Luncheon and Guest Speaker

The Luncheon will be held on Friday, April 19 from 12-1:30 pm in Foundation Hall

Our Luncheon Guest Speaker will be Dr. Andrew Byrd who will deliver the talk "Making the Esoteric Exoteric: Introducing the Public to Historical Linguistics through Film, TV, and Video Games"

Andrew Byrd is Associate Professor of Linguistics at the University of Kentucky. His research focuses primarily on the reconstruction of the sound system of Proto-Indo-European, the long-dead ancestor of languages such as Spanish, Russian, and English, through the use of experimentation, database construction, and the application of phonological theory. He also works to educate the public about Proto-Indo-European and historical linguistics, most notably through language creation on projects such as the Ubisoft's Far Cry Primal and the television shows Origins: The Journey of Humankind and The History Channel's Vikings. He is currently the Project Director of the NEH-funded video game The Anatolian Trail: An Indo-European Adventure.