About

“The Ladino Linguist”

In 2017, the New York Jewish Week named Bryan Kirschen a recipient of its “36 Under 36” award under the category of education for his university and community-based work in relation to Judeo-Spanish (popularly referred to as Ladino). The moniker used by the paper to describe Bryan was “The Ladino Linguist.” This resulted in the subsequent use of @LadinoLinguist as his Twitter handle and, now, this webpage.

Bryan is an associate professor at Binghamton University, where he specializes in Hispanic Linguistics and co-directs the Ladino Collaboratory. His main areas of research are Judeo-Spanish and Sociolinguistics. He received his PhD from UCLA in 2015, where he also co-founded the student organization ucLADINO.

Apart from his efforts to document written and oral varieties of Judeo-Spanish, Bryan is an educator as well as a community organizer and activist. He has offered language and culture classes and workshops from beginner to advanced levels, including those concerning Solitreo, the Hebrew-based cursive variety that is the focus of his recently-launched digital humanities project.

Over the past five years, Bryan has worked with different organizations to spearhead International Ladino Day events in New York City. He also serves as the director of an international delegation of community leaders, known as the Shadarim, selected by the Israeli National Authority of Ladino.