Browne is a Slavic
linguist specializing in Serbo-Croatian (or BCS - Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian).
He has published on a variety of themes in Slavic and general linguistics and
has taught nearly every Eastern European language during his time at
Cornell.
Interview Themes
On studying Slavic at
Harvard in the time of Roman Jakobson (1:50)
Linguistics as an
interdisciplinary field (10:47)
What is language? (12:55)
How languages evolve and
become standardized (18:30)
Language as a national
symbol and its relation to conflict (23:43)
Observing the fall of
Yugoslavia as a linguist and someone with an attachment to the region (25:00)
On what drew people to
Yugoslavia in the 1970s (29:30)
How Browne experienced
Yugoslav federalism and its benefits/shortcomings (32:15)
Languages and dialects,
from Slovene to Genoese (38:00)
Commonalities between
Balkan/Southeastern European languages and languages that borrow
structures--rather than simply vocabulary--from other languages (45:01)
Delights and challenges
of translation from BCS (53:45)
What Browne has found
gratifying in his career (57:47)
Changes in the field of
linguistics and how Browne relates to them (1:03:25)
[apologies
for the abrupt end to the interview due to a technical failure]
To access the interview,
click here: http://hdl.handle.net/1813/33421
