Biography: born 1959, Sas van Gent, Netherlands; MA in Classics, 1981 (magna cum laude), MA in Historical Linguistics, 1985 (summa cum laude), PhD in Greek & Latin Language & Linguistics, 1995 (summa cum laude, with special congratulations of the Jury), UGent; Non-Degree: Tetela (Bantu), 1980-1981; Biblical Hebrew, 1983-1985; Modern Greek, 1996-1997.
Professional & Academic Employment: BOF-ZAP Research Professor in Ancient & Asia Minor Greek, UGent, 2008-present; Full Professor of Linguistics & Classics and Head of the Arts & Humanities Department, University College Roosevelt (Utrecht University International Honors College), 2004-2008; Visiting Professor, University of Amsterdam, 2003-2004; Visiting Professor, UGent, 1996-2004; Editor-in-Chief, Bibliographie Linguistique / Linguistic Bibliography (Permanent International Committee of Linguists / UNESCO), 1982-2004.
Awards & Honours: Member, Academia Europaea (2023-present); The Jeremie Septuagint Lecture, University of Cambridge (2024); The Gaisford Lecture, University of Oxford (2022); The Kenneth E. Naylor Memorial Lecture in South Slavic Linguistics, Ohio State University (2021); Investigador invitado, Sociedad Española de Estudios Clásicos (2020); Keynote at inauguration of Cambridge Centre for Greek Studies (2019); Associate Editor, Brill's Encyclopedia of Greek Language & Linguistics (2019-present); Corresponding Fellow, Laboratory for Greek Dialectology, Ohio State University (2019-present); Invited Professor & Organizer, Inaugural Summer Institute at the Princeton University Athens Center for Research and Hellenic Studies (2018); Associate in Greek Linguistics, Center for Hellenic Studies, Harvard University (2017-2020); Residential Visiting Fellow, All Souls College, Oxford (2007 & 2014) & Center for Hellenic Studies, Harvard University (2013); A1 Foreign Fellow, Onassis Foundation (2008 & 2013); Johannes Sundwall Award, Finnish Institute at Athens (2011); Onassis Senior Visiting Scholar at Harvard University, Princeton University, Stanford University, University of Arizona (2012); Visiting Scholar at the University of Amsterdam (2002-2003); VLAC Fellow, Flemish Academic Centre for Science and the Arts, Brussels (2014); Honorary Member, Panhellenic Union of Cappadocian Societies (ΠΕΚΣ, 2010); “Last Words”, documentary on Cappadocian research and its impact on the Cappadocian communities in Greece (Rotterdam: seriousFilm, 2014: www.seriousfilm.nl/last-words).
Research: History of the Greek language; Homeric & Medieval Greek language & versification; Biblical Greek (LXX & NT); Modern (especially Asia Minor) Greek dialectology; Cappadocian; Pharasiot; Livisiot; Silliot; Pontic; word order; clitics; grammaticalization; grammatical & semantic gender; female speech; profane & obscene language; lexicography; rhetoric; language contact & language death, especially Greek in contact with Hebrew, Aramaic, Latin, Armenian & Turkish; Latin linguistics; Biblical Hebrew linguistics; Turkish linguistics & Anatolian Turkish dialectology; ethnography of the ancient world; history of Hellenism in Asia Minor during the Ottoman period; Greek folklore.
