I've been subscribed to this list for a while now, and I thought I'd
give the members an introduction:
I'm not a linguist, but have always had an interest in languages. My
educational background is in Electrical Engineering and Computer
Science, and I am also a musician.
I've learned French at the high school level, and Russian at the
university level. I've picked up bits and pieces of German from
friends, and I'm [slowly] teaching myself Lithuanian, the language of my
Father's family. Living in Chicago, it's also easy to pick up a bit of
Spanish and Polish in daily life.
I found Cyril Babaev's website while doing some personal research
related to my Lithuanian study.
One particular area of IE-related interest for me is substratum
languages. It seems much attention is given to substratum lexicon, but
I wonder about phonology, and the prosodic aspects of language. For
example, to what extent are substratum languages responsible for the
phonetic shifts (especially initial mutations) from PIE in various
subfamilies?
As far as general linguistics, I am interested in the various ways the
language of a culture and its music are connected.
If you're interested in seeing my constructed languages, they're
available at
http://netjunk.com/users/conlang/
My music is available at
http://www.mp3.com/vacuumchild/
I look forward to reading from this list.
Ted Kloba