Alexandra Aikhenvald

Alexandra Yurievna ("Sasha") Aikhenvald (born September 1, 1957[1] in Moscow, Russia[2]) is a linguist specialising in Linguistic typology and the Arawak language family (including Tariana) of the Brazilian Amazonia.

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Biography

Alexandra Aikhenvald was born in an assimilated (Russian-speaking) Jewish family in Moscow. She was fascinated by languages from early childhood, picking some Spanish from her parent's Spanish flatmate, and dreaming of majoring in Latin and Classical studies in university.[2]

Alexandra Aikhenvald earned her undergraduate degree from Moscow State University, with a thesis on Anatolian languages[1] (Hittite[2]). Outside of her classes, she learned Estonian and Hebrew.[2] After graduation, she joined the research staff of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the USSR Academy of Sciences, where she earned her Cand. Sc. degree (Soviet equivalent of Ph.D.) in 1984 with a thesis on the "Structural and Typological Classification of Berber Languages" (1984).[1]

In 1989-1992, Dr. Aikhenvald did research work in Brazil, and in 1993 started her work in Australia - first at Australian National University, later at La Trobe University.[1]

In 1996, the expert on Australian aboriginal languages R. M. W. Dixon and Alexandra Aikhenvald established the Research Centre for Linguistic Typology at Australian National University in Canberra. On January 1, 2000, the center relocated to La Trobe University in Melbourne.[3] Dixon and Aikhenvald both resigned in May 2008.[4]

In January 2009 she became a professor at the James Cook University[5] where she and R.M.W. Dixon founded The Language and Culture Research Group.[6]

Research work

Alexandra Aikhenvald has published work on Berber languages, Modern and Classical Hebrew, Ndu languages (Eastern Sepik, Papua-New Guinea), alongside a number of articles and monographs on various aspects of linguistic typology.

She has extensively worked on language contact, with particular attention to the multilingual area of the Vaupés River Basin.[7] She has established a comprehensive typology of classifiers [8] and worked out major parameters for the typology of evidentials as grammatical markers of information source.[9] In addition, she authored a comprehensive grammar of Warekena and of Tariana, both Arawak, in addition to a lengthy Tariana–Portuguese dictionary (available on-line).

Family

She is Natalia Shvedova's niece and Yuly Aikhenvald's great granddaughter.

References

  1. ^ a b c d Dr. Aikhenvald's CV (at JCU site; accessed 2009-12-20)
  2. ^ a b c d "Me and other languages" - A.Y. Aikhenvald's interview with ABC Radio National, 2008-02-09
  3. ^ Research Centre for Linguistic Typology: Ten Years' Achievements (2006)
  4. ^ RCLT Newsletter, 2009
  5. ^ https://secure.jcu.edu.au/app/contact/index.cfm?fuseaction=whoswho&groupid=67
  6. ^ http://www.linguistlist.org/issues/20/20-138.html
  7. ^ Language Contact in Amazonia By Alexandra Aikhenvald, Oxford University Press, 2002, ISBN 0-19-925785-X
  8. ^ Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald,Classifiers: A Typology of Noun Categorization Devices, Oxford University Press, 2000, pb. 2003, ISBN 0-19-926466-X
  9. ^ Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald, Evidentiality Oxford University Press 2004, pd. 2006, ISBN 0-19-926388-4

External links