Swadesh Centenary Conference, 16-18 January 2009, MPI-EVA, Leipzig.

[Anthony Grant]

1st call for papers

The Swadesh Centenary Conference

Organizers: 
Søren Wichmann (Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology &
Leiden University)
Anthony Grant (Edge Hill University)

Short description:
This conference, which celebrates the 100th year birthday of Swadesh,
is intended primarily to bring together scholars working on cutting-edge
methods in historical linguistics and, secondarily, to assess the work
and influence of Swadesh.

Invited speakers:
Mark Pagel (University of Reading)
Tandy Warnow (The University of Texas at Austin)
Eric W. Holman (University of California, Los Angeles)

Long description:
The American linguist Morris Swadesh (1909-1967) made outstanding
contributions in a number of linguistic fields, publishing over 200
books, articles and reviews. One of the pioneers of phonemic theory and
of the methodical study of seriously endangered languages, he worked on
dozens of languages of North and Central America and West Africa,
contributed to the study of English phonology and to efficient ways of
teaching languages to military personnel and civilians, and helped
promote the cause of indigenous Mexican and other Native American
languages to politicans and laypeople alike. He is most widely known for
his interests in historical relations between language families across
the world, and on quantitative historical linguistic techniques
(glottochronology and especially lexicostatistics) using as data source
diagnostic vocabularies which have become known as Swadesh lists.
	Despite much bad press, lexicostatistics and glottochronology
have lived on, seen various depevelopments, and have been applied to a
languages around the globe. Moreover, diagnostic wordlists from perhaps
close to a third of the world’s languages have accumulated in the
literature or on the internet, providing a unique resource for the
investigation of the lexical behavior of languages in areal and
genealogical perspectives.
	We invite papers applying or discussing quantitatively oriented
methods in historical linguistics, papers on the systematic
investigation of languages and prehistory, and papers relating to
Swadesh’ work. We expect to publish a book with a selection of the
contributions.

Please send your anonymous 250-500 word abstract to wichmann at eva.mpg.de

Deadline for abstract submission: Sept. 30, 2008.
Date of notification of acceptance: October 15, 2008.
Dates and venue for the conference: Max Planck Institute for
Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Jan 16-18, 2009.
Further information may be obtained from Anthony Grant
(Granta at edgehill.ac.uk) or Søren Wichmann (wichmann at eva.mpg.de)


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