Joseph H. GreenbergBorn 28 May 1915; died 7 May 2001 at age 85.Joseph Harold Greenberg was an American anthropologist and linguist who specialized in African culture and in language universals. Greenberg's classification of African languages, published in papers 1949-1954, was reprinted as a book in 1955, revised in 1963 and retitled, Languages of Africa (1963). He postulated four families: Niger-Kordofanian, Afroasiatic, Nilo-Saharan, and Khoisan. In his highly controversial “Greenberg Theory,” he suggested that the first Americans arrived from Asia in at least three separate waves, each wave giving rise to one of three linguistic groups (Amerind, Eskimo-Aleut, and Na-Dene). Greenberg stated there was genetic evidence in dental records of Native Americans, which most linguists disregard as speculative.« |
