I'm Jens Van Gysel, a PhD candidate in the University of New Mexico's Department of Linguistics. I was born in Belgium, where I got my BA and MA in Language and Literature (concentration English-Spanish) at Ghent University. I then obtained an MA in Linguistics (concentration Linguistic Diversity of Africa, Asia, and Native America) from Leiden University in the Netherlands. I am currently completing a PhD in Linguistics at the University of New Mexico.

My research mainly focusses on the documentation and grammatical description of Sanapaná, an indigenous language of Paraguay belonging to the Enlhet-Enenlhet language family. For this project, I work together with speakers in the communities of La Esperanza and (to a lesser extent) Anaconda. I am also interested in typological topics, language change and usage-based explanations for it, and computational linguistics.

On this web site, you will find an overview of research projects I have been and currently am involved in, as well as a list of my publications and a copy of my CV. In addition, you can find a sample of teaching materials I put together for a semester-long introductory Spanish as a Second Language course at the US College level. Lastly, you will find some information about my non-research related interests such as (academic) translation and labour organizing. I appreciate your visit - please do not hesitate to contact me with questions, comments, or suggestions at jelvangysel@unm.edu.