Ryan K. Shosted is a professor in the Department of Linguistics. His primary affiliation is Illinois Language and Literacy Initiative. As part of his commitment to public engagement, Prof. Shosted has since 2008 accompanied the local Q'anjob'al (Maya) community of Champaign-Urbana in publishing Mayan-language literacy materials and educating the non-Maya community about the Q'anjob'al language. Prof. Shosted has taught throughout the curriculum in Linguistics, including phonetics and phonology, as well as field methods, quantitative methods, Hittite, and introduction to linguistic science. He is the host of the giga-hit It's the LING 100 Show, which completed its fifth season in Fall 2021.

Education

• B.A., linguistics, Brigham Young University, 2000

• M.A., California, 2003

• Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley, 2006

Research Interests:

• Phonetics

• Phonology

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• Hittite and cuneiform

• Q'anjob'al (Maya)

Professor Ryan Shosted is an experimental phonetician and phonologist. His research focuses on how phonetic principles shape phonological, typological, and diachronic outcomes in language. He specializes in the production of speech, whether through the lens of acoustics, kinematics, or aerodynamics. He currently uses ultrafast dynamic magnetic resonance imaging to study the map between the physiology of the vocal tract and the acoustic signal that emanates from it. He works toward models of speech production built on data from typologically and geographically diverse languages, including understudied and endangered languages. He gains insights into historical sound change by studying writing systems like Hittite cuneiform and the Deseret Alphabet.