Field Notes

Happy International Mother Language Day! After 5 seasons, this is the final episode of Field Notes! Today's interview is between Laura Tsutsui (Field Notes producer) and Martha Tsutsui Billins (Field Notes host) on Amami sociolinguistic research, plus a look back at the last five years of podcasting. Thanks so much for listening!  Things mentioned in this episode:  Uchinaa Yamatu-guchi Yaeyama lan...

This episode is with  Alexandra Philbin. Alexandra is originally from Dublin, Ireland, and now lives in València, Spain. She is carrying out doctoral research in the Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology at the University of València . Her research focuses on the experiences of urban speakers of minoritized languages, particularly Irish speakers in Dublin and Valencian (Catalan) speakers...

This month's episode is with Yulha Lhawa from the University of Washington and the Endangered Languages Project . Yulha Lhawa , originally from Siyuewu Village in Sichuan, China, is a passionate advocate for her community's traditions and language. Growing up as a yak herder, Yulha developed an interest in linguistics during high school. This interest fueled her to create the trilingual book " War...

This month's episode is with Dr. Karolina Grzech at the University of Valencia . Karolina is a documentary and descriptive linguist, working mostly on Quechuan languages and natural language use. Her main topics of research are evidentiality (encoding how we know things) and epistemicity (encoding different aspects of knowledge). She is particularly interested in how these categories play out in n...

This month's episode is with Dr. Kate Lindsey . Kate is a professor of linguistics and co-director of the Structures of Under-Researched Languages lab at Boston University . Her research has both theoretical and documentary applications. Her theoretical work focuses on the analysis of underspecification and variation in phonological systems supported primarily by field data. Her dissertation utili...

Field Notes is back for its fifth and final season! Season five's inagural episode is with Patrick Heinrich from the Ca' Foscari University of Venice. Patrick received his Masters degree in Linguistics and Japanese Studies in 1998 from Heinrich-Heine University Düsseldorf . He completed his PhD in Japanese Studies in 2002 at Duisburg University . He is a sociolinguist who has worked extensively in...

This month's very special episode is with Myfany Turpin , an Associate Professor at the University of Sydney. Myfany has been working on Australian Aboriginal songs and languages since 1996. Her research interests include the relationship between language and music, especially of lesser-known cultures; and identifying ways to support the continuation of endangered languages and performance arts. H...

This month's episode is with Nicholas Welch from Memorial University of Newfoundland . Nicholas is the Canada Research Chair in Change, Adaptation and Revitalization of Aboriginal Languages and Assistant Professor at Memorial University of Newfoundland. He received his B.A. and M.A. in Linguistics from the University of Victoria. His Ph. D. is from the University of Calgary and his dissertation wa...

This month's very special episode is with Michelle Kamigaki-Baron . Michelle is a PhD student in the department of Linguistics at the University of British Columbia . She was born and raised in Hawai’i into a family of coffee plantation laborers from Honaunau, Hawai’i. Her research primarily involves speech production and perception, how these processes are changed in the context of bilingualism o...

This month’s episode is with Ambrocio Gutiérrez Lorenzo from the University of Colorado Boulder . Ambrocio earned his PhD at the University of Texas at Austin in 2021. He earned his MA in 2014 at the Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social (CIESAS), Mexico. He is a documentary and descriptive linguist whose research focuses on the syntax and semantics of the Zapotec...

Today's episode is with Jessica Coon , an Associate Professor in the Department of Linguistics at McGill University and Canada Research Chair in Syntax and Indigenous Languages.  Much of Jessica’s work has focused on Mayan languages, in particular Ch’ol (a language of southern Mexico) and Chuj (a language of Guatemala). She has also researched Mi’gmaq , an Algonquian language of eastern Canada. In...

This month's episode is with Eric W. Campbell , an Associate Professor of linguistics at University of California, Santa Barbara . Eric received his PhD from the University of Texas at Austin in 2014. Eric is a field linguist who is interested in all levels of linguistic structure and historical linguistics. Eric approaches language in its social and cultural context, focusing on less-studied lang...

This month's guest is Anthony C. Woodbury,  Professor of Linguistics at the University of Texas at Austin . Woodbury has taught in the UT Linguistics Department since 1980, serving as its chair for nine years. He was elected Fellow of the Linguistic Society of America in 2017, and Vice-President and President of the Society for 2022 and 2023. Woodbury's research focuses on the Indigenous languages...

