Greenberg remembrance (note: May 29 event postponed)

A special message from Will Leben:

May 28, 2015 is the 100th anniversary of the birth of Joseph H. Greenberg, one of the most influential linguists of the 20th century and one of the founders of our Linguistics Department. Greenberg has been called the father of modern linguistic typology. His early work on language universals, including his 1963 paper “Some universals of grammar with particular reference to the order of meaningful elements,” which has 3,457 Google Scholar citations, led directly to Stanford’s Language Universals Project, which he co-directed from 1967 to 1976.

Greenberg's work on language classification--which spans his entire career--always generated controversy but resulted, for example, in a wholesale reclassification of the languages of Africa.

A tip of the hat to Krystyna Wachowicz, who worked under Greenberg as a research associate on the Language Universals Project, for reminding us of this important birthday. The department will host an event to celebrate Greenberg's centenary early in the fall. The special colloquium to mark the hundredth anniversary of the birth of Joseph Greenberg, originally scheduled for May 29 at 3:30, has had to be postponed. Stay tuned for an announcement of the updated time/place in the fall.