Michaël Peyrot is Professor of Comparative Indo-European Linguistics at the Leiden University Centre for Linguistics.

More information about Michaël Peyrot

Research

Michaël Peyrot’s research focuses on the reconstruction of Proto-Indo-European, in particular the verbal system, and on language contact and prehistory, especially in the Tocharian, Iranian and Indic branches. The leading question is how language contact can be used to draw conclusions about linguistic prehistory. More broadly, he is intrigued by the question how languages have come to be as they are. For instance, how do different changes in a language correlate, i.e. how do changes in e.g. consonants and vowels, or in phonology and morphology, or in different morphological categories interact? How does language contact influence linguistic change? Which causes are there to language spread, language split and language death?

Research interests

• Comparative Indo-European Linguistics
• Language Contact and Prehistory
• Verbal morphology
• Tocharian, Iranian, Indic
• Central Asian Buddhism and Turkic

Teaching (selection)

• Indo-European Verb
• Language and the Human Past
• Reading Vedic texts
• Readings in Indo-European Linguistics
• Tocharian

Academic functions and training

• 2023– present: Professor of Comparative Indo-European Linguistics at Leiden University
• 2022: Associate Professor at Leiden University
• 2016–2022: Assistant Professor at Leiden University
• 2014-2016: Postdoctoral researcher at the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, Berlin, with the Marie Curie project Niya Tocharian: Language contact and prehistory on the Silk Road. 
• 2011-2014: Postdoctoral researcher for A Comprehensive Edition of Tocharian Manuscripts at the University of Vienna, Austria.
• 2009 - present: Editor of Tocharian and Indo-European Studies.
• 2005-2010: Teacher / researcher at Leiden University
• 2004-2010: PhD student at Leiden University with The Tocharian subjunctive, supervised by Prof. Lubotsky (defence 28 September 2010, cum laude)
• 2004-2007: Contributor to the British Library International Dunhuang Project and the TITUS  Tocharica Project at Frankfurt University.
• 2001-2002: Editorial assistant of Cognitive Linguistics.
• 1999-2004: MA Comparative Indo-European Linguistics, Leiden University (MA thesis Variant forms in Tocharian B; cum laude)
• 1993-2003: MA Dutch language and literature, Leiden University (MA thesis on argumentation). 

Funded projects

• 2024-present:  “The Silk Road Language Web”, European Research Council (ERC) Consolidator Grant.
• 2018-2023:  “The Tocharian Trek”, European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grant.
• 2016-2021: “Tracking the Tocharians”, The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) VIDI.
• 2014-2016: “Niya-Tocharian”, Marie Curie Intra-European Fellowship. 
• 2004-2009: “The Tocharian Subjunctive”, Leiden University PhD Scholarship.

PhD students

• Alessandro Del Tomba (2016-2020) - The Tocharian gender system. A diachronic study. (published with Brill; co-tutelle Leiden University – Sapienza, Rome; currently Research Fellow / RTDA at Sapienza, Rome)
• Federico Dragoni (2017-2022) - Watañi lāntaṃ: Khotanese and Tumshuqese loanwords in Tocharian  (published with Reichert Verlag; part of the NWO-VIDI project Tracking the Tocharians)
• Chams Bernard (2017-2023) -  Like dust on the Silk Road: an investigation of the earliest Iranian loanwords and of possible BMAC borrowings in Tocharian (part of the NWO-VIDI project Tracking the Tocharians)
• Olga Lundysheva (2017-)- Studies on the Tocharian B manuscripts of the Saint Petersburg (IOM RAS) collection with a special focus on codicology and palaeography.
• Louise Friis (2019-) - Studies in Tocharian verbal morphology relevant to the cladistic position of Tocharian in Indo-European (Part of the ERC-Stg project The Tocharian Trek)
• Niels Schoubben (2019-) - Traces of language contact in Niya Prakrit: Bactrian and other foreign elements (Part of the ERC-Stg project The Tocharian Trek)
• Abel Warries (2019-) - Prehistoric Contact between Tocharian and Uralic. (Part of the ERC-Stg project The Tocharian Trek)

Memberships and cooperations

• Cooperation partner of the “Sino-Indo-Iranica rediviva – Early Eurasian migratory terms in Chinese and their cultural implications” of Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Behr, University of Zurich.
• Member of the Young Academy of Europe (2017–2023).
• Chercheur associé of the Unité Mixte de Recherche 7528, “Mondes iranien et indien”, of the CNRS / EPHE / Sorbonne Nouvelle / INALCO, Paris, France (2015–2019).
• Member of the Advisory Council of the Leiden University Centre for Linguistics (since 2017).
• Collaborator of “A Comprehensive Edition of Tocharian Manuscripts” (CEToM) of Prof. Dr. Melanie Malzahn, University of Vienna (2011–2014; since 2014 external).

Editorial tasks

• Co-editor of Tocharian and Indo-European Studies (since 2011, volume 12)
• Co-editor of a.o. two Festschrifts, a conference proceedings, and Emil Sieg: Tocharologica

Publications

Activities