Boz del puevlo, boz del syelo. / The voice of the people is the voice of heaven.
-Ladino refran
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Julia Peck
she/her/hers
Welcome, glad you're here!
I'm a PhD candidate in the Department of Linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley. I primarily work on language revitalization — the process by which a speaker community reclaims and revives a language in decline. My PhD has a Designated Emphasis in Language Revitalization and I am dedicated to working in support of the revitalization movement for Ladino (Judeo-Spanish), the language of the Sephardic Jews. I'm the creator of Ladino en Kaza, a resource to support people to build language nests for Ladino in their homes.
I'm also interested in minoritized languages from the angles of sociolinguistics and language contact. My MPhil (Masters) dissertation examined the morphosyntactic integration of borrowings into Istanbul Judeo-Spanish.
At Berkeley, I'm proud to be a co-founder of the Ladino/Judeo-Spanish Working Group (we are famous for the quality of our snacks), former co-coordinator of the Language Revitalization Working Group, member of the Sociolinguistics Lab at Berkeley (SLaB), and an advisory board member of the Berkeley Language Center.
Below are some general questions that keep me up at night on the linguistics front. Reach out to me at julia (dot) peck (at) berkeley (dot) edu if you like to think about these too.
Cover photo: a young pomegranate growing in a garden in Kuzguncuk, Istanbul
Things I think about
Things I think about
How can linguists best serve and collaborate with minoritized speaker communities? How do we move away from the extractive models our discipline once relied on?
What language revitalization and reclamation tools can we develop that are effective and fulfilling for learners and address some of the root causes of language shift and loss?
How can linguists best serve and collaborate with minoritized speaker communities? How do we move away from the extractive models our discipline once relied on?
What language revitalization and reclamation tools can we develop that are effective and fulfilling for learners and address some of the root causes of language shift and loss?
How do speaker communities treat variation and results of language contact (borrowings, etc.) as they work to revitalize their languages? How do they integrate them linguistically?
How do speaker communities treat variation and results of language contact (borrowings, etc.) as they work to revitalize their languages? How do they integrate them linguistically?
How do language revitalization movements overlap with other anti-oppression movements in a community, like the struggle for land rights, political sovereignty, and economic and environmental justice?
How do language revitalization movements overlap with other anti-oppression movements in a community, like the struggle for land rights, political sovereignty, and economic and environmental justice?
Things I've been up to recently
Winning an Outstanding Graduate Student Instructor Award for 2025-2026! This is an award recognizing teaching among graduate students at UC Berkeley.
Teaching a Ladino 1 course through New Lehrhaus, California's hub for adult Jewish education. This is the first Ladino class in New Lehrhaus history!
Winning an Oswalt Grant to document naturalistic conversation in Ladino in Seattle in summer 2026.
Getting to teach the Elementary Judeo-Spanish course (JS 102/SPAN 109A) at UC Berkeley! I have 18 (l'chaim!) lovely undergrads in my class.
Publishing a paper, “Ladino en Kaza: The Promise of At-Home Language Nesting as a Revitalization Method for Ladino" in a special volume of the journal Letras Hispanas dedicated to Judeo-Spanish and Sephardic Studies.
Advancing to candidacy in UC Berkeley's PhD program! I passed my qualifying exam in October 2025.
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