Welcome to a new season of Field Notes! This month, Claire Bowern is on the pod for Season Four's inaugural episode. Claire Bowern is a historical linguist whose research is centered around language change and language documentation in Indigenous Australia. She received her BA in LInguistics and Classics from the Australian National University , and her PhD in linguistics from Harvard University ....

In this final Season 3 episode, Gladys Camacho Ríos  discusses her work on her native language, South Bolivian Quechua. Gladys works with elderly monolingual Quechua speakers in rural Bolivia. She is a PhD candidate in Linguistics at the University of Texas at Austin . She previously earned two MA degrees; one in Latin American Studies from New York University in 2016 and a MA in Linguistics from...

Today’s episode is with Maaz Shaikh , a Junior Research Fellow pursuing his Ph. D. at the Centre for Linguistics, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi, India. Maaz is an emerging linguist having research interests primarily in language documentation and description, along with language revitalization, phonology, morpho-syntax, and historical linguistics. Last year, Maaz successfully defend...

Ana D. Alonso Ortiz is a Zapotec researcher and translator from Oaxaca, Mexico. She is an Associate Professor and Graduate Program Director of the Amerindian Studies and Bilingual Education master’s program at the University of Queretaro . Her research focuses on the language description and language revitalization of Yalalag Zapotec, specifically promoting the language by working with child langu...

This month's episode is with  Dr. Azeb Amha from the University of Leiden . Azeb is a linguist with interest in the morphology and syntax of  Afroasiatic languages , linguistic typology and in the interdisciplinary fields of anthropological linguistics and sociolinguistics. She has worked extensively on the documentation of  languages in Ethiopia, inclunding  Oyda, Wolaitta and Zargulla. She is an...

This month's episode is with Michael Karani from the University of Dar es Salaam . Michael teaches linguistics and communication studies at Dar es Salaam. He holds a BA and an MA in Linguistics from the University of Dar es Salaam and a PhD in African Languages from Stellenbosch University . Michael conducted fieldwork for his native language, Arusa, which is a Maasai dialect spoken in Arusha, nor...

This month’s episode is with Guillem Belmar from UC Santa Barbara. Guillem focuses his research on language revitalization strategies as well as documentation of endangered or minoritized languages. He has worked on language promotion for many European languages and runs the #europeminoritylanguages project on social media. He is currently involved with the project Maintaining Indigenous Languages...

This month's episode is with Pedro Mateo Pedro from University of Toronto. Pedro is a native speaker of Q’anjob’al, a Mayan language of Guatemala. His research focuses on the documentation and description of Mayan languages, specifically language acquisition, Mayan languages in contact and dialectal variation.  Pedro received his PhD in linguistics at the University of Kansas in 2010 and completed...

Jaime Pérez González is a Tseltal (Maya) researcher, writer, and translator from Tenango, Ocosingo, Chiapas, Mexico. He is a PhD candidate in Linguistics at the University of Texas at Austin. He earned his master’s in American-Indian Linguistics at the Center for Research and Higher Studies in Social Anthropology (CIESAS, Mexico).  Since 2008, he has worked on different Tseltal language documentat...

Today's episode is with Michinori Shimoji, an Associate Professor of Linguistics at Kyushu University in Japan. He has a PhD from the Australian National University (ANU). He has published extensively on fieldwork-based descriptions of Ryukyuan languages, particularly Irabu Miyako , which is his father's native language. His research focuses on empirical and inductive generalizations of linguistic...

The second episode of Season 3 is a live show with Hilaria Cruz from the University of  Louisville. Hilaria is a native speaker of Chatino , an endangered Zapotecan language, spoken in the mountains of Oaxaca, Mexico and by Chatino who have migrated to the Southeastern United states. Hilaria is currently researching  the Chatino concepts of the dead in four Eastern Chatino communities. Hilaria and...

Welcome to Season 3 of Field Notes! Field Notes episodes will now be released monthly. This season will feature one insider linguist each month. If you would like to hear more Field Notes content, you can now support Field Notes on Patreon !  This special first episode features Professor Nancy Kula studied phonology for her PhD at the University of Leiden. She has an MA in Linguistics from SOAS, U...