Language History: Historical and comparative Indo-European and Nordic linguistics
Language History is a research group for historical and comparative linguistics, especially within the Indo-European language family, including the Germanic and Nordic languages. Research also includes the cultural context in which these languages were spoken.
Research in historical linguistics covers both general linguistic development and the histories of individual languages or language families. Linguistic interests include language typology, grammatical structures, and phonetics, both from a synchronic and diachronic perspective. Philological interests include the written and textual traditions of individual languages, including epigraphy, runology, and manuscript studies, as well as related fields such as onomastics (name research) and dialectology. Historical linguistics also involves comparative studies with archaeology, cultural history, and religion.
Research within the group focuses primarily on the history, philology, and culture of the Indo-European language family, including the Nordic languages.
Research focus
- Early history and development of the Indo-European languages, including the Nordic languages
- Reconstruction of linguistic systems, including phonology, morphology, syntax, and lexicon, using the comparative method
- Linguistic phylogenetics using both traditional and computational methods
- Relative chronology of linguistic changes
- Language contact and substrates in prehistoric and documented periods, including lexical borrowing and loanword stratification
- Etymology (word history) incorporating cultural history in prehistoric and historic periods
- Philological studies of historical texts and interpretation of new finds
- Integration of reconstructed language stages with archeological cultures, prehistoric genetics, and mythology
- Languages’ cultural and sociolinguistic context in prehistoric and historic periods.
Researchers
| Name | Title | Phone | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kristoffersen, Tore Rovs | PhD Fellow | +4535321655 | |
| Kroonen, Guus | Professor with special responsibilities | +4535328370 | |
| Olander, Thomas | Professor | +4535335937 | |
| Olesen, Rikke Steenholt | Associate Professor | +4535328564 | |
| Poulsen, Simon | Postdoc | +4535325353 | |
| Rasmussen (Olsen), Birgit Anette | Professor | +4535328637 | |
| Søborg, Tobias Mosbæk | Postdoc | +4535332277 | |
| Thorsø, Rasmus | Teaching Assistant | ||
| Vrieland, Seán | Associate Professor | +4535337566 | |
| Whitehead, Benedicte Nielsen | Teaching Associate Professor | +4535331351 |
Affiliated researchers
- Adam Hyllested
- Alex Speed Kjeldsen
- Birgit Eggert
- Johnny Grandjean Gøsig Jakobsen
- Klaus Johan Myrvoll
- Matthew Scarborough
- Michael Lerche Nielsen
- Rasmus Gudmundsen Bjørn
- Rikke Steenholt Oelsen.