The Kenneth E. Naylor Professorship of South Slavic Linguistics was established November 5, 1993 in the College of Humanities through gifts to The Ohio State University from the estate of Dr. Naylor. The professorship, a five-year renewable appointment, is dedicated to preserving and continuing the scholarly legacy of Dr. Naylor, a leading scholar in South Slavic and Balkan linguistics who taught at The Ohio State University from 1966 to 1992, when he tragically passed away at the age of 55.
Professor Brian D. Joseph was named the first Kenneth E. Naylor Professor in 1997, and he has been renewed five times since then in this position. He now holds joint appointments in the Department of Linguistics and the Department of Slavic and East European Languages and Cultures.
As part of the Naylor Professorship, Professor Joseph established an annual Lecture on South Slavic Linguistics in Kenneth Naylor’s memory that brings leading scholars in the field to OSU each Spring for a public lecture.