equivalent of the Dutch given name Arend, by which Dyami Millarson is also known. Alternatively, he may be called Adelaar in Dutch. Both Arend and Adler are surnames in Germany.
His parents intended his name to have shamanic, spiritual significance: the eagle refers to the messenger between the divine and human worlds, between heaven and earth. In the Indogermanic and Eurasian contexts, this reference can be interpreted as the eagle sitting atop the axis mundi (world tree). Due to the close association between the axis mundi and the rex deorum (King of the Gods), the eagle is itself also a reference to a special relationship with the rex deorum (King of the Gods). Indeed, the eagle is a symbol of Othin, Zeus, Jupiter, and Perun. In conclusion, the intended spiritual meaning of the name Dyami has a solid cultural basis, as this meaning is reflected in various cultures, rendering its intended meaning highly intuitive and readily recognisable across diverse traditions.
Dyami is an old way of writing the Keresan name. Other old variants of the name are Tyami, Ti-ä’-mi, Tyame, and Tya-me. Novel ways of writing the name are Dyaami and Dyáamí. The different orthographic variants — Dyami, Tyami, Ti-ä’-mi, Tyame, Tya-me, Dyaami, and Dyáamí — represent the same underlying phonetic realisation.
Contrary to how most speakers of Germanic languages may interpret the letter d, the d does itself not stand for a voiced plosive in Keresan, because unlike most Germanic languages, the Keresan languages exhibit no phonemic distinction between voiced and voiceless plosives. The dy is voiceless palatal plosive in Keresan. The aa is a long vowel in Keresan. Keresan is a tonal language family. The aa and i in Dyáamí are pronounced with high tones. Dyáamí may be phonetically transcribed as /cɑ́ːmí/.
In the cosmology of the Pueblo Indians, there are six cardinal directions and the dyami represents the zenith, which is the heaven or sky above. There is also a dyami hano (eagle clan) mentioned in the origin myth of the Pueblo Indians. Some members of the Dyami hano are Baistcanyi Dyami. In the folk religion of the Pueblo Indians, a dyami can be a kachina or katsina (spirit, deity), because the kachinas can take the form of animals and may exhibit animal characteristics.
The dyami kot (eagle mountain) is a sacred place where ceremonial bundles are buried. Dyami wing feathers known as hicami may be used medicinally: Pueblo Indian medicine men or shamans use Dyami feathers for curing illnesses. Dyami feathers are used for decorating ceremonial objects. For instance, dyami feathers are used in Kachina costumes and masks. The eagle shaman or eagle medicine man is known as Dyami tcaianyi. There exists an eagle dance (Tyame-ka-ash).
Upbringing From 1994 to 2005: Early Health Challenges, Intergenerational Love of Learning and Philosophy of Autodidactism
Born untimely in the year 1994, his fragile form gained strength through the sanctuary of an incubator. Again, in the fateful year of 2002, death loomed near when a merciless bacterial infection and grievous dehydration overtook him in Hungary. Yet even then, fate interceded, guiding him to the ministrations of a Hungarian hospital, where his life was spared.
Thus was impressed upon him the profound and ineffable interplay betwixt suffering and destiny, a somber cadence that wove itself as a common thread through his early years. In this crucible of tribulation was forged a steadfast resolve, a will tempered to withstand the inexorable trials that wyrd or fate, in its capricious design, would hurl upon his path time and again.
Dwelling perpetually on the precipice of death, he found in its shadow the power to affirm life. Time and again, he felt familiar spirits intervened, wresting him from the abyss, their whispers laden with portents of tasks yet unfulfilled; for his allotted purpose on this mortal plane had not yet reached its completion. From his earliest days, those closest to him and he himself harboured the solemn conviction that his existence was no accident, that the threads of his being were woven for a reason. As he reflects, “Near-death experiences are profoundly transformative, mind-altering experiences, taking the soul on artistic, philosophical, even shamanic voyages into the uncharted realms of existence, adorned with miraculous shapes and colours.”
