User: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.)