Brian Joseph, Distinguished University Professor of Linguistics and the Kenneth E. Naylor Professor of South Slavic Languages and Linguistics, recently established the Brian D. Joseph Fund for Greek Dialectology in the Department of Linguistics.

The fund will support research, teaching and programmatic needs in the study of Greek dialects, both ancient and modern. Joseph’s generosity will provide opportunities for students and faculty to research and travel, and to host scholars and lecturers from around the world. 

“I’m very fortunate to be in a good financial situation and I’m very grateful for the opportunities I have had to do what I do here at Ohio State. It’s been a great place for me to be, so it was a natural idea to put some money into something that would make a lasting presence for this area of study here at Ohio State,” Joseph said.

Joseph is a longtime Buckeye, starting his career at Ohio State in 1979 in the Department of Linguistics. Although he grew up on the East Coast, his uncle, Morton Bloomfield, was a professor in Ohio State’s Department of English in the 1950s, introducing Joseph to Columbus early in life. His devotion to the study of Greek dialectology began in high school while studying Latin, which bloomed into the study of Greek — both modern and ancient — throughout his undergraduate years at Yale University and graduate school at Harvard University.

“I’ve been fortunate to pursue an academic career allowing me to do research and teaching, and just about everything I have done comes back in some way to Greek,” Joseph said.

He is also the holder of the Naylor Professorship in South Slavic Languages and Linguistics, which is an endowed position that supports his research in the Balkans and on Greek in a geographic context.

“The ability to have [the] position in the Slavic department has meant a tremendous amount for my research and my development as a linguist,” he said, adding that this would not have been possible outside of Ohio State.

Experiencing the impact of the Naylor Professorship on his career, as well as seeing the establishment of the Miltiadis Marinakis Endowed Professorship of Modern Greek Language and Culture, inspired Joseph to consider how he could contribute to the continuation of the study of Greek in his own way.

Professor Joseph hopes that colleagues considering philanthropy at Ohio State would “look at [this] as a model of a way of ensuring that their research interests continue here at Ohio State beyond their own time here.”

Support research, teaching and programmatic needs in the Greek language by making a gift to the Brian D. Joseph Fund for Greek Dialectology.