About me

My name is Myriam Lapierre (with a small <p>!), and I'm used to hearing that pronounced as [mɪʁ.ˈjam la.ˈpja͡ɛʁ] in Canadian French, as [ˈmi.ɹi.jəm ˈlɑ.pjɛɹ] in English, and as [ˈmĩɾ.jɐ̃m la.ˈpjɛ.ʁi] in Brazilian Portuguese.

I also commonly go by the names Kjêpyti [kje.ˈpɯː.ti] in the Panãra community, Sinhose'ẽ'upari [s.iɲõ.se.ˌʔẽ.ʔu.pa.ˈɾi] in the Xavante community, Kujãpot [ku.ɲã.ˈpot ̚] in the Kawaiwete community, Kôkdjêj [kok.ˈʝej] in the Kajkwakhrattxi community, and Ngrêjngôti [ŋɾej.ŋo.ˈti] in the Mebêngôkre community.

I was born in Ottawa, Canada, where I spent all of my childhood. My family is French-speaking, but seeing as how Ottawa is a predominantly English-speaking city, I am what bilingualism researchers call a simultaneous French-English bilingual, meaning that I began acquiring both languages before the age of two. When I was 16, I moved to Montréal, where I attended Cégep. I moved back to Ottawa to attend the University of Ottawa, where I got my undergraduate and my first master's degree. Now, I live in Berkeley, California, where I am pursuing doctoral studies in linguistics. I have also spent a significant part of my life in various parts of Brazil, mostly in the Amazon.

Some of my favourite things in the world are good food, tea, and cats. I enjoy traveling and seeing new places, especially to learn new languages. They say linguists don't need to speak a lot of languages, but learning languages is definitely how I became fascinated with linguistics. I speak French and English natively, Portuguese and Spanish fluently, and Panãra and Catalan functionally. I've also formally studied Mebêngôkre, Xavante, Kajkwakhrattxi, Kawaiwete, Paraguayan Guaraní, Bolivian Quechua, German, and Arabic.