Harald Haarmann is a German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 linguist

Linguistics

Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....

 and cultural scientist who lives and works in Finland

Finland

Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...

. Haarmann studied general linguistics, various philological

Philology

Philology is the study of language in written historical sources; it is a combination of literary studies, history and linguistics.Classical philology is the philology of Greek and Classical Latin...

 disciplines and prehistory

Prehistory

Prehistory is the span of time before recorded history. Prehistory can refer to the period of human existence before the availability of those written records with which recorded history begins. More broadly, it refers to all the time preceding human existence and the invention of writing...

 at the universities of Hamburg

University of Hamburg

The University of Hamburg is a university in Hamburg, Germany. It was founded on 28 March 1919 by Wilhelm Stern and others. It grew out of the previous Allgemeines Vorlesungswesen and the Kolonialinstitut as well as the Akademisches Gymnasium. There are around 38,000 students as of the start of...

, Bonn

University of Bonn

The University of Bonn is a public research university located in Bonn, Germany. Founded in its present form in 1818, as the linear successor of earlier academic institutions, the University of Bonn is today one of the leading universities in Germany. The University of Bonn offers a large number...

, Coimbra and Bangor. He obtained his PhD

Doctor of Philosophy

Doctor of Philosophy, abbreviated as Ph.D., PhD, D.Phil., or DPhil , in English-speaking countries, is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities...

 in Bonn

Bonn

Bonn is the 19th largest city in Germany. Located in the Cologne/Bonn Region, about 25 kilometres south of Cologne on the river Rhine in the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, it was the capital of West Germany from 1949 to 1990 and the official seat of government of united Germany from 1990 to 1999....

 (1970) and his habilitation

Habilitation

Habilitation is the highest academic qualification a scholar can achieve by his or her own pursuit in several European and Asian countries. Earned after obtaining a research doctorate, such as a PhD, habilitation requires the candidate to write a professorial thesis based on independent...

 (qualification at professorship level) in Trier

University of Trier

The University of Trier , in the German city of Trier, was founded in 1473. Closed in 1798 by order of the then French administration in Trier, the university was re-established in 1970 after a hiatus of some 172 years. The new university campus is located on top of the Tarforst heights, an urban...

 (1979). He taught and conducted research at a number of German and Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

ese universities and is a member of the Research Centre on Multilingualism in Brussels

Brussels

Brussels , officially the Brussels Region or Brussels-Capital Region , is the capital of Belgium and the de facto capital of the European Union...

. Since 2003, he has been Vice-President of the Institute of Archaeomythology (headquartered in Sebastopol, California

Sebastopol, California

Sebastopol is a city in Sonoma County, California, United States, approximately north of San Francisco. The population was 7,379 at the 2010 census, but its businesses also serve surrounding rural portions of Sonoma County, totaling about 50,000 people...

) and director of its European branch (based in Luumäki

Luumäki

Luumäki is a municipality of Finland. Its seat is in Taavetti.It is located in the province of Southern Finland and is part of the South Karelia region. The municipality has a population of and covers an area of ofwhich is water...

, Finland).

Haarmann is the author of more than 40 books in German

German language

German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....

, English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

, Spanish

Spanish language

Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...

, Japanese

Japanese language

is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...

, Chinese

Chinese language

The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...

, Italian

Italian language

Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...

, and nearly 200 articles and essays in ten languages. He has also edited and co-edited some 20 anthologies

Anthology

An anthology is a collection of literary works chosen by the compiler. It may be a collection of poems, short stories, plays, songs, or excerpts...

. His preferred fields of study are cultural history

Cultural history

The term cultural history refers both to an academic discipline and to its subject matter.Cultural history, as a discipline, at least in its common definition since the 1970s, often combines the approaches of anthropology and history to look at popular cultural traditions and cultural...

, archaeomythology

Archaeomythology

Archaeomythology refers to the study of mythology through the discipline of archaeology. An example is the discovery of the city of Troy when, in 1870, Heinrich Schliemann used Homer's epic Iliad to locate it...

, history of writing, language evolution, contact linguistics and history of religion. In 1999, Haarmann received the Prix Logos awarded by the Association européenne des linguistes et des professeurs de langues (Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

), and the Premio Jean Monnet (see also Jean Monnet

Jean Monnet

Jean Omer Marie Gabriel Monnet was a French political economist and diplomat. He is regarded by many as a chief architect of European Unity and is regarded as one of its founding fathers...

) for essay writing. In 1987, a thesis

Thesis

A dissertation or thesis is a document submitted in support of candidature for an academic degree or professional qualification presenting the author's research and findings...

 appeared on the topic "Typological analysis and social conditions of languages in the works of Harald Haarmann" in Milan

Milan

Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...

