Joseph Amyot Padjan is a grammarian, writer, and independent researcher. He is the author of three books—Huns and Slavs, The Padjanaks, and The Kangar—as well as a number of monographs, the most important of which are Anomalous and Kurdish Surnames in Croatia and Symphorose Ouaouagoukoué and The Origin of the Illini.
If you would like to contact Joseph Amyot Padjan, please send an email to josephamyotpadjan@gmail.com.
Random facts about Joseph Amyot Padjan:
He is self-taught.
His favorite subject is English grammar. He knows almost all of Harper’s English Grammar by heart, verbatim, and recites the book over and over to maintain perfect recall of every single sentence that he has memorized. He has followed this strict regimen for more than thirty years, reciting every single day.
He always reads aloud and has done so for more than thirty years.
His favorite writers are John Dryden, Jonathan Swift, George Berkeley, Henry St. John (Lord Bolingbroke), Joseph Addison, James Anthony Froude, and Edmund Burke. He has memorized, verbatim, long passages of prose written by those authors, and has recited those passages over and over for more than thirty years, every day, for pleasure.
He finished all his writings before AI became available. He does not use grammar-checking software, and he never has. Having internalized Harper’s English Grammar, he does need to use such software. Neither does he use spell check (so in reading his writings you may perhaps find grammatical errors or misspelled words from time to time).
He loves classical music.
I need to clarify something here. I did not learn directly from Edgar Allan Poe that the finest prose is engineered to be read aloud. It occurred to me one day in 1995 while reading the first paragraph of one of Poe’s short stories that his prose was intended to be read aloud; and it further occurred to me that Poe could not possibly be the only writer or great prose stylist that intended his prose to be read aloud. I immediately realized that there must be a multitude of other writers who intended their prose writings to be read aloud as well. This happened in San Luis Obispo, California, while I was in Barnes and Noble one evening with a compilation of Poe’s prose writings in my hands. It was an epiphany, and it changed the trajectory of my life immediately. In less than one week, thanks to George Saintsbury, I came to know exactly who the greatest prose engineers of all time were, and from that time until the present day, I have read their prose writings aloud over and over, memorized verbatim long passages of their best prose, and have recited those passages every day for over thirty years. I study every day, and I always will. And, of course, I too write for the ear as much as I do for the mind.