University of Chicago-Koldo Mitxelena Chair 2025: Ander Egurtzegi

Ander Egurtzegi will be the visiting researcher in residence for the Koldo Mitxelena Chair promoted by the Etxepare Basque Institute at the University of Chicago

Ander Egurtzegi will teach this seminar aimed especially at people interested in sound change or the sound structure of Basque. Many linguistic aspects of sound change theories will be presented in this seminar. The seminar will focus on Basque, although case studies will occasionally be carried out in other minority languages (such as Aragonese from Ribagorza or the Lacota language). The basic themes of the seminar will be: the phonetic essence of sound change, present-day variability as a seed of historical change, the influence of contact between languages, the advantages of analysing sound change from different linguistic perspectives, typologically abnormal sound change, and the importance of specific phonetic documentation of endangered languages, both for research into change and for research into linguistic structure in general.