Re: Colleges

Sally Caves wrote:

> BERKELEY.  But I'm biased.  All my closest linguist friends are there.
> UCLA.  Matt Pearson is there.  And look how good HE is.
>
> Sam Bryant wrote:
>
> > Well, I suppose I ought to start asking this now (and I know it's been asked
> > before, but findmail's archive is *so* unhelpful): What are the best
> > colleges/universities (US) for undergraduate historical linguistics (or
> > linguistics in general)? Any pointers would be greatly appreciated.
Aw, shucks!  Me all embarrassed (or whatever the appropriate Teonaht
phrase is).  Seriously, though, I don't think that UCLA is the place to come
if you want to do *historical* linguistics - or rather, I should say
that here in the Linguistics department we don't do very much of it.  Our
bias is too theoretical and synchronic.  I do have a colleague in the Folklore
and Mythology department who has managed to sneak quite a bit of
historical into his curriculum, mostly by searching out people in other
departments (History, Near Eastern Languages, etc.).  He's done some
Medieval Welsh and Medieval Breton, along with a course on Tocharian
and a couple general survey courses on Indo-European.  The pickings
are a bit slim here, I think.

On the other hand, UCLA is one of the finest state schools in the country,
and since we're talking *undergraduate* education, and since you also
include linguistics-in-general, then you might want to give us a look-see.

Matt.