Arika Okrent

Arika Okrent /ˈɛrɪkə ˈoʊkrɛnt/[1] is an American linguist, known particularly for her 2009 book In the Land of Invented Languages: Esperanto Rock Stars, Klingon Poets, Loglan Lovers, and the Mad Dreamers Who Tried to Build A Perfect Language, a result of her five years of research into the topic of constructed languages.[2] She is also featured in Sam Green's 2011 documentary The Universal Language.

Arika Okrent at Lojban Festival at Philcon in 2006

Youth and education

Okrent was born in Chicago to parents of Polish and Transylvanian descent and was fascinated by languages since an early age, which is what made her pursue a career in linguistics. After Carleton College, she left for Hungary to teach there for a year;[3] she earned an M.A. in Linguistics from the Gallaudet University, and a Ph.D. in Psycholinguistics from the University of Chicago in 2004. She can communicate in English, Hungarian, American Sign Language and Klingon,[2] and has a good passive command of Esperanto.[4][5]

She is the niece of writer and editor Daniel Okrent.

Publications
  • Okrent, Arika (2009). In the Land of Invented Languages: Esperanto Rock Stars, Klingon Poets, Loglan Lovers, and the Mad Dreamers Who Tried to Build A Perfect Language. Spiegel & Grau. pp. 352. ISBN 0-385-52788-8.

References
  1. Arika Okrent's homepage
  2. M. J. Stephey, "Arika Okrent: Speaking Klingon", Time, May 18, 2009. Retrieved 2009-12-07.
  3. "Arika Okrent '92". Linguistics: Alumni. Carleton College. 2009. Archived from the original on 2013-06-12. Retrieved 2012-10-29.
  4. Questions Answered: Invented Languages, Schott's Vocab.
  5. Arika Okrent about Esperanto in CNN, September 17, 2010.


This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.