Søren Wichmann Explained
Søren Wichmann (born 1964) is a Danish linguist specializing in historical linguistics, linguistic typology, Mesoamerican languages, and epigraphy. Since June 2016, he has been employed as a University Lecturer at Leiden University Centre for Linguistics, Leiden University, after having worked at different institutions in Denmark, Mexico, Germany and Russia, including, during 2003-2015, the Department of Linguistics, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
Wichmann's PhD dissertation, from the University of Copenhagen, treated the Azoyú variety of Tlapanec spoken in Guerrero, Mexico. He has written extensively about Mayan, Oto-Manguean and Mixe–Zoquean languages. He has done fieldwork on Mixe, Texistepec Popoluca and Tlapanec. Regarding Mixe–Zoquean, he has done comparative work resulting in the currently most accepted classification of the Mixe–Zoquean language family as well as a reconstruction of its vocabulary and grammar (Wichmann 1995). He also specializes in the study of Maya hieroglyphs — particularly the linguistic aspects of the deciphering of the Mayan script. Since 2007, Wichmann's work has increasingly focused on the development of quantitative methods in historical linguistics, including the development of the Automated Similarity Judgment Program.
Since its inception in 2011, Wichmann has been General Editor of Language Dynamics and Change.[1]
Selected books
- Book: 2009. Temporal Stability of Linguistic Typological Features. München. LINCOM Europa. Wichmann, Søren . Eric W. Holman . amp .
- Book: 2008. The Typology of Semantic Alignment. Oxford. Oxford University Press. Donohue, Mark and Søren Wichmann.
- Book: 2004. The Linguistics of Maya Writing. Salt Lake City. University of Utah Press. Wichmann, Søren.
- Book: 1995. The Relationship among the Mixe–Zoquean Languages of Mexico. Salt Lake City. University of Utah Press. Wichmann, Søren.
Selected articles
- 2014. Universals versus historical contingencies in lexical evolution. Journal of the Royal Society Interface. 11. 101. 20140841. Bochkarev, Vladimir, Valery Solovyev, and Søren Wichmann. 10.1098/rsif.2014.0841. 25274040. 4223904.
- 2014. Chitimacha: a Mesoamerican language in the Lower Mississippi Valley. International Journal of American Linguistics. 80. 425–474. Brown, Cecil H., Søren Wichmann, and David Beck. 4. 10.1086/677911. 145538166.
- 2013. Sound correspondences in the world's languages. Language. 89. 4–29. Brown, Cecil H., Eric W. Holman, and Søren Wichmann. 1. 10.1353/lan.2013.0009. 145758470.
- 2012. Cultural phylogenetics of the Tupi language family in Lowland South America. PLOS ONE. 7. e35025. Walker Robert S. . Søren Wichmann . Thomas Mailund . Curtis J. Atkisson . amp . 4 . 10.1371/journal.pone.0035025 . 22506065 . 3323632. 2012PLoSO...735025W. free.
- 2011. Automated dating of the world's language families based on lexical similarity. Current Anthropology. 52. 841–875. 10.1086/662127. Holman, Eric W., Cecil H. Brown, Søren Wichmann, André Müller, Viveka Velupillai, Harald Hammarström, Sebastian Sauppe, Hagen Jung, Dik Bakker, Pamela Brown, Oleg Belyaev, Matthias Urban, Robert Mailhammer, Johann-Mattis List, and Dmitry Egorov. 2. 2066/94255. 60838510. free.
- 2011. Correlates of reticulation in linguistic phylogenies. Language Dynamics and Change. 1. 2. 205–240. Wichmann, Søren, Eric W. Holman, Taraka Rama, and Robert S. Walker. 10.1163/221058212x648072.
- 2011. Totozoquean. International Journal of American Linguistics. 77. 323–372. Brown, Cecil H., David Beck, Grzegorz Kondrak, James K. Watters, and Søren Wichmann. 2. 10.1086/660972. 224807468.
- 2010. Homelands of the world's language families: A quantitative approach. Diachronica. 27. 247–276. Wichmann, Søren, André Müller, and Viveka Velupillai. 2. 10.1075/dia.27.2.05wic.
- 2010. Evaluating linguistic distance measures. Physica A. 389. 3632–3639. Wichmann, Søren, Eric W. Holman, Dik Bakker, and Cecil H. Brown. 2. 10.1016/j.physa.2010.05.011 . 2010PhyA..389.3632W.
- 2009. Population size and rates of language change. Human Biology. 81. 2–3. 259–274. Wichmann, Søren . Eric W. Holman . amp. 10.3378/027.081.0308. 19943746. 9533825.
- 2008. Explorations in automated language classification. Folia Linguistica. 42. 331–354. Holman, Eric W., Søren Wichmann, Cecil H. Brown, Viveka Velupillai, André Müller, and Dik Bakker. 2008. 2. 10.1515/FLIN.2008.331. 82275473.
- 2008. Automated classification of the world's languages: A description of the method and preliminary results. STUF - Language Typology and Universals. 61. 285–308. Brown, Cecil H., Eric W. Holman, Søren Wichmann, and Viveka Velupillai. 4. 10.1524/stuf.2008.0026. 120424937.
- 2008. Birth, survival and death of languages by Monte Carlo simulation. Communications in Computational Physics. 3. 271–294. Schulze, Christian, Dietrich Stauffer, and Søren Wichmann. 2.
- 2007. How to use typological features in historical linguistic research. Diachronica. 24. 373–404. Wichmann, Søren . Arpiar Saunders . amp . 2 . 10.1075/dia.24.2.06wic.
- 2007. On the relation between structural diversity and geographical distance among languages: observations and computer simulations. Linguistic Typology. 11. 395–423. Holman, Eric W., Christian Schulze, Dietrich Stauffer, and Søren Wichmann. 2. 10.1515/lingty.2007.027. physics/0607031. 8946631.
- 2006. Mayan historical linguistics and epigraphy: a new synthesis. Annual Review of Anthropology. 35. 279–294. Wichmann, Søren. 10.1146/annurev.anthro.35.081705.123257.
- 2005. On the power-law distribution of language family sizes. Journal of Linguistics. 41. 117–131. Wichmann, Søren. 10.1017/s002222670400307x. 145763086.
- 2000. Cacao and chocolate: A Uto-Aztecan perspective. Ancient Mesoamerica. 11. 55–75. Dakin, Karen . Søren Wichmann . amp . 10.1017/s0956536100111058. 162616811.
External links
Notes and References
- http://www.brill.nl/language-dynamics-and-change Language Dynamics and Change