Podcast episode 51: Martin Haspelmath

In this interview, Martin Haspelmath talks about how he got started in linguistics, the rise of large-scale areal typology in the 1990s, language description vs language comparison, and the current state of the field.

Download | Spotify | Apple Podcasts | YouTube

Intro and outro: Bach, Cello Suite no. 1 in G major, Prelude. Recording from Wikipedia.

References for Episode 51

Dryer, M. S., et al. 2013. The World Atlas of Language Structures Online. MĂĽnchen: Max Planck Digital Library. http://wals.info/

Haspelmath, M. 1993. A Grammar of Lezgian. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Haspelmath, M. 2010. Comparative concepts and descriptive categories in crosslinguistic studies. Language, 86(3), 663-687. http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/lan.2010.0021

Michaelis, S. M., Maurer, P., Haspelmath, M., & Huber, M., eds. 2013. The Atlas of Pidgin and Creole Language Structures Online. Leipzig: MPI für evolutionäre Anthropologie. http://apics-online.info

Posted in Podcast

Leave a comment

Upcoming events


8-11 January 2026
New Orleans, United States
NAAHoLS 2026 Annual Meeting


21-23 January 2026
Paris
SHESL Conference 2026
Versification and the History of Linguistic Ideas


17–20 March 2026
Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona (Spain)
XV Congreso Internacional de la Sociedat Española de HistoriografĂ­a LingĂĽĂ­stica
Prescriptivism and descriptivism from the peripheries


23–25 March 2026
Montpellier (France)
Asian Languages in the History of Lexicography


2-4 September 2026
Nottingham (UK)
Henry Sweet Society Colloquium 2026
(Non-)Native Speakers in the History of Linguistic Ideas


10-11 September 2026
Fribourg (Switzerland)
The Prague Linguistic Circle in Geneva and Paris: Circulations and Decenterings


23-27 August 2027
NiterĂłi, Rio de Janeiro (Brazil)
ICHoLS XVII