Central to his upbringing, which instilled in him a love of learning, is a deeply ingrained philosophy of self-directed learning, a practice esteemed not merely as an educational method but as a venerable tradition woven into the very fabric of his family’s heritage.
His father’s philosophy, rooted in ancient wisdom and family customs, espouses the idea that true learning arises from an individual’s own initiative, driven by curiosity, and shaped by the relentless pursuit of knowledge outside formal structures. This principle, passed down through generations, serves as both a guiding star and a rite of passage in the quest for intellectual growth and self-improvement.
Between 2004 and 2005, he lived in New Zealand, an experience that proved to be a turning point in his intellectual journey. Reflecting on this period, he notes, “My time in New Zealand was nothing short of transformative. It was there that I first truly grasped the profound significance of self-study. The landscapes, the solitude, and the cultural immersion all became catalysts for introspection and independent learning. In that distant land, far from the constraints of conventional education, I discovered the liberating power of pursuing knowledge on one’s own terms, guided solely by the light of personal curiosity and the desire to understand the world.”
In New Zealand, the seeds of self-directed learning, sown by his father, took root and flourished, shaping his approach to education and laying the foundation for a lifelong journey of autodidactic exploration.
Critical Period From 2006 to 2013: Late Health Crises, Two Life-Altering Vows and a “Just Speak Frisian” Sign
Dyami’s saga — the threads of which the sisterhood of fate has woven — is one of unyielding resilience. Whether it stands as a testament to the human spirit’s unfathomable capacity to endure, to find solace, and to carve meaning from the very heart of adversity, let the reader be the judge.
However, in truth, Dyami has ever stood steadfast, a spirit entrapped in a feeble vessel of flesh and blood yet poised to meet trial after trial, for his soul was nourished from youth by the sagas of valorous men, whose deeds echo through the corridors of time and space.
In those ancient tales, where courage, fate, and purpose are intertwined, he always finds resonance with his own worldview, which affirms life as a path where life’s struggles are but the forging of heroism itself. His providential odyssey, marked by health challenges and the oaths he swore in their wake, has led him to the study of languages — the ancient, the modern, the endangered — each of them a key unlocking the mysteries of his life’s purpose, leaving runes carved deep into the cairn of his being.
At just eleven years old, Dyami’s world was turned upside down when he was hospitalised in 2006 with severe pneumonia. One critical night, his condition deteriorated, and he had to be placed on a ventilator. Confronting the fragility of life, Dyami made a vow that became a guiding principle: “If I survive this, I will learn historical languages, such as Ancient Greek and Latin. I want to do something extraordinary with my life.”
This promise set him on a path of linguistic, cultural, and philosophical exploration of the realities of the ancient human world and a quest to immerse himself in the human heritage of the distant past through the study of various historical languages including Gothic, Old Norse, Middle Dutch, Old English, Old Saxon, Old High German, and Old Dutch, whilst also comparing with the realities of modern human world and immersing himself in in the the human heritage of the recent human past through the study of modern languages like Spanish, Italian, French, Griko, and 19th-century Dutch and German.
Seven years later, now proficient in Ancient Greek and Latin, Dyami found himself in Leeuwarden, the cultural heart of Frisia, when another health crisis struck in 2013, requiring a major surgery at the Medical Centre Leeuwarden (MCL). On a fateful night, he woke up with acute abdominal pain and his father had to call a taxi to rush him to the hospital. He was then presented to the emergency room (ER) at the MCL, where he was admitted on 21 October 2013 upon being diagnosed with acute intestinal ischemia caused by an internal herniation.
A diagnostic laparoscopy revealed ischemic small intestine and free fluid, necessitating an emergency laparotomy. During the surgery, 210 centimeters of ischemic small intestine were removed, leaving just 180 centimeters of functioning intestine: 100 cm distal to the ligament of Treitz and 80 cm proximal to the ileocecal valve. The surgery was life-saving, but the recovery process proved long and grueling, testing Dyami’s resilience at every step.
