Greek in Italy - Project Members | Faculty of Classics

Principal Investigator: Dr James Clackson

James Clackson is a Reader in Comparative Philology and Director of Studies in Classics at Jesus College, Cambridge.

James has wide interests in the history of the Latin and Greek languages, ancient sociolinguistics and bilingualism, the languages and epigraphy of the ancient Mediterranean and comparative Indo-European studies.His past research includes work on Latin, Sabellian, Greek and Armenian, and includes The Blackwell History of the Latin Language, co-authored with Geoff Horrocks. On this project, his work will focus on the early history of the Latin language, including comparison in the treatment of Greek loanwords in Latin with that in other languages.

Co-Investigator: Prof. Geoff Horrocks

Geoff Horrocks is Professor of Comparative Philology and a Fellow of St John’s College, Cambridge.

He is the author of the seminal work Greek: A History of the Language and its Speakers. He is particularly interested in theories of language structure and language change in their application to the Greek language in all its varieties from the earliest attestations in the second millennium BC to the present day. He also has a secondary interest in the development of Latin, both in its Italian context and in its relationships with other languages as it spread within the Roman empire, including contact with Greek.

Postdoctoral Researcher: Dr Nick Zair

Nick Zair is a Research Fellow at Peterhouse, Cambridge, and an affiliated lecturer at the Faculty of Classics.

He is currently working on a book for Cambridge University Press about how Oscan-speakers in Ancient Italy used the Greek alphabet to write Oscan, and the relationship between speakers of Greek and Oscan. More generally, his research also deals with the history of the languages of Italy (Latin, Oscan, Umbrian, South Picene). Other research interests include the Celtic languages, Proto-Indo-European phonology and morphology, sound change and language grouping.

Affiliated Postdoctoral Researcher: Dr Katherine McDonald

Katherine McDonald is Research Fellow in Classics at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge.

Her research is funded by Gonville and Caius. She has recently finished her PhD thesis on contact between South Oscan and Greek. During the project, she will expand on this work and deal with contact between Greek and Oscan, Messapic and Latin in Southern Italy. She is particularly interested in how modern theories of bilingualism and gender linguistics can be applied to ancient languages. She is also the Webmaster for the project.