David M. Weeks, PhD

Translator and editor

Telephone: 413.863.5188
E-mail: d_weeks@sonic.net
WWW: http://www.sonic.net/~dweeks/work/

PROFILE

Experienced editor and translator with wide-ranging interests in technology, science, and humanities. PhD in Indo-European philology; world-class command of English grammar, spelling, and style. Translates from German, French, Spanish (to English). Working knowledge of Italian, Latin, Classical Greek, Sanskrit, Old English, Russian.

KEY SKILLS

German/French/Spanish to English
Expert copyeditor — publication-ready copy
HTML and Web publishing skills

Academic and scientific material
Software localization
Secure file transfers

SUBJECT AREAS

Anthropology, sociology, archaeology, history, mythology, religion, psychology, linguistics, lexicography, paleography, music, film, radio, sailing & nautical, politics and current events

Also experienced in: electronics, astronomy & space science, geology, general science, transportation & shipping
IT, software documentation, networking, Internet, web publishing & HTML

EXPERIENCE

Translating:

Published translations from French and German (see TRANSLATIONS, below)

Editing and publishing:

Senior Editor, Houghton Mifflin Company (Reference Division)

Etymologies and general editing on American Heritage Dictionary, Third Edition and College, Student, Concise, and paperback dictionaries. Revised and restructured Indo-European roots appendix. Thoroughly revised affixes and nautical terminology.
Senior Contributing Editor, Concise American Heritage Larousse Spanish Dictionary. Performed final review of Spanish-English entries.
Research and consulting for Word Mysteries and Histories.

Editorial contributor, Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.

Researched and edited etymologies and consulted on American English for Microsoft Encarta World English Dictionary.

Freelance copyeditor:

Journal of Late Antique, Islamic and Byzantine Studies
jTEI: Journal of the Text Encoding Initiative
Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, D.C.
Harvard University Center for Hellenic Studies
Johns Hopkins University Press (German Studies Review, Journal of the History of Philosophy)
Berghahn Books, New York

Lexicography:

Authored articles on the American language (see OTHER PUBLICATIONS, below)

Technical writing:

Documentation specialist for software companies in California

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

Translations:

Cédric Scheidegger Laemmle, Literary Politics in Antiquity: Studies on Cicero, Virgil, Horace, and Ovid. (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming) (from German).

André Martinet, From the Steppes to the Sea: Indo-European and the “Indo-Europeans.” In preparation (from French).

G. A. Fedorov-Davydov, The Silk Road and the Cities of the Golden Horde (Berkeley, Zinat Press, 2001) (uncredited retranslation from Russian).

Gerhard Wehr, Jung: A Biography (Shambhala Press, 1987) (540 pp.; from German).

Articles for the Encyclopedia of Religion (Macmillan Company, 1985–1986) (articles on Buddhism, Hinduism, eastern religions; from French).

Georges Dumézil, The Plight of a Sorcerer (University of California Press, 1986) (120 pp.; from French).

Georges Dumézil, The Stakes of the Warrior (University of California Press, 1983) (154 pp.; from French, with passages from Old Norse, Latin, Greek, and Sanskrit).

Other publications:

“Communications: From Snail Mail to Email,” “Cyberspace: I Hear America Clicking,” “Transportation: Hitchin’ a Ride,” all in Speaking Freely, ed. Anne Soukhanov and Stuart Berg Flexner (Oxford University Press, 1997) (essays on the American language).

Hittite Vocabulary: An Anatolian Appendix to Buck’s Dictionary of Selected Synonyms (PhD dissertation: UCLA, 1985 — a multilingual etymological dictionary).

EDUCATION

University of California, Los Angeles. PhD in Indo-European Studies. Teaching Assistant in Sociology.

University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Bachelor’s Degree in Linguistic Anthropology and Sociology. Studies in Old English, Old Norse, Spanish; sociology, sociolinguistics, linguistic anthropology.

Hampshire College, Amherst, Mass. Studies in linguistics and sociology.

Deerfield Academy, Deerfield, Mass. Prize in Spanish.

Last modified 3 June 2025