Alessandro Del Tomba is Ricercatore Tenure Track (Assistant Professor) in historical linguistics. His research focuses on the languages and cultures of Central Asia during the first millennium CE, with particular expertise in Tocharian A and B, Eastern Iranian languages (notably Khotanese, Tumshuqese, and Bactrian), and Middle Ino-Aryan varieties. He employs a multidisciplinary approach to these languages, including the comparative method for Indo-European, Iranian, and Indo-Iranian reconstruction, structural analysis in both synchronic and diachronic perspectives, the study of contact linguistics and historical sociolinguistics, with particular emphasis on philological, palaeographic, and textual aspects. He is the editor of a volume (Reichert Verlag) and the author of a monograph (Brill) and several articles published in top peer-reviewed international journals and conference proceedings. He has presented papers at conferences and workshops in Italy (Rome, Pavia, Pisa, Salerno, Viterbo) and abroad (Vienna, Berlin, Leiden, Cologne, St. Petersburg, Kyoto, Hachioji) and has been visiting scholar at the University of Leiden (2019-2020), and at Soka University in Hachioji (2024). 

Academic functions and training

• 2024-present Assistant Professor of Historical Lingusitics, Sapienza Università di Roma

• 2021-2024 Research Fellow (Ricercatore a tempo determinato di tipo A), Sapienza Università di Roma

• 2021-present Managing Editor of Ricerche Linguistiche

• 2020-2021 Postdoctoral researcher (Assegnista di ricerca), Sapienza Università di Roma

• 2019 Visiting researcher, Universiteit Leiden

• 2018-2020 Academic tutor and examiner, Università di Roma Guglielmo Marconi

• 2018-2019  University Assistant (prae-doc), Istituto Italiano di Studi Orientali

• 2016-2020 Full-time PhD researcher, Comparative Indo-European Linguistics, Universiteit Leiden

• 2016-2019 Full-time PhD researcher, Linguistics, Sapienza Università di Roma

• 2015 Master's degree, Linguistics, Sapienza Università di Roma

• 2013 Bachelor's degree, Humanities (Linguistics), Sapienza Università di Roma

Selected conference presentations and invited talks

• 10/2024 “Buddhist elements in the Khotanese Rāmāyaṇa”, lecture at Soka University of Japan (invited).

• 10/2024 “On the relationship between the manuscripts of the Khotanese Siddhasāra: Linguistic and historical data”, Kyoto Symposium of Silk Road Studies — from India to China via Turfan – Kyoto University, October 4–7, 2024 (invited).

• 09/2024 “Palaeographic and phonetic remarks on rr and r in Khotanese”. Language and culture in the borderlands of the Eastern Silk Road, Wien Universität – Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, September 3–6, 2024.

• 06/2022 “Allomorphic variation in Khotanese nominal morphology. The Indo-Iranian background of the nominative-accusative plural of the a-declension”. Indogermanist Kolloquium. Universität zu Köln, May 27, 2022 (invited).

• 12/2021 “Remarks on the historical nominal morphology of Khotanese. The origin of the kīra-type and related issue”. Comparative Indo-European Linguistics Seminars, Leiden University, December 17, 2021 (invited).

• 10/2019 “Morpho-phonological problems in Tocharian: the case of final PIE -ur”. Wien Universität, Recent Advances in Tocharian Philology and Linguistics, October 25–27, 2019 (invited).

Memberships, cooperations, and other academic qualifications

• 2024-present Member of the Scientific Board for the linguistic section of the book series SIGNA – Linguaggio, storia e civiltà nel mondo antico, EDI Press UniMarconi.

• 2024-present Elected member of the Corpus Inscriptionum Iranicarum (CII), Cambridge, UK.

• 2023-2034 Italian National Academic Qualification (ASN) for the position of Associate Professor in Historical and General Linguistics (10/G1).

• 2023-present Co-opted member of the Societas Iranologica Europaea (SIE).

• 2022-present Co-opted member of the Società Italiana di Glottologia (SIG).