Joseph H. Greenberg (1915–2001)

Author of Universals of Language: Report of a Conference Held at Dobbs Ferry, New York, April 13-15, 1961

36+ Works 336 Members 4 Reviews

About the Author

Joseph H. Greenberg, May 28, 1915 - May 7, 2001 Joseph H. Greenberg was born on May 28, 1915 in Brooklyn, New York to a Polish immigrant father who owned a pharmacy, but lost it in the Depression. His mother was German, the language that a young Joseph grew up with. Greenberg may have had a career show more as a professional pianist if he had stayed with it. But while attending Columbia University, Greenberg decided to become a social anthropologists, doing field work on the religion of the Hausa-speaking people of West Africa. He received his Ph. D. from Northwestern University in 1940. After college, Greenberg entered the Army Signal Intelligence Service, decoding Italian signals. It was through this that he realized he wanted to devote his life to the study of linguistics. He returned to Columbia University where he remained from 1948 to 1962, becoming chairman of the anthropology department. From Columbia, Greenberg went on to Stanford, from which he retired from in 1985, but continued to work through til a few months before his death. Greenberg is best known for his attempts to trace relationships among the world's 5,000 languages. Greenberg's major works include his classification of the 1,500 languages of Africa into four groups which was published in 1955. He then assigned the languages of North and South America into three groups in a work entitled "Language in the Americas", published in 1987. Before he died, Greenberg was working on the languages of Asia, a project he was never able to finish. Joseph Greenberg died on May 7, 2001 in Stanford, California from cancer. He was 85. show less

Includes the names: Joesph Greenberg, Joseph Greenberg, ed. Joseph. Greenberg, Joseph Harold Greenberg, Joseph H. ed. Greenberg, Editor Joseph H. Greenberg

Series

Universals of Human Language

Works by Joseph H. Greenberg

Popular Recent

Universals of Language: Report of a Conference Held at Dobbs Ferry, New York, April 13-15, 1961 (1966) — Editor — 71 copies, 2 reviews

Essays in Linguistics (1957) 48 copies, 1 review

Indo-European and Its Closest Relatives: The Eurasiatic Language Family, Volume 1, Grammar (2000) 28 copies, 1 review

Language in the Americas (1987) 20 copies

Genetic Linguistics: Essays on Theory and Method (2005) 19 copies

Indo-European and Its Closest Relatives: The Eurasiatic Language Family, Volume 2, Lexicon (2002) 18 copies

The languages of Africa (1963) 17 copies

A new invitation to linguistics (1977) 16 copies

Anthropological linguistics : an introduction (1968) 15 copies

Language Universals (1980) 15 copies

Universals of Human Language, Volume 1: Method and Theory (1978) — Editor — 11 copies

Language, Culture and Communication (1971) — Author — 9 copies

Studies in African linguistic classification (1955) 7 copies

Universals of Human Language, Volume 3: Word Structure (1978) 5 copies

Universals of Human Language, Volume 4: Syntax (1978) 5 copies

Universals of Human Language, Volume 2: Phonology (1978) 3 copies

Universals of Language 3 copies

The Arabian nights 2 copies

The Theory of Social Situations: An Alternative Game-Theoretic Approach (1990) 2 copies

Linguistics in the 1970's (1970) 2 copies

The Theory of Social Situations: A Game-Theoretic Approach (1990) 2 copies

Introduzione alla linguistica 2 copies

Language typology; a historical and analytic overview (2010) 2 copies

Les langues indoeuropéennes et la famille eurasiatique. Tome 1, Grammaire (2003) 2 copies

Fables 1 copy

Current Trends in Linguistics, Volume 7: Linguistics in Sub-Saharan Africa 1 copy

Aesops' Fables 1 copy

Universals of Human Language, Vol. 2: Phonology (1978-08-16) [Hardcover] 1 copy

An Amerind Etymological Dictionary [Version 12: September 4, 2007] 1 copy

Aesop's Fables 1 copy

Linguistics in the 1970's (1970) 1 copy

The Languages of Africa (1963) 1 copy

Language Typology: A Historical & Analytical Overview (1974) 1 copy

The influence of Islam on a Sudanese religion 1 copy

Influence of Islam on a Sudanese Religion, The 1 copy

Universals of Human Language, Volume 4: Syntax (v. 4) (1978-09-16) [Hardcover] 1 copy

Work Explorer

Associated Works

Nostratic: Sifting the Evidence (1998) — Contributor — 8 copies

Approaches to grammaticalization. Volume 1, Focus on theoretical and methodological issues (1990) — Contributor — 7 copies

Papers from the 4th International Conference on Historical Linguistics (1980) — Contributor — 4 copies

New vistas in grammar invariance and variation (1991) — Contributor — 4 copies

Reconstructing grammar : comparative linguistics and grammaticalization (2000) — Contributor — 4 copies

Functional approaches to language, culture, and cognition papers in honor of Sydney M. Lamb (2000) — Contributor — 3 copies

First person singular II autobiographies (1991) — Contributor — 3 copies

Edward Sapir, appraisals of his life and work (1984) — Contributor — 3 copies

Language typology 1987 : systematic balance in language : papers from the Linguistic Typology Symposium, Berkeley, 1-3… (1990) — Contributor — 2 copies

Principles and prediction the analysis of natural language : papers in honor of Gerald Sanders (1993) — Contributor — 1 copy

Tagged

Common Knowledge

Canonical name: Greenberg, Joseph H.
Legal name: Greenberg, Joseph Harold
Birthdate: 1915-05-28
Date of death: 2001-05-07
Gender: male
Nationality: USA
Birthplace: Brooklyn, New York, USA
Place of death: Stanford, California, USA
Places of residence: New York, New York, USA
California, USA
Education: Columbia University
Northwestern University
Yale University
Occupations: linguist
professor
Organizations: Columbia University
Stanford University

Members

Reviews

Indo-European and its closest relatives : the… by Joseph H. Greenberg

Joseph Greenberg has amassed quite a bit of evidence for super-language families. It is similar to the Nostratic hypotheses, but it does exclude Afro-Asiatic, which Nostratic includes. A web of evidence is presented. This book looks at phonology and grammar of the various language families; Volume 2 looks at their lexicons. Greenberg proposes his Eurasiatic language family to include Indo-European, Uralic-Yukaghir, Altaic, Korean-Japanese-Ainu, Gilyak, Chukotian, Eskimo-Aleut. Uralic includes Finno-Ugric and Samyedic; Altaic includes Turkic, Mongolian, and Tungusic . The grammar coverge is quite wide ranging, looking at number types of pronouns, demonstratives, various plurals, the mulitple types of the locative case, and various negatives and interrogatives as well as many other grammatical elements. Hopefully, Greenberg's work will be integrated with Nostratic and other work with how connected earth's languages might be.… (more)

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vpfluke | Sep 16, 2016 |

Universals of Language, 2nd ed. by Joseph. Greenberg, ed.

An interesting set of essays on a fascinating study, but I don't know if newer research has invalidated any or all of this.

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echaika | 1 other review | Sep 22, 2009 |

Universals of Language, 2nd edition by Joseph H. ed. Greenberg

MMuch of this has been updated by mounds of research, but this still gives muuch to ponder. Actually, my copy lists publication dates as 1961 and 1963, but it's clearly the same book, a collection of essays from a conference.

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echaika | 1 other review | Aug 25, 2009 |