Welcome!

Nearly six decades ago, my father sat me on his lap and told me stories about far away places where people lived among the jungle rivers and animals on their islands. He told me these stories in a form of English that he had learned while serving in the US Army during WW II on the islands of Guadalcanal & Bougainville. The language was Tok Pijin.
   Many years later, I realized it was during those critical days of my infant development that Sarge first introduced me to language as something deep but not quite uniquely human.
   I still speak some Tok Pijin, much to the annoyance of my children, wife and co-workers. But because of those lessons learned at my father's knee, I have been fascinated ever since with the way we high-maintenance primates communicate.
   Today I am a linguist. In a world of my own design, I am also "El Gringo Errante," a moniker taken from my Uncle Ted Schreiber's tendency for physical and intellectual peregrinations.
   I work in the Center for Teaching & Learning at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio. My wife and I and the younger of two sons live in a small knot of humanity near an interstate highway. The rest of these pages explain this all and more.

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