Some of My Favorites

The trick is not to find
what's different between languages, but what is similar.

This page is under construction. Please excuse my mess.
If any links are broken, please let me know.

W

The International Phonetic Alphabet

The LINGUIST List discussion forum
The LINGUIST List is operated at Indiana University, Department of Linguistics. The aim of the list is to provide a forum where academic linguists can discuss linguistic issues and exchange linguistic information.

Peter Ladefoged at UCLA
The renowned phonetician.
A Course in Phonetics – Ladefoged’s popular textbook for phonetics courses. This site accompanies the phonetics class at UC Berkeley.

Noam Chomsky
Needs no introduction.
Moved from MIT to University of Arizona (Tucson) in 2017.
The Noam Chomsky personal website
His latest work: Masterclass in Independent Thinking and Media’s Invisible Powers
Now at University of Arizona, Laureate Professor of Linguistics
UA About
UA Free Chomsky Video Library
UA Article New Home about moving to UA and his life
Latest UA Course Consequences of Capitalism

Mike Hammond, University of Arizona. My favorite phonologist.
UA Professor
Personal web site

Steven Pinker, cognitive scientist at Harvard University
Personal Website The link from his HU page to his personal site doesn’t work, but start here and you can get to his other pages, including his favorite books (that he has read) and his remarks on them.

Deborah Tannen, Georgetown University. Expert on discourse analysis and has appeared in popular media.
Personal Website

BBC articles about language

10 new words from around the world in 2024 that will expand your mind

Scientists in Antarctica developed their own accent after six months of isolation

Could you pass a Cambridge English grammar exam from 1913?

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Jakub Marian’s Language Learning, Science and Art
English, German, Romance Languages, Math, Physics, Maps, Music
Some linguistics articles as well. Books for learning ESL. A web app.

Watch the Instagram video Midwest Voice Translator about Wisconsinese, Yooperese, and Minnesotan by comedian Charlie Berens. Yooperese is spoken by a Yooper, or a person from the Upper Peninsula (the UP) of Michigan

Predict the future by creating it

You didn’t come this far to stop

Memoirs of a Dutiful Linguist

Contact me and share with me YOUR journey
to becoming a linguist in the scientific tradition

I always wanted to be a linguist. I didn't know that's what it was called. But I wanted to learn every language in the world and visit every corner of the Earth. I was so jealous of my family who sailed around the world for 3 months five years before I was born. Of course it's, in practical terms, impossible to learn every language in the world. But studying linguistics provides a path to knowing all the POSSIBILITIES of, COMMONALITIES among, and LIMITS to human language. These, I am to learn, are language universals, language typology, and Universal Grammar.

When I am 4, I want to write words, so I bug my mom to dictate the spelling to me.

When I am 5 I draw my neighborhood, and when labeling the grocery store, my intuition is unsure if it should be spelled “Piggely Wiggely” because of the consonant cluster and awkward transition from g to l, or “Piggly Wiggly.” Maybe my parents, who grew up speaking the languages of their European immigrant parents, pronounced it with the consonant cluster broken up. Today you can hear certain New Yorkers break up consonant clusters such as cockƏroaches and cockƏtail. This is epenthesis.

When I am 7, I love the holidays like Valentine’s Day, Easter, Halloween, Christmas and so on, and write my first story called "MIXED UP HOLIDAYS." My 2nd grade teacher, Mrs. Lundgren, thinks it is swell and has the class draw illustrations for the story.

When I am 8, one day I am bored and repeat the word "schedule" to myself more than 100 times until it loses its meaning. I discover that there is no inherent relationship between a word and its meaning. This is the language feature of arbitrariness.

In 6th grade, my English class learns about derivational prefixes and suffixes. It was so exciting. (OK, I lead a sheltered life.)

I am woefully disappointed at home that my dad won't teach me his native Lithuanian.

In 7th grade I find the book The Languages of the World (Kenneth Katzner, 1975) that had a paragraph in 200 languages. This was before the internet. I see other writing systems which I inspected carefully. I realize that a word or sentence might be written in Cyrillic, for example, but even if I transliterate it (write the value of each letter in English alphabet) it results in a word different from English. So if you study Russian, you have to learn not only the new alphabet but new words (and of course all the rest of the language).

