Wjdenny

Introduction

Hello, and welcome to my Wikipedia user page. I'm currently studying linguistics at the University of Iowa and while I haven't contributed to an article yet I intend to as a way to keep my research skills sharp between academic projects. This page may make me out to be rather one-dimensional in my interests, but I really do have a jack-of-all-trades sort of personality and I'm limiting this page to the things I'm most passionate about.

I have a more [general profile] on Google, which despite my paranoia I use for just about everything online.

Areas of Interest

• Historical linguistics
  • particularly comparative linguistics and the analysis of ancient texts
• Second language acquitision
  • Since I was around 6 years old I have always been studying a foreign or liturgical language
    • Spanish (2 years at college and I use it occasionally in various jobs/projects
    • Latin
    • Ancient Greek
    • Russian
    • Macedonian
    • Arabic (currently studying in university)
    • Biblical and Modern Hebrew
    • Sanskrit
• Phonology
  • I really enjoy phonological puzzles; formulating and testing rules against linguistic data
• Syntax and Morphology
  • I enjoy morphology moreso than syntax in general, but it's growing on me.

Vague areas of interest

Some random things I enjoy thinking about, but don't have a coherent enough understanding to really dig in.

• I wonder whether there are certain universal properties of how phonemes are interpreted, and their (possibly subconscious) meanings. Examples being:
  • the use of chanting specific syllables in religious and esoteric practices to achieve alternate states of consciousness. Granted there are a lot of subjective aspects to such a potential research topic.. hence "vague".
  • Many considerably basic or "primitive" words are similar across many language families, such as in a large number of languages the word for mother contains a bilabial nasal (/m/), and (a bit less common) the word for father contains a bilabial consonant of some sort (/p/, /f/, /v/, etc.)