Greetings!

A couple of you remember me from previous renditions of Dawn, no doubt; for a couple of others still, my (user)name might be buried somewhere deep in the recesses of your memory, perhaps from extended conversations about your tech posts and what you needed to fix, or about exploratory missions that often went awry...

I see a good number of new names on this sub as well, so I might as well introduce myself. Call me Eric--I don't mind, really, though most seem to default to Pinko. No, I'm not a real communist. I feel virtually every username on here has a long and often uncomforable history, or at least one that can only be understood through far more context than one cares to explain to strangers on the internet.

While I was an active player on Dawn Season 1 in particular, as well as on one or two other Powers subs, real life got in the way as I decided to go back to school after a hiatus and pursue a Master's degree in Linguistics. At first, I thought that I could keep world-building on the side, and if anything, becoming better-educated in this field would enhance my civilization-building, roleplaying, etc. in Dawn. (If anything, my early interest in history got me into world-building, because I essentially was reading about other worlds, and the combination of the two helped lead me into my current studies. A fair amount of my work on Dawn doubled as studying essentials of phonology, morphology, and other linguistic sub-topics in advance of my grad studies.)

Alas, that was kind of a stupid if well-intentioned idea: I got bogged down grad school rather quickly and ended up letting a burgeoning civilization crumble into dust to focus on my studies. I tried to stay somewhat involved in the Dawn community at large, at least at first, but even this became infeasible as I broke ground on my Master's thesis.

All of this said, I just walked at my commencement ceremony this morning. Between having completed my two-year program (minus the thesis, which I need to finish editing next week...), having taught English as a second language in multiple contexts, and working on ongoing studies that I intend to present and/or publish (I've already had one conference submission accepted), at this point I'm comfortable enough with referring to myself as a linguist of some sort.

Now we get to the part that's relevant to the Dawn community.

I still don't anticipate having time to stake a claim and run a civilization; as I said, I have ongoing projects as well as ones stewing in my head, and ideally I want to accumulate a suite of completed work before I apply for PhD programs. Having my name floating around in conference proceedings or even Google Scholar should give me something of an edge as far as applications go. On top of all of that, I'm planning to teach abroad for a while, but I still have to apply for positions.

What I can contribute to this community, however, is my two years' graduate-level training as a linguist. You're all building civilizations and cultures, yes? It should surprise no one that culture and language are essentially conjoined twins, and perhaps you're wondering how you can craft your tribe's language into something other than a cipher of English.

Out of interest in contributing to this community and getting back in touch with old friends, I'm offering my services to this sub as a linguistic consultant. Essentially, I can do anything from offering help with developing an interesting-yet-realistic language for your people, to helping you figure out which words and linguistic structures your people might realistically borrow from another culture, to answering broader questions about language, history, culture, etc. (My B.A. is in sociology, and I have quite a bit of background in history, psychology & anthropology as well, not to mention I've dipped my toes into natural history and various other topics.) Better yet, my emphases have been language contact, language shift and other linguistic changes resulting from contact between speakers of different languages and dialects, and historical linguistics--all quite applicable to Dawn, with its eon-spanning setting and plentiful opportunities for trade and conflict.

For the time being, feel free to ask me anything, whether in comments or PMs. Questions don't have to be limited to linguistics (though this is by no means a limiting topic of discussion); if you're curious about my past work in Dawn or anything else, really, fire away!