Finally in 8th grade I get what I wanted more than anything : the chance to learn another language. I love you Mrs. Hujik!

After 9th grade I spend the summer with a French family. I arrive without even a dictionary, but buy one straight away. I am lost for 2 weeks until I realize I can ask questions. Who are these people visiting us, and by the way, where are we going?

In 10th grade French, my 3rd year class is woefully behind, and Mrs. Mattioli sends me to the 4th year French class. I love it even if I miss learning certain verb conjugaisons. 3rd and 4th classes of verbs. s'asseoir? I'm still guessing.

I study Latin for fun on my own and then take 2nd year when I am a senior. Mrs Santarelli was a gem.

My first year at UW Parkside, I take German and learn noun declension, and move the verb to the end.

My second year at UW Parkside, I take linguistics 101 with Dr Carol Lee Saffioti. I am not sure what it is (you never know - logistics has nothing to do with logic) but we'll see. I read and study all the books and videos when the class didn't keep up with the syllabus, and I said THIS IS IT. THIS IS MINE.

Spring of my sophomore year

I want to transfer to the University of Arizona to study linguistics, but it's a little far for me to drive all alone.

That summer: my pilgrimage

I drive up to Milwaukee to bring my paper application to transfer to UW Milwaukee. I don't know how lucky I am to get the closest spot on Maryland to Kenwood. I drop the application off in Admissions at Mellencamp Hall. There was no internet yet.

I follow my map of campus and find my way to curtin hall. In the lobby I look at the directory. "Dept of linguistics " it says. I stand in awe. I go up to the 8th floor, a veritable skyscraper in my world. I meet the one and only Mike Hammond. Not only do I learn linguistic analysis: Finding the underlying representation and the rule to change the data to the surface representation, but I am humbled. This is what linguistics is all about. It's problem solving kind of like math, but only better because the data is language.

There’s also a difference between a teaching grammar and a descriptive grammar.

I learn the places of articulation, the manners of articulation, and voicing. Now what was that about German in the back of my book? b d g are pronounced p t k at the ends of words? Who in the world can remember that arbitrary selection of letters? But I check the chart of consonants. Wow. Now it makes sense with natural classes. Voiced stops become voiceless in final position. I discovered my first phonological rule.

I also like learning speech sounds that don’t occur in English. The more exotic the better! Don't talk about English in linguistics classes to me - boring! I already speak English. Give me the "weirdest" language you can find.

Mike Hammond’s favorite linguistics problem is Yokuts in Halle and Clements Problem Book in Phonology (1983). But it isn’t enough. Oh why can't we do the whole book!

The Department has a symposium every year, and Deborah Tannen is a speaker. I get her autograph. This is before she appears on nationwide tv and starts charging for speaker appearances.

Linguistics is finally for me a way to learn every language of the world that I wanted. I can find their rules, finding what is similar among them. Yes, this is my god with divine revelation.

In graduate school, at West Virginia U I am a teaching assistant. I teach my students everything I know. I empty my soul. Every semester a student tells me, I'm changing my major to linguistics or TESL.

Photo of Champollion's grave at Pere Lachaise cemetery, Paris. My hero. Along with Steven Pinker. And Carl Sagan (even though he's not a linguist).

Another divine chance at WVU is to learn a non-Indo-European language. This is going to be fun! The more exotic the better. Stretch my mind! Minami sensei is a language teacher worth more than diamonds. From then on, she ruins language teaching for every other teacher. She raises the bar so high, nobody can compare.

In 1996 I visit my friend Marie who is a student at Harvard. I trek over to MIT (which has the coolest gift shop ever) with another trusty map in hand. I find the linguistics department in a building that looks like a warehouse. I slowly walk down the hall on creaky floorboards. Is that Noam Chomsky standing in the main office? I came, I saw, but I am too timid to barge in brashly and ask for an autograph.