Curriculum Vitae
Profile
I am Associate Professor of Historical and General Linguistics at Sapienza University of Rome, affiliated with the Department "ISO – Italian Institute of Oriental Studies". I received my doctorate in 2005 with a dissertation on Pāṇini's Aṣṭādhyāyī.
My research encompasses historical linguistics (with particular emphasis on Indo-European comparative studies); general and theoretical linguistics (including phonology, morphonology, and axiomatization); philosophy of language; and the history of linguistics. I maintain a special interest in the Indian grammatical tradition and Renaissance linguistics.
I also have a keen interest in fonts, typography, and typesetting.
Education
PhD in Linguistics
May 13, 2005
Sapienza University of Rome
Thesis: L'Aṣṭādhyāyī di Pāṇini: aspetti teorici e formali
Supervisor: Prof. Paolo Di Giovine
Master's Degree in Humanities (cum laude)
July 17, 2001
Sapienza University of Rome
Thesis: Nuovo Testamento in gotico
Supervisor: Prof. Carla Del Zotto
Academic Positions
Habilitation to Full Professorship
December 2023
GLOT-01/A (Historical and General Linguistics)
Associate Professor
December 2020 – Present
GLOT-01/A (Historical and General Linguistics)
Sapienza University of Rome, Department "ISO"
Tenured Assistant Professor (Ricercatore confermato)
December 2014 – November 2020
Sapienza University of Rome, Department "ISO"
Assistant Professor (Ricercatore non confermato)
December 2011 – November 2014
Sapienza University of Rome, Department "ISO"
Post-doctoral Research Fellow
July 2005 – June 2009
Sapienza University of Rome, Faculty of Oriental Studies
Lecturer of Russian
May 2010 – October 2010
University of L'Aquila, Faculty of Humanities
Visiting Positions
Visiting Professor
September 2023
University of Toronto (Canada), Department of Philosophy
Visiting Scholar
August – September 2022
University of Lisbon (Portugal), CLUL – Centro de Linguística
Visiting Scholar
March 2019
Institute of Linguistics, Russian Academy of Sciences (Russia)
Professional Service
Editorial Boards
- Rivista degli Studi Orientali (since 2021)
- Journal of South Asian Languages and Linguistics (since 2017)
- Rivista di Studi Sudasiatici (2006–2010)
Scientific Boards
- PhD program in Linguistics, Sapienza University & Roma Tre (since 2018)
Professional Memberships
- Societas Linguistica Europaea (since 2017)
- Società Italiana di Glottologia (since 2012)
- Coffee Break Conferences project (founder, 2010-present)
Anonymous reviews for journals and academic series
- Archiv orientální
- Archivio Glottologico Italiano
- Bhāṣā. Journal of South Asian Linguistics, Philology and Grammatical Traditions
- Collana di Studi Giapponesi (Associazione Italiana di Studi Giapponesi)
- Folia Linguistica
- Indogermanische Forschungen
- Journal of Historical Linguistics
- Journal of the South Asian Languages and Linguistics
- Philosophy of East and West
- Poznań Studies in Contemporary Linguistics
- Rivista degli Studi Orientali
Anonymous reviews for national research assessment exercises and grant proposals
- VQR 2015–2019 (Italy)
- VQR 2020–2024 (Italy)
- PRIN 2015 (Italy)
- Università del Piemonte Orientale, Bando Assegni di Ricerca 2020
PhD theses reviewing
- E. Brečalova, RSUH (Russia)
- A. Leopardi, ISO, Sapienza University of Rome
- C. D'Antonio, ISO, Sapienza University of Rome
- E. Spaziani, Lettere e culture moderne, Sapienza University of Rome
Doctoral Supervision
- Andrea Di Manno, Ordine sintattico e struttura dell'informazione in paleoslavo: la legge di Wackernagel (XXXIII intake, 2017–2020)
- Mariachiara Marchetta, Le prime riflessioni cinesi sulla classificazione dei suoni linguistici: tra modelli indiani e teoria musicale (XL intake, 2025–2028)
Languages
Publications
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Talks
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Research
Academic Profiles & Online Presence
Bibliographic records, research outputs, and institutional affiliations are available through the following academic profiles and research identifiers:
- Institutional page at Sapienza University
- IRIS (Sapienza publications database)
- Sapienza research portal
- ORCID
- Google Scholar
- Scopus author profile
- ResearchGate
- Academia.edu
- Loop (Frontiers)
- Semantic Scholar
- Humanities Commons
- LingBuzz
Current Research Interests
The following sections outline the principal areas of linguistics in which I am currently engaged or have previously conducted research. Each area includes links to the corresponding publications.
