Joe Greenberg

[John Myhill]

Another tribute to Joe Greenberg,

In the last section of Weinreich, Labov, and Herzog's article `Empirical
Foundations for a Theory of Language Change' (1968), which is literally
the founding and unquestionably the most important article of the field of
modern sociolinguistics, in a section written by William Labov after Uriel
Weinreich had died (at the age of 40), at a stage of Labov's career where,
I have to say, he gave rough treatment to any contemporary leader in the
field of linguistics other than Weinreich, Labov devoted some time to
discussing
Greenberg's research agenda in glowing terms. Knowing Labov as I do, the
standards he has, how sparing (to put it mildly) he is in his praise of
anyone of serious stature in the field of linguistics, I was amazed by the
tone of his discussion of Greenberg's work when I first read it 20 years
ago. It
was the first time I had ever heard of Joe Greenberg, and in my suspicious
way I thought that Labov must have had some personal, non-objective reason
for his enthusiasm. When I read Greenberg's work for the first time myself,
I realized that Labov's praise was sincere, and well-deserved.

Joe Greenberg was a researcher about whom I often had the unpleasant feeling
that, as much recognition as he got, it was never even close to what he
deserved. But whenever I have had this feeling, I remember: I have
repeatedly found that other great linguists, people who give ideas to the
next generation of linguists, always, ALWAYS know of the enormous scope of
his contribution to the field. He did not, it is true, found a school in
the normal sense of the word; if he had, the intellectual tradition he
founded would die with him, because his followers would be at a loss of how
to procede without him. Joe Greenberg left behind something much more
important: A way of thinking about the study of language, and this is not
going to die with him. For people who knew him personally, like Bill Croft,
he will be sorely missed, but for people who only knew him through his
work, like me, he will not be missed at all, because he is still with us,
and will always be.

John Myhill