ESP Biography



ANDREW BAYER, Programmer and Autodidact



Major: Not available.

College/Employer: Cloudera, Inc.

Year of Graduation: Not available.

Picture of Andrew Bayer

Brief Biographical Sketch:

I'm a programmer in San Francisco, and a voracious reader of books in a huge range of fields, especially the history of science, early modern European and Central Asian history, and historical linguistics. I've talked friends' and family members' ears off on these subjects, especially historical linguistics, so hey, I'll teach a short class on it! I'm also an alum of two Splashs when I was in high school back in the early '90s, so getting the chance to participate again is exciting!



Past Classes

  (Clicking a class title will bring you to the course's section of the corresponding course catalog)

H6952: A Quick Introduction to Historical Linguistics in Spark! 2013 (Mar. 16, 2013)
Why does English have so many French words? Why does it have so many German words? Why are "father" and "fish" in English instead "pater" and "pisces" in Latin? What's the closest relative of the language of Madagascar? We'll answer these questions and more in a quick introduction to the field of historical linguistics, the study of how languages change and spread.