Axiomatic Foundations of Linguistics
The axiomatization of linguistics constitutes a comprehensive research programme developed along the lines proposed by Anna Polivanova, who has advanced a systematic redefinition of fundamental grammatical concepts in logical-formal terms. This approach aims to reformulate the basic notions of linguistics exclusively through set-theoretical apparatus and explicitly stated correctness criteria (or axioms), thus providing a rigorous and formally transparent foundation for grammatical description. See related publications and talks.
History of Linguistics
Within the history of linguistic thought, my primary focus is the ancient Indian grammatical tradition (known as Vyākaraṇa), beginning with Pāṇini's Aṣṭādhyāyī and its exegetical corpus, which I analyze in relation to contemporary linguistic theory. See related publications and talks
Additionally, I conduct research on premodern European linguistics, from the Renaissance to the early nineteenth century. See related publications and talks.
Segmental Grammar
My research addresses the description of segmental inventories across a range of the world's languages, as well as the formal mapping between different levels of segmental representation, including phonetic, phonological, morphonological, and their interface with the paradigmatic level and beyond. See related publications and talks.
Theory of Grammaticality and Grammatical Gender
I investigate the notion of grammatical category (or inflectional category), developing Anna Polivanova's ideas concerning the concept of "strong grammaticality". This theoretical approach is tested primarily on inflectional categories such as grammatical gender. See related publications and talks.
Theory of the Comparative Method
I investigate the theoretical foundations of the comparative-reconstructive method in historical linguistics from a formal perspective, with the aim of reformulating key notions such as "linguistic relatedness", "regular sound correspondence", and related concepts within a more explicit and rigorous framework. See related publications and talks.
Event organization
22–23 December 2025
CBC14. Reading Sanskrit Texts. Deep Reading as an Analytical Method for Written, Oral, and Performative Texts, Sapienza University of Rome. Co-organized with Elisa Freschi [web].
13–14 February 2025
Gender in Grammar: History, Theory, Policy, Sapienza University of Rome [web].
10–11 December 2021
CBC11 Panel. Vyākaraṇa and its many espouses: Linguistics, Philology, Philosophy, University of Rome [web].
31 March 2017
Workshop Morpho-syntactic isoglosses in Indo-European: diachrony, typology and linguistic areas, at ISTAL 23, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (Greece). Co-organized with Nikolaos Lavidas and Leonid Kulikov [web] [Booklet].
22–24 May 2014
CBC5. Space, culture, language and politics in South Asia: common patterns and local distinctions, Sapienza University of Rome [web].
15 June 2012
CBC3 Panel. Translation Techniques in the Asiatic Cultures, University of Cagliari (Sardinia, Italy) [web].
8–10 September 2011
CBC2. The Study of South Asia between Antiquity and Modernity. Parallels and Comparisons, Sapienza University of Rome [web].
10–12 June 2010
CBC1. Lo studio dell'Asia fra antico e moderno, Sapienza University of Rome [web].
Grants and Funding
2024
Sapienza University Conference Grant for the organization of the conference "Gender in Grammar". Funding amount: €2,500 [conference website].
2022
SEED / PNR Grant. Project title: "Il Genere nella Lingua e nella Grammatica: teoria, storia e attualità". Funding amount: €10,000.
2021
Sapienza University Research Office Grant. Project title: "Tra l'esotismo e l'eurocentrismo: grammaticalizzazione e categorie flessionali nella descrizione delle lingue indoeuropee classiche vs. quelle dell'Estremo Oriente". Funding amount: €11,320 [project page].
Member of the PRIN 2020 project "Metalinguistic texts as a privileged data source for the knowledge of ancient languages" (total funding: €603,000; Principal Investigator: L. Lorenzetti).
Tutor of the Sapienza University Research Office Grant for young scholars. Project title: "Grammaire Latine Étendue in Giappone: il modello greco-latino nell'opera di João Rodriguez (1562–1633?)". Funding amount: €3,400; Principal Investigator: C. D'Antonio [project page].
2020
Sapienza University Research Office Grant. Project title: "Data in progress: aggiornamento, accessibilità permanente e potenzialità multidisciplinare dei database epigrafici". Funding amount: €14,000; Principal Investigator: S. Kaczko [project page].
2019
Sapienza University Research Office Grant. Project title: "Categorie grammaticali nominali in prospettiva sincronica, diacronica e tipologica: flessione e derivazione nelle lingue indoeuropee arcaiche e post-arcaiche". Funding amount: €14,065 [project page].
2018
Member of the PRIN 2017 project "Ancient languages and writing systems in contact: a touchstone for language change" (total funding: €517,000; Principal Investigator: P. Di Giovine) [project website].
Member of the Sapienza University Research Office Grant. Project title: "Champollion beyond hieroglyphs. The many languages of the Rosetta Stone code breaker". Funding amount: €11,000; Principal Investigator: C. A. Ciancaglini [project page].
