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Jump to navigationJump to searchThe Interview: Bookbag Talks To Damian O'Brien (view source)
Revision as of 11:46, 9 January 2013
, 11:46, 9 January 2013no edit summary
* '''BB: When, where and why did you first become interested in linguistics?'''
DO'B: #Latin classes at school were I think the first time I became aware of relationships between languages. Much later I started learning Greek to pass the evenings during a winter in Siberia, and I saw a chart listing cognate words in ten Indo-European languages. I remember being captivated by the idea of an ancient substrate binding together things as superficially different as English, Greek and Sanskrit - and that there were regular rules of sound change which could be applied to a word in one language to change it into a word in another.
My real study of linguistics began with the question, "Why are there irregular verbs in English?" Every grammar I read, of Old English, of Gothic, of Latin, of Greek, said that verbal irregularities were part of an ancient system which could be better understood through Sanskrit. So I spent three years studying Sanskrit, Indian liguistics, and two dialects of Ancient Iranian in order to understand why we say drive drove driven. Then I wrote a book about it - so others wouldn't have to!
