Greenberg, Joseph Harold

▪ 2002

      American anthropologist and linguist (b. May 28, 1915, New York, N.Y.—d. May 7, 2001, Stanford, Calif.), proposed influential theories regarding relationships between the world's languages. After receiving a Ph.D. in anthropology from Northwestern University, Evanston, Ill., in 1940 and serving in the Army Signal Intelligence Service during World War II, Greenberg embarked on an academic career. He was a professor of anthropology and linguistics at Columbia University, New York City, from 1948 to 1962 and at Stanford University from 1962 until 1985. He was primarily interested in language universals. In The Languages of Africa (1955; rev. 1963), Greenberg grouped African languages into four families: Niger-Kordofanian, Afroasiatic, Nilo-Saharan, and Khoisan. He later argued that most of the world's languages could be categorized into 12 “superfamilies.” Among his other notable works were Language in the Americas (1987) and Indo-European and Its Closest Relatives: The Eurasiatic Language Family (2000). He also edited Universals of Language (1963) and Universals of Human Language, 4 vol. (1978).

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