Tutor of the Sapienza University Research Office Grant for young scholars. Project title: "Posizionamento dei clitici in paleoslavo". Funding amount: €1,250; Principal Investigator: A. Di Manno.
2017
MIUR Grant for Basic Research Activities (Finanziamento delle attività base di ricerca). Funding amount: €3,000.
Sapienza University Research Office Grant. Project title: "Sviluppi convergenti nella morfologia indoeuropea: codifica dei modificatori nominali". Funding amount: €3,000 [project page].
Sapienza University International Office Grant for a visiting scholarship for Prof. Leonid Kulikov (Ghent University). Funding amount: €9,000.
2015
Sapienza University Research Office Grant. Project title: "Indo-European isoglosses: data collection and models of representation". Funding amount: €9,000.
2014
Sapienza University Conference Grant for the conference "Coffee Break Conference 5. The influence of space on culture in South Asia". Funding amount: €1,500.
Sapienza University Research Office Grant. Project title: "Contact-based approach to the Late Indo-European isoglosses: branch-crossing features and linguistic areas". Funding amount: €4,500.
2013
Sapienza University International Office Grant for a visiting scholarship for Prof. Alexander Lubotsky (Leiden University). Funding amount: €9,000.
2012
Sapienza University Research Office Grant. Project title: "La morfologia derivazionale nelle lingue indoeuropee orientali: dal pensiero grammaticale antico all'indoeuropeistica moderna". Funding amount: €3,000.
Projects
Isoglosses.info
Currently, this is the only available project. Visit the project website. A detailed description will be added to this page soon.
Teaching
Reminder
This is my personal web page. Those who are looking for information about classes and courses I teach, are invited to refer to my Teaching page. In this section only a brief summary is presented.
Current Courses
General Linguistics (Undergraduate)
6 credits | Department of Oriental Studies, Sapienza University of Rome
Historical Linguistics (Undergraduate)
6 credits | Department of Oriental Studies, Sapienza University of Rome
General Linguistics (Graduate)
6 credits | Department of Oriental Studies, Sapienza University of Rome
Previous Teaching
- 2021–2026: CIVIS Blended Learning Course: Languages in Europe and their diachronies
- 2010: Russian language (University of L'Aquila, Faculty of Humanities)
- 2009–2010: Linguistics (Faculty of Oriental Studies, Sapienza)
- 2005–2007: Syntax (undergraduate, 4 credits, Faculty of Humanities, Sapienza)
Textbooks and Teaching Materials
The textbook on general linguistics co-authored with C. A. Ciancaglini is available here.
Selected unpublished teaching materials used in my courses are available here.
Contact
My address
Office: Sapienza University of Rome
Department "ISO – Italian Institute of Oriental Studies"
"Marco Polo" building, III floor, room 316
Official address: Circonvallazione Tiburtina 4, 00185 Roma
Effective address: Viale dello Scalo di S. Lorenzo 82, 00159 Roma
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Other writings
This section presents writings that extend beyond formal academic publications, including popular essays, teaching materials, self-published research, and unpublished drafts.
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Blog
This section features posts from my blog Śabdānuśāsana, a Sanskrit term meaning 'Explanation of words'. I share reflections on topics ranging from linguistics to art history.
Unable to load blog posts. Visit the blog directly on Tumblr →
Fonts
I develop custom fonts for specialized applications in linguistics and historical studies.
Vulcanius
Version 1.04 (Updated October 20, 2004)
Description
This font renders the Gothic alphabet with glyph shapes modeled on Times New Roman. The font includes the complete Gothic alphabet, together with two glyph variants: one for the letter Sauil (S) and one for the letter Eis (I).
Download
The font is freely available for download. Please note that the font remains a work in progress; comments and suggestions are welcome.
Technical Details
- Full Gothic alphabet coverage
- Times New Roman-style glyphs
- Two alternative letter forms included
- Suitable for scholarly texts and Gothic language studies
Book Typesetting
Over the years, I have typeset numerous scholarly books, conference proceedings, and journals using InDesign, LaTeX, and other typesetting tools. (Sometimes I am credited as the layout editor, and some other times I am not.)
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Art Collection
A selection of artworks in my personal collection.
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About This Page
Welcome
Welcome to my homepage. Here you will find my CV, a list of my publications, and other materials. Please use the menu above to navigate among the site's sections.
How this page was made
This website was built through interaction between the author and several AI applications, most notably Claude Opus and DeepSeek, with more limited use of ChatGPT. All scholarly content and data are the author's own; the interface, design, and a substantial part of the implementation were produced and then iteratively refined through AI-assisted dialogue.
Many features, including the algorithm that renders floating letters in the background, were developed as experiments, largely to test the limits of this workflow.
Administration
Access the admin panel (password protected).
Artemij Keidan