.

Selected bibliography

• 2011 - Europe's Mosaic of Languages, European History Online
  European History Online
  European History Online is an academic website that publishes articles on the history of Europe between the period of 1450 and 1950 according to the principle of open access. EGO is issued by the Institute of European History in Mainz in cooperation with the Center for Digital Humanities in Trier ...
  
  , Mainz: Institute of European History, retrieved: November 2, 2011.
• 2010 - Die Indoeuropäer. Herkunft, Sprachen, Kulturen [The Indo-Europeans. Origin, languages, cultures]. C.H. Beck knowledge, volume 2706. ISBN 978-3-406-60682-3
• 2009 - Interacting with figurines. Seven dimensions in the study of imagery. West Hartford, Vermont: Full Circle Press. ISBN 978-0-9790046-3-6
• 2008 (co-author Joan Marler) - Introducing the Mythological Crescent. Ancient beliefs and imagery connecting Eurasia with Anatolia. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. ISBN 978-3-447-05832-2
• 2008 - Weltgeschichte der Zahlen [World history of numbers]. Munich: C.H. Beck knowledge, volume 2450. ISBN 978-3-406-56250-1
• 2007 - Foundations of culture: Knowledge-construction, belief systems and worldview in their dynamic interplay. Frankfurt, Berlin, New York: Peter Lang. ISBN 978-3-631-56685-5
• 2006 - Weltgeschichte der Sprachen. Von der Frühzeit des Menschen bis zur Gegenwart [World history of languages. From the early period of humans up to the present]. Munich: Becksche Reihe, volume 1703. ISBN 3-406-55120-3
• 2005 - Encyclopaedia of extinct peoples. From Akkader to Zimbern. Munich: Becksche Reihe, volume 1643. ISBN 3-406-52817-1
• 2005 - Schwarz: Eine kleine Kulturgeschichte [Black: A brief cultural history]. Frankfurt, Berlin, New York: Peter Lang. ISBN 3-631-54188-0
• 2004 - Small encyclopaedia of peoples. From Aborigines to Zapotecs. Munich: Becksche Reihe, volume 1593. ISBN 3-406-51100-7
• 2004 - Elementary word order in the languages of the world. Documentation and analyses of the emergence of word order patterns. Hamburg: Helmut Buske. ISBN 3-87548-372-3
• 2003 - History of the deluge. In search of the early civilizations. Munich: Becksche Reihe, volume 1536. ISBN 3-406-49465-X (2nd ed. 2005)
• 2002 - Geschichte der Schrift [History of writing]. Munich: C.H. Beck knowledge, volume 2198. ISBN 3-406-47998-7 (2nd ed. 2004; 3rd ed. 2007)
• 2002 - Lexikon der untergegangenen Sprachen [Encyclopaedia of extinct languages]. Munich: Becksche Reihe, volume 1456. ISBN 3-406-47596-5 (2nd ed. 2004)
• 2002 - Sprachen-Almanach. Zahlen und Fakten zu allen Sprachen der Welt [Language yearbook. Numbers and facts about all languages of the world]. Frankfurt, New York: Campus. ISBN 3-593-36572-3
• 2001 - Small encyclopaedia of languages. From Albanian to Zulu. Munich: Becksche Reihe, volume 1432. ISBN 3-406-47558-2 (2nd ed. 2002)
• 2001 - Babylonian world. History and future of languages. Frankfurt, New York: Campus. ISBN 3-593-36571-5
• 2001 - The small languages of the world: Existential threats and chances of survival. A comprehensive documentation. Frankfurt, Berlin, New York: Peter Lang. ISBN 3-631-37173-X
• 1998 - Religion und Autorität. Der Weg des Gottes ohne Konkurrenz [Religion and authority. The way of the gods without competition]. Hildesheim: Olms. ISBN 3-487-10507-1
• 1996 - Die Madonna und ihre griechischen Töchter. Rekonstruktion einer kunturhistorischen Genealogie [The Madonna and her Greek daughters. Reconstruction of a cultural-historical genealogy]. Hildesheim: Olms. ISBN 3-487-10163-7
• 1995 - Early civilization and literacy in Europe. An inquiry into cultural continuity in the Mediterranean world. Berlin, New York: Mouton de Gruyter. ISBN 3-11-014651-7
• 1993 - The world of European languages. History and future of the language nations between Atlantic and the Urals. Frankfurt, New York: Campus. ISBN 3-593-34825-X
• 1990 - Universal history of writing. Frankfurt, New York: Campus. ISBN 3-593-34346-0 (4th ed. 1998)