Andrew M. Byrd
- Associate Professor of Linguistics
- Director of Undergraduate Studies
- Linguistics
1667 Patterson Office Tower
Research Interests:
- Historical Linguistics
- Indo-European Linguistics
- Constructed Languages
- Phonology
Education
Ph.D., University of California, Los Angeles.
B.A., University of Georgia, Athens.
Availability
Office Hours (Fall 2020): Zoom, by appointment
Research
My main research interests lie in the historical study of Indo-European languages and the use of linguistic typology and theory to study problems that are difficult (and sometimes impossible!) to solve using the traditional Comparative Method. These include:
- The application of phonological theory in the analysis of ancient Indo-European languages (such as Latin, Greek, Sanskrit and Old English) and the language from which they derive, Proto-Indo-European (PIE). To hear what PIE actually sounded like (approximately), you can listen to me recite two stories in PIE at Archaeology Magazine;
- The reconstruction of phonological constraints within an Optimality Theoretic framework;
- General phonological matters within Indo-European, especially laryngeal theory;
- The interface between phonology and morphology.
Current Projects
- Roots of the Ancients. I am leading a large team of experts to design a video game that will engage a broad audience on the scholarship of Proto-Indo-European and ancient Indo-European (IE) languages and cultures. In the game, players will be able to battle ancient monsters from IE folklore, gain blessings from the gods of the IE pantheon, and even converse with the locals in their native tongue. I am designing the game together with Brenna Reinhart Byrd (Assistant Professor of German, UK), Brent Harrison (Assistant Professor of Computer Science, UK), and game developer John Meister (Super Soul, LLC).
- DERBi PIE. Together with former MA student Phillip Barnett (now at UCLA), I am working on the creation of a large-scale database of the PIE language, called DERBi PIE (Database of Etymological Roots Beginning in PIE).
- Experimental Indo-European Linguistics. I am keenly interested in designing experiments to test theories on PIE and the prehistory of IE languages. I have recently investigated the rarity of PIE */b/ with Phillip Barnett through a series of perception and production experiments.
Public Engagement
I am also passionate about educating the public about Proto-Indo-European and historical linguistics.
In my first major project, I headed a team of scholars to create two languages based on Proto-Indo-European for Far Cry Primal, a first person shooter set in the Stone Age.
More recently, I also created eight reconstructed languages for the recent National Geographic Show Origins: The Journey of Humankind.
Selected Publications:
Books:
- (2016) Tavet Tat Satyam. Studies in Honor of Jared S. Klein on the Occasion of His Seventieth Birthday. Edited by Andrew Miles Byrd, Jessica DeLisi, and Mark Wenthe. Ann Arbor & New York: Beech Stave Press.
- (2015) The Indo-European Syllable. Leiden: Brill.
Articles:
- (2020) with Brenna Reinhart Byrd. Teaching Proto-Indo-European as a Constructed Language, in Jeffrey Penske, Amy Fountain, and Nathan Sanders (eds.), Language Invention in Linguistics Pedagogy. Oxford: OUP.
- (2019) Motivating Lindeman’s Law. In Adam Alvah Catt, Ronald I.~Kim, and Brent Vine (eds.), QAZZU warrai. Anatolian and Indo-European Studies in Honor of Kazuhiko Yoshida, 6-20.
- (2018) with Phillip Barnett. A Markedly Different Approach: an Experimental Look at the Rarity of PIE */b/. In Proceedings of the 29th Annual UCLA Indo-European Conference, 11-28.
- (2018) The Phonology of Proto-Indo-European. In Jared S. Klein, Brian Joseph, and Matthias Fritz (eds.), Comparative Indo-European Linguistics. An International Handbook of Language Comparison and the Reconstruction of Indo-European. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
- Associate Professor of Linguistics
- Director of Undergraduate Studies
- Linguistics
1667 Patterson Office Tower
