Jacob Billings

Jacob Billings is a software engineer and linguist whose interdisciplinary research bridges computational methods and historical language studies. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Middle Eastern Studies from the University of Utah and a master’s degree in linguistics from Francisco Marroquín University in Guatemala City. He is currently a PhD candidate in the Department of Complex Systems at the Polytechnic University in Madrid, Spain. His research focuses on four primary areas: the application of artificial intelligence algorithms to historical linguistics and epigraphy; morphosyntactic structures in Mesoamerican and Mesopotamian languages; linguistic patterns in the Book of Mormon and among early members of the Latter-day Saint movement; and the intersection of linguistics and political philosophy, particularly how language shapes perceptions of liberty. His broader work includes tracing the evolution of languages over time, with a focus on how linguistic structures emerge, diverge, and interact across cultural and historical contexts.