Dr Rodrigo Hernaiz Gomez

Professional biography

Dr. Rodrigo Hernáiz is a Lecturer in Languages and Linguistics at the Open University.

He is a fellow of the HE Academy; BA/MA in Humanities, MA in Linguistics, MA in Ancient Languages, master in Assyriology and Cert Higher Education in Data Analysis.

After completing his degree in Linguistics, Rodrigo focused on Linguistic Typology and Historical Sociolinguistics, motivated by a keen interest in linguistic diversity and the dynamics of language change. He completed a dissertation on Studies on linguistic and orthographic variation in Old Babylonian letters and was awarded a PhD degree at the Philipps-University Marburg (Germany).

Before joining the OU, Rodrigo has worked as researcher at the Faculty of Philology of the University of Barcelona (Spain), and taught language courses at the Philipps-University Marburg (Germany) and the University of Bedfordshire (UK).​

ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0009-7672-4893 

Research interests

Rodrigo's interest focuses on linguistic diversity, in typological and diachronic perspective, encompassing both present-day and older linguistic landscapes.

He has employed quantitative and historical-sociolinguistic methods to analyse the variation and evolution of one of the longest-documented languages: Akkadian; he created the ACCOB corpus (Annotated Corpus of Correspondence in Old Babylonian), comprising ca.1800 letters annotated for bespoke grammatical features and extralinguistic metadata. He has also worked on cross-linguistic studies on complementation, grammaticalisation and historical syntax. He is currently in the preparatory phase of a project to document a lesser-described language of Southern Papua New Guinea.

Rodrigo's primary research objective is to explore linguistic diversity and the mechanisms of language variation and diversification, as well as patterns of linguistic stability. This interest extends to:

• language documentation and description, 
• historical linguistics and languages of the past,
• quantitative/probabilistic approaches to diachrony and diversity in languages and cultures. 

Teaching interests

Linguistic diversity, language variation and change, typology and grammatical description.

Rodrigo has worked in the production of the following OU courses/modules:

Impact and engagement

Academic consultant for the BBC Ideas video "Can saving languages save nature?" (Can saving languages save nature? - BBC Ideas, released 17 April 2023).

Academic consultant for the BBC Ideas video "The ancient secrets revealed by deciphered tablets" (The ancient secrets revealed by deciphered tablets - BBC Ideas, released 23 December 2021).

International links

Member of the Societas Linguistica Europaea (The Linguistic Society of Europe).

Member of the International Association of Assyriology.

Member of the Philological Society (PhilSoc).