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 Bibliographie Linguistique / Linguistic Bibliography (Permanent International Committee of Linguists / UNESCO), 1982-2004.
Awards & Honours: The Gaisford Lecture, Oxford (2020); The Kenneth E. Naylor Memorial Lecture, Ohio State University (2020); Keynote at inauguration Cambridge Centre for Greek Studies (2019); Associate Editor, Brill's Encyclopedia of Greek Language & Linguistics (2019-2024); Corresponding Fellow, Laboratory for Greek Dialectology, Ohio State University (2019-present); Invited Professor & Organizer, 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-present); 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); Returning Senior Visiting Scholar at The Ohio State University (2004, 2009, 2013, 2015, 2016, 2020), Princeton University (2015, 2016, 2017, 2018), Center for Hellenic Studies, Harvard University (2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020), University of Chicago (2018); 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 language & metre; Biblical Greek (LXX & NT); Medieval Greek language & metre; word order; clitics; grammaticalization; female speech; profane & obscene language; language contact & language death in the ancient and modern world, especially Greek in contact with Hebrew, Aramaic, Latin, Armenian & Turkish; ethnography of the ancient world; history of Hellenism in Asia Minor during the Ottoman Empire; Cappadocian; Pharasiot; Pontic; Greek lexicography; Modern (especially Asia Minor) Greek dialectology; Latin linguistics; Ancient Hebrew linguistics; Turkish linguistics & Anatolian Turkish dialectology.
