Brenna Reinhart Byrd

Education:
2004-2010 Ph.D. Germanic Linguistics, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Advisor: Christopher M. Stevens
2003-2004 Freie Universität, Berlin, Germany: Germanistik (via DAAD stipend)
2003 M.A., UCLA; Germanic Linguistics
2000 B.A., University of Texas at Austin: German with minor in Linguistics
1998-1999 Universität Kassel, Germany: Germanistik (via VDAC stipend)
Biography:

I am an Associate Professor with a joint appointment in MCLLC and Linguistics, and my expertise is in Germanic Linguistics, Indo-European Studies, Comparative Mythology, Video Games, and Language Pedagogy. Having received my PhD in Germanic Linguistics from UCLA in 2010, I have spent much of my academic career exploring how our conceptions of ourselves affect how we learn, how we interact with others, and even how we interpret research and literature. In more recent years, I have expanded this interest in identity and learning to how people learn in general, and I have been exploring transformational teaching practices for teaching languages and linguistics. I have also worked as a linguistic consultant for video games and television, most notably creating and teaching the constructed language (conlang) Winja, which was based on Proto-Indo-European, with my husband and fellow linguist here at UK, Dr. Andrew Byrd, for an internationally successful video game, Ubisoft's Far Cry Primal. I am currently working with him on an introductory textbook for Proto-Indo-European that could be used both in an academic setting as well as accessible for the general public. 

Research Interests:
Germanic Linguistics
Proto-Indo-European
Style and Sociolinguistic Variation
ConLangs
History of the German Language
Turkish-German identity
Hip Hop Studies
Second Language Acquisition
Game Studies
Culturally Sustaining Pedagogies
Resistance Vernaculars
Funded Grants
  • UK Energy Research Priority Area grant for “Energy Across the Curriculum: The Influence of Climate, Energy, and Sustainability Topics in World Language Curriculum on Learner Attitudes toward Climate Action,” $38,119, to create and embed climate education in Russian, German, and Japanese language class units and study learner attitudes before and after these units, Co-I with Molly Blasing (PI), Koji Tanno (Co-I), and student assistants, 2023.
  • Research and Creative Activities Support Program award, $3,000, to create linguistic puzzles for the video game Roots of the Ancients, with Andrew Byrd, 2020.
  • University of Kentucky Libraries Alternative Textbook Grant Program, $2,500, to continue work on a free OER textbook that teaches Proto-Indo-European through immersive lessons, with Andrew Byrd, 2020.
  • National Endowment for the Humanities – Digital Projects for the Public Discovery Grant: “The Anatolian Trail: An Indo-European Adventure,” $30,000, to work on the development of a video game to teach Proto-Indo-European linguistics, culture, and archaeology, Co-PI with Andrew Byrd, 2019.
  • University of Kentucky Libraries Alternative Textbook Grant Program, $2,500, to continue work on a free OER textbook that teaches Proto-Indo-European through immersive lessons, with Andrew Byrd, 2019.
  • Research and Creative Activities Support Program award, $5,000, to create artwork and voice-acted dialogue on The Anatolian Trail: An Indo-European Adventure, with Andrew Byrd, 2019.
  • AATG Netzwerk Deutsch funding for Kentucky Chapter Project Deshalb Deutsch!, $700, to create an annual competition and award prizes for students at UK to create videos advertising taking German courses, with Bess Dawson, 2018.
  • A&S Compressed Course Program, $5,000, to host Award-winning Scottish Playwright Alan McKendrick to co-teach a Compressed Course entitled “Translating for the Stage: How Language Style Affects ‘Successful’ Performance,” 2014.   
Consulting Work
  • Linguistic Consultant for Amazon Games, May-August, 2025.
  • Linguistic Consultant for Eidos Montreal, May-August, 2023.
  • Game Worldbuilding and Game World Logic Consultant for Sweet Baby, Inc., 2021-Present.
  • Linguistic Consultant and Dialect Coach for A44 Games, 2021-2022.
  • Linguistic Consultant for National Geographic’s Origins: The Journey of Humankind (TV Series), 2017.
  • Linguistic Consultant and Dialect Coach for Ubisoft’s video game Far Cry: Primal, 2014-2016.
Professional Development
  • University of Kentucky (UK) CELT workshop on Teaching Approaches for Student Wellbeing: UDL & Trauma-Informed Pedagogies, Feb. 13, 2025.
  • UK CELT workshop on Establishing and Cultivating Community and Belonging in the Classroom, Nov. 19, 2024.
  • UK CELT Universal Design for Learning Boot Camp, July 16-18, 2024.
  • UK CELT workshop on the Pedagogy of Play, April 30, 2024.  
  • University of Kentucky CELT Teaching Innovation Institute, 2022-2023.
  • UK CELT Reading Group on Dr. Michelle D. Miller’s Remembering and Forgetting in the Age of Technology, Fall 2023.
  • University of Kentucky Arts & Sciences DEI Leaders retreat, Sept. 16, 2022.
  • Diversity, Decolonization and the German Curriculum “Why/Whether German” Action Group Discussion, Jan 15, 2021.
  • KWLA Book Club: ACTFL's Words and Actions: Teaching World Languages Through the Lens of Social Justice, June 29 – July 27, 2020.
  • University of Kentucky Week of Teaching Virtual Symposium, April 27-May 1, 2020.
  • University of Kentucky Faculty Fellows Cohort 4: Multimodal Communication 2015-2017.
  • AATG Professional Development Seminar on Authentic Resources, presented by die Zentrallstelle für das Auslandsschulwesen (ZfA), Lexington, KY, April 2016.
  • Meeting Student Needs in College German Programs AATG 3-Day Faculty Seminar on Curriculum Development at the College Level, Georgetown University in Washington, DC, October 10-12, 2014.
  • A&S-CELT Hybridization Institute, MCLLC representative, UK, Sept. 2013.
  • Intellectual Inquiry UK Core Assessment: Humanities, UK, May 2012.
  • Instructional Technology Consultant, Center for Digital Humanities, UCLA, 2008-2010. 
My Calendar

Selected Publications:
  • “Teaching Proto-Indo-European as a Constructed Language,” with Andrew Byrd; Jeffrey Punske, Amy Fountain, and Nathan Sanders (eds.). Language Invention in Linguistics Pedagogy. Oxford University Press (September 2020).
  • “Supporting Graduate Students of Color in German Studies: A Syllabus,” Ervin Malakaj and Regine Criser (eds.). Diversity, Decolonialization, and the German Curriculum. Palgrave Macmillan (March 2020).
  • “Resistance Vernaculars in Turkish-German Hip-hop,” Justin Williams (ed.). The Cambridge Companion to Hip Hop. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (April 2015)
  • "Media Representations of Turkish-German and Hip-Hop Language as a Uniform Ethnolect" In: Proceedings of the Seventeenth Annual Symposium About Language and Society - Austin. Texas Linguistic Forum 53. (2009)