Welcome!

I am a PhD student in the University of Pennsylvania’s Department of Linguistics. I am affiliated with the Language Contact and Cognition Lab, XMorph Lab, and Cultural Evolution of Language Lab. My research interests are centered around language contact with an emphasis on contact-induced change of morphology, so I am lucky to be co-advised by Professors Marlyse Baptista and David Embick.

I can be best reached at pristina[at]sas[dot]upenn[dot]edu, or you can use this link. I live and work on the Indigenous territory Lenapehoking of the Lenape. As a linguist, the role language policy and planning play in the systematic repression of Indigenous languages, histories, and cultures cannot be overlooked. To learn more about the Lenape language, specifically, please visit these sources: Lenape Language Introduction, The Lenape Talking Dictionary, Place-Names, and References.

Upcoming & Recent Events

• Presentation at SLE 58: Expansion of Betawi ber–nya Nominaliation Under Prolonged Contact with Indonesian. Presentation at SLE 58 (Workshop 13: Morphological Boundaries in Creole Languages), 26-29 August 2025, Bordeaux, France.
• Presentation at SEALS 34: Pristina Koon. Comparing the pronominal paradigms of two Malayophone Creoles – Manado Malay and Betawi. Paper to be presented at the Annual Meeting of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society (SEALS 34), 10-13 June 2025, Bali, Indonesia (Virtual talk).

My Name

Although I was named after the capital of Kosova/o, my parents adopted an Americanized pronunciation, so my first name is pronounced [prɪˈstinə] or pris-teen-ah. My surname/family name is represented by the Chinese character 官. You can listen to the variations of its pronunciation here, but the Hakka one is the most applicable to my family.

Broad Research Interests

• Language contact
• Bi/multilingualism
• Mixed languages & Creolistics
• Diasporic language use & diasporic language contact
• Urban language contact & linguistic diversity
• Heritage languages & language learning
• Areal linguistics
• Trade & port languages
• Language change & variation
• Information structure
• Endangered languages & language maintenance
• Language evolution & language ecologies