Jonathan North Washington

Jonathan North Washington is an Associate Professor in the Linguistics Department at Swarthmore College. His research focuses on Turkic languages, particularly Kazakh and Kyrgyz, examining articulatory and acoustic properties of vowel systems, sonority theory, syllable margin phonology, and language technology for under-resourced languages. He also specializes in computational descriptions of grammatical patterns, including finite-state morphology and dependency syntax, with a secondary interest in the historical development of Turkic languages.

• Ph.D., Linguistics, Central Eurasian Studies, Indiana University (2016)
• M.A., Central Eurasian Studies, Indiana University (2012)
• M.A., Linguistics, University of Washington (2010)
• B.A., Linguistics and Anthropology, Brandeis University (2005)

His work bridges traditional phonological analysis with advanced computational methods, aiming to preserve and analyze Turkic linguistic structures while developing tools for under-resourced languages. Office hours: Wednesdays 1:30-3:00, Fridays 10:30-11:30 (fall 2024), Pearson 105.