The title to this post is a quote given to me by University of Minnesota's Professor Anatoly Liberman. Professor Roberta Frank at Yale also affirmed that there is a dearth of available opportunities for the budding historical linguist. Despite the dour outlook I still sometimes fantasize about a life of academia especially when I read the interests of the two following professors (Professor Liberman being one) whose areas of study mirror my own interests:

Professor Eric Stanley at Pembroke College, Oxford -

Interests: History of the English Language from Old English onwards; history of the study of Germanic philology and especially English philology, from the beginning of the study of Anglo-Saxon onwards

Professor Anatoly Liberman at the University of Minnesota -

Professor Liberman's areas of teaching and research include the languages and literature of the Middle Ages. In linguistics, he is mainly interested in historical phonology and the origin of words and is working on a new etymological dictionary of English. In literature, his publications deal with Germanic poetry and Scandinavian myths. He teaches courses on the history of German, Old Icelandic, Gothic, Scandinavian mythology, and German folklore.

In some parallel universe I'm sitting in a library studying Norn right now.

Graduate Studies in Linguistics, Philology & Phonetics [University of Oxford]
Anatoly Liberman [University of Minnesota: GSD]

Labels: dashed dreams, historical linguists, parallel universe, philology