Staff profile

I grew up in Chelmsford and studied at Pembroke College, Cambridge. I worked at the University of Cambridge and the University of Exeter before joining the Classics department in Durham in 2021.

My research fields include the languages of ancient Italy (including Oscan, Etruscan, Umbrian, Venetic, Latin and Greek), personal names, and epigraphy. I work mostly on historical sociolinguistics and the history of ancient languages in their social context; I am particularly interested in multilingualism, migration, language contact, gender linguistics and slavery.

With funding from the Leverhulme Trust, I will be embarking on a new project on enslaved people as language learners in the Roman Empire.

I am interested in supervising graduate students in ancient linguistics, epigraphy or language history.

• 2024: Leverhulme Trust: Philip Leverhulme Prize
• 2018: AHRC: Early Career Leadership Fellowship
• 2015: British School at Rome: Rome Award
• 2013: Gonville and Caius College: Junior Research Fellowship in Classics

Authored book

• McDonald, K. (2022). Italy Before Rome: A Sourcebook. Routledge
• McDonald, K. (2015). Oscan in Southern Italy and Sicily. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9781316218457

Chapter in book

• McDonald, K. (in press). Disrupting the patriarchy in pre-Roman Italy? Women in the epigraphic record c. 700 – 50 BCE. In Female Agency in the Ancient Mediterranean World (19-48). Liverpool University Press
• McDonald, K., & Dupraz, E. (2023). Studying ancient orthography. In Cambridge Handbook of Historical Orthography (285-304). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108766463
• McDonald, K., & Zair, N. (2023). Linguistic resistance to Rome: a reappraisal of the epigraphic evidence. In D. Jolowicz, & J. Elsner (Eds.), Articulating Resistance under the Roman Empire. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108753425
• McDonald, K. (2021). Language and psychology. In D. Wharton (Ed.), A Cultural History of Color in Antiquity. Bloomsbury
• McDonald, K. (2021). The dedications to Reitia and the epigraphic visibility of women in Este and the Veneto. In E. Dupraz, & M. J. Estarán Tolosa (Eds.), Des mot pour les dieus. Dédicaces cultuelles dans les langues indigènes de la Mediterranée occidentale. Peter Lang
• Clackson, J., & McDonald, K. (2020). The language of mobile craftsmen in the Western Mediterranean. In J. Clackson, P. James, K. McDonald, L. Tagliapietra, & N. Zair (Eds.), Migration, Mobility and Language Contact in and around the Ancient Mediterranean. Cambridge University Press
• McDonald, K., & Zair, N. (2017). Changing script in a threatened language: reactions to Romanisation at Bantia in the first century BC. In M. C. Jones, & D. Mooney (Eds.), Creating Orthographies for Endangered Languages (291-304). Cambridge University Press
• McDonald, K. (2016). Les langues de l’échange en Italie : artisans, monnaie et négociants dans la région osque méridionale. In A.-F. Baroni, G. Bernard, B. Le Teuff, & C. Ruiz Darasse (Eds.), Échanger en Méditerranée: Acteurs, pratiques et normes dans les mondes anciens (127-142). Presses Universitaires de Rennes
• McDonald, K. (2015). Genres, continuity and adaptation in the epigraphy of South Oscan. In E. Dupraz, & W. Sowa (Eds.), Genres épigraphiques et langues d’attestation fragmentaire dans l’espace méditerranéen (357-374). Presses universitaires de Rouen et du Havre
• McDonald, K. (2012). Do personal names in South Oscan show influence from Greek?. In T. Meißner (Ed.), Personal Names in the Western Roman World (41-58). Curach Bhán

Edited book

• Clackson, J., James, P., McDonald, K., Tagliapietra, L., & Zair, N. (Eds.). (2020). Migration, Mobility and Language Contact in and around the Ancient Mediterranean. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108763943

Journal Article

• McDonald, K. (2019). Education and Literacy in Ancient Italy: Evidence from the Dedications to the Goddess Reitia. The Journal of Roman Studies, 109, 131-159. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0075435819000856
• McDonald, K. (2017). Fragmentary ancient languages as “bad data”. Sociolinguistica, 31(1), 31-48. https://doi.org/10.1515/soci-2017-0004
• McDonald, K., Tagliapietra, L., & Zair, N. (2015). New readings of the multilingual Petelia curse tablet. Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik, 195, 157-165
• McDonald, K. (2012). The Testament of Vibius Adiranus. The Journal of Roman Studies, 102, 40-55. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0075435812000044
• McDonald, K., & Zair, N. (2012). Oscan ϝουρουστ and the Roccagloriosa law tablet