When he attended grammar school in Leeuwarden between the years 2009 and 2012, Dyami received his first impressions of the largest of the Frisian languages in Netherlands. A fellow student, a speaker of Frisian, revealed to him a sound association most curious: the sound of the Frisian word gea (land) bore to that classmate’s ear an uncanny semblance to the Ancient Greek γῆ (land). For Dyami, whose interest in phonetics and phonology, i.e., all the different facets of pronunciation, was keen already since the late 2000s, this insight proved to be a useful mnemonic, even if he regarded the words as false friends.
Furthermore, the same classmate drew his attention to the Frisian word geast (spirit), its ethereal diphthong ea and plosive g, voiced like the English consonant, standing in sharp contrast to the Dutch geest (spirit), whose softer tones seemed bereft of the same vigour. Thus, with these small yet profound revelations, the seeds of Dyami’s later fascination with Frisian languages were sown, drawing him gradually into the web of their mysteries; for within these full-fledged languages, words imbued with a magical, mythical allure reverberate with the very essence of ancestral lands and spirits, weaving an unbroken thread that bound Dyami’s soul ever more deeply to their timeless, enigmatic charm.
During his hospital stay from 21 to 31 October 2013, Dyami encountered Frisian in a most serendipitous way. Hearing the nurses converse in their native tongue, he was captivated by the warmth and rhythm of the language. As he lay in his hospital bed, he had the opportunity to listen attentively. “I enjoyed the sound of the words and the bond between the people who spoke Frisian to each other,” he later recalled. The nurses, noticing his linguistic curiosity, encouraged him to embrace their language. They even placed a sign on his door that read “Praat mar Frysk” (Just speak Frisian), urging others to converse with him in their ancient language.
Inspired, Dyami learned some of his first Frisian words, including donderdelsakje (parachute), and felt a profound connection to the culture. This experience, coupled with the quiet hours spent recovering with Frisian and Elfdalian books his father placed by his bedside, led Dyami to make a second life-altering vow, this time in Latin: “O Juppiter, si hoc superabo, omnibus rebus Frisicis studebo linguamque Elfdalianam discam.” (O Jupiter, if I survive this, I will study all things Frisian and learn the Elfdalian language.)
The aforementioned pledge became the cornerstone of Dyami’s linguistic mission. He later reflected on this transformative period: “In 2013, as I lay recovering from a life-threatening surgery, I found solace in the timelessness of language. The nurses, who introduced me to Frisian, saw its connection to my amor linguarum antiquarum or love of ancient tongues. Immersing myself in the largest of the Frisian languages became not only a distraction from pain but also a source of hope. It was a reminder that, even in the darkest moments, there is something enduring and beautiful to hold onto. From that moment on, I resolved to dedicate my life to the study of the Frisian languages and Elfdalian, fulfilling a promise born of both hardship and hope.”
Today, Dyami’s motto is: “Linguas discere, linguas servare.” (Learning languages is saving languages.) This encapsulates his unwavering dedication to the unification of language-learning and language-saving and the unification of studying languages as a linguist and language-learning. What began as two vows forged in the crucible of adversity has become a life-long pursuit to learn and save languages that connect us to our shared humanity.
Linguistics
No Advocacy for Specific Languages
Together with his father, he proposes the abolition of terms like “dialect,” “variant,” and “variety,” acknowledging the equal legitimacy of all dialects, language variants or linguistic varieties as languages in their own right. From a scientific standpoint, they view such terminology as imprecise and unnecessary, introducing subjective value judgments that compromise the objectivity and clarity required for accurate linguistic classification. This notion is encapsulated in their slogan, which is particularly fitting for concluding his linguistic talks or works: “Ceterum censemus verbum dialectum esse abolendum!” (Furthermore, we think the word ‘dialect’ should be abolished!)
