My name is Gabrielle Isgar and I’m currently a third-year Ph.D. Candidate in Spanish Linguistics within the Department of Modern Languages & Linguistics at Florida State University. Focused on phonology, or the study of sound patterns, my dissertation research analyzes and compares stress in two Mayan languages spoken in Guatemala, K’ichee’ and Mam, and Guatemalan Spanish.

As part of FSU Libraries’ 2022-2023 PEN & Inc. cohort, I’ve been working to create a transcription tool that converts between the orthographic system used by the K’ichee’ (Mayan)-speaking community, based on the Unified Mayan Alpahbet (UMA), and the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) – the symbol system used to represent all possible sounds that exist across the world’s languages.