I am a Senior Lecturer in Classics (Classical Linguistics and Comparative Philology) in the Classics Faculty at Cambridge University, and Director of Studies in Classics and Linguistics at Peterhouse.

I carry out research on the writing systems used to write the Italic languages (Latin, Oscan, Umbrian, South Picene), and their phonology and morphology. Other research interests include the language of Latin literature, Celtic languages, Proto-Indo-European phonology and morphology, and sound change. I would be delighted to hear from potential graduate students who are interested in working on topics related to these areas. For copies of articles and where to read my books, click here.

My third book, Orthographic Traditions and the Sub-elite in the Roman Empire has just come out. It's about how spelling traditions which are often thought of as old-fashioned or otherwise learned can be found even in texts written by those who probably belonged to the sub-elite; this gives us an insight into what sort of education was available to these people in the Roman Empire, as well as having implications for our understanding of Latin sound changes, and for dating inscriptions. It is Open Access: just click on the link

My second book, Oscan in the Greek Alphabet came out in 2016. It's about how Oscan-speakers in Ancient Italy used the Greek alphabet to write Oscan, and what this tells us about the phonology and morphology of Oscan, and the relationship between speakers of Greek and Oscan. I wrote it as part of the AHRC-funded project 'Greek in Italy'.You can read about what we got up to on our project blog.

My book on The Reflexes of the Proto-Indo-European Laryngeals in Celtic, based on my doctoral thesis in the Faculty of Linguistics, Philology and Phonetics at the University of Oxford, came out in September 2012 in the Brill series 'Studies in Indo-European Languages and Linguistics'. It collects the evidence for the development of the series of sounds known as the laryngeals in the Celtic languages according to phonetic environment. It concludes that laryngeals must still have been present in many environments at a fairly late stage of Proto-Celtic, and identifies previously unrecognised developments. It also suggests that laryngeals cannot be used as good evidence for an 'Italo-Celtic' sub-family.

I teach papers in Latin and Greek language, and comparative philology and classical linguistics in all years.

Contact details:
Address: Peterhouse, Trumpington Street, Cambridge, CB2 1RD
Email: naz21[apud]cam dot ac dot uk

last updated August 2024