For instance, he does not place value on one Frisian language over another, nor does he argue for one to be favoured for sociopolitical reasons. As he humorously notes, “If you have children, you also try not to favour one over the other.” His interest is in the intrinsic qualities of these languages, and he treats them all as equally valuable for research. Language activism, by contrast, often involves advocating for specific languages to be protected or given greater recognition. His study of Frisian languages avoids this value-based approach.
Saving Languages Without Engagement in Language Activism
He emphasises, “I do not identify as a language activist.” Describing him as a language activist is a misclassification, since it overextends the term and consequently weakens its meaning.
His approach to language studies is non-political, meaning that his work does not aim to have local, national, or global impact regarding language equality, promote social imagination towards linguistic equality, engage in advocacy for linguistic equality and language rights, or address broader social inequalities tied to language.
Whilst lacking language activist credentials on the basis of a verifiable history of vigorous efforts towards social mobilisation and collective action, he is unqualified to be considered a language activist. As he states, “Those who seek a language activist in me will be disappointed. Such unfulfilled expectations arise from misguided attempts to categorise me as one.”
Ethical Research Practices
Since he studies and interacts with language communities, he prioritises ethical research practices that respect indigenous cultures and voices. He advocates for a research model that avoids imposing external perspectives, instead focusing on collaborative efforts that respect and accurately represent the perspectives of indigenous communities and honour their indigenous heritage. Through this commitment, he aims to foster genuine partnerships that support ethical research, leading to accurate portrayals of indigenous communities and their perspectives in scholarly and daily discourse.
He does document sociopolitical issues encountered during his field research. This allows him to maintain ethical research practices whilst respecting the sociopolitical contexts of the communities he studies. Thus, although his primary focus is on linguistic fieldwork, he remains cognizant of the sociopolitical dimensions present in language communities.
Research Foundation
He is a founding board member and the chairman of Foundation Operation X for languages, cultures and perspectives, which focuses on studying (indigenous) languages, cultures, and worldviews, researching language revitalisation and developing expertise in linguistic, cultural and philosophical immersion (i.e., integrating culturally, linguistically and philosophically) with language communities to earn community membership and respect.
The mission of Foundation Operation X for languages, cultures and perspectives as a dedicated non-profit research foundation is to conduct rigorous academic research, document linguistic diversity, and foster ethical collaborations with language communities. Unlike informal initiatives, the foundation operates under a structured framework aimed at making significant contributions to linguistic scholarship and community engagement.
One of the core research interests of the Millarsons is the death of languages, cultures, and religions (i.e., language death, culture death, and religion death). The Operation X Foundation is neither a language advocacy organisation nor a language activist organisation focused on promoting languages. Instead, as Kenneth Millarson originally envisioned during his career as a couturier, Operation X embodies a scientific, philosophical, and artistic mission.
Staying true to its roots as an initiative focused on the intersections of science, philosophy, and art, the foundation nowadays champions scientific research, philosophical inquiry, and artistic exploration into languages, cultures, and religions, including those of minorities. Operation X itself is the natural link between Kenneth Millarson’s work as a couturier, designer and artist and his current identity as a full-time linguist, lexicographer, and author.
One-On-One Mentorship in the Context of Linguistic Preservation
His approach to language preservation is highly personal and rooted in the value of passing on knowledge through direct mentorship. For him, the transmission of linguistic knowledge is not about the language activism of social movements; rather, it mirrors the traditional mentorship found in academic fields, such as the PhD system. He believes that if his one-on-one mentoring helps even one person learn linguistic theory and methodology whilst picking up one or more of the indigenous languages he has learned to speak fluently for the purpose of linguistic description, his mission will be fulfilled.
He concludes, “I am hopeful because it only takes one young person to learn from me, who can then pass the linguistic expertise on in the same way. Just as a PhD mentor imparts specialised knowledge to a single student, who then becomes the next expert, language preservation works through focused, direct transmission. Such one-on-one mentoring is about ensuring continuity and depth of understanding, not about mass movements and social mobilisation as described by social movement theory.”