I come to the Germanic Linguistics program from the University of Minnesota (B.A., M.A. Germanic Philology). My linguistic research is primarily on German (dialects), etymology, sociolinguistics, Afrikaans, Dutch, and lexicography, while my interest in the visual arts encompasses Cape Dutch architecture, Ottonian illumination and Romanesque sculpture, among others. Promoting the importance of German in internationalizing curricula is another concern of mine, for every discipline in academe has some body of indispensable scholarship written in German. To help other scholars read and understand these in the original is a task that I pursue with glee and aplomb. I join the GSI staff in the German Department after five years of teaching German at the University of Minnesota. I have also taught at Macalester College and the Germanic-American Institute in St. Paul, MN.

For current research, please click here.

"The Origin of the Afrikaans Interrogrative Pronoun watter." NOWELE 60, forthcoming.

"Towards a Historical Dictionary of Afrikaans" Proceedings of the Conference on Historical Lexicography and Lexicology, University of Alberta, 2008. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, forthcoming.

Review of Etimologiewoordeboek van Afrikaans Supplement. NOWELE 56/57 (2009), 215-20.

"Observations on a, o in Unstressed Syllables in Middle Dutch." Amsterdamer Beiträge zur älteren Germanistik 65 (2009), 87-102.

"Bibliographical Materials for Afrikaans Etymological Lexicography." Lexikos 18 (2008), 374-409.

“Emphatic -s in Modern Germanic.” Interdisciplinary Journal for Germanic Linguistics and Semiotic Analysis 9,1 (2004), 83-100.

"An Etymology of Afrikaans mos." Tijdschrift voor Nederlandse Taal- en Letterkunde 118 (2002), 335-41.

"The Etymology of Afrikaans boet and English buddy, Boots." Leuvense Bijdragen 91 (2002), 63- 71.