Václav Blažek (born 23 April 1959 in
Sokolov,
Czechoslovakia
, rue, Чеськословеньско, , yi, טשעכאסלאוואקיי,
, common_name = Czechoslovakia
, life_span = 1918–19391945–1992
, p1 = Austria-Hungary
, image_p1 ...
) is a Czech
historical linguist
Historical linguistics, also termed diachronic linguistics, is the scientific study of language change over time. Principal concerns of historical linguistics include:
# to describe and account for observed changes in particular languages
# ...
. He is a professor at
Masaryk University
Masaryk University (MU) ( cs, Masarykova univerzita; la, Universitas Masarykiana Brunensis) is the second largest university in the Czech Republic, a member of the Compostela Group and the Utrecht Network. Founded in 1919 in Brno as the sec ...
(
Brno,
Czech Republic
The Czech Republic, or simply Czechia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Historically known as Bohemia, it is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the southeast. Th ...
) and also teaches at the
University of West Bohemia
The University of West Bohemia ( cs, Západočeská univerzita v Plzni, ZČU) is a university in Plzeň, Czech Republic. It was founded in 1991 and consists of nine faculties.
History
The university was formed by the merger of the ''College of M ...
(
Pilsen, Czech Republic).
His major interests include
Indo-European languages
The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, ...
,
Uralic languages
The Uralic languages (; sometimes called Uralian languages ) form a language family of 38 languages spoken by approximately 25million people, predominantly in Northern Eurasia. The Uralic languages with the most native speakers are Hungarian (w ...
,
Altaic languages
Altaic (; also called Transeurasian) is a controversial proposed language family that would include the Turkic, Mongolic and Tungusic language families and possibly also the Japonic and Koreanic languages. Speakers of these languages are ...
,
Afroasiatic (Hamito-Semitic) languages,
Nostratic languages
Nostratic is a controversial hypothetical macrofamily, which includes many of the indigenous language families of Eurasia, although its exact composition and structure vary among proponents. It typically comprises Kartvelian, Indo-European and Ur ...
,
Dené–Caucasian languages
Dené–Caucasian is a proposed language family that includes widely-separated language groups spoken in the Northern Hemisphere: Sino-Tibetan languages, Yeniseian languages, Burushaski and North Caucasian languages in Asia; Na-Dené languages i ...
, and
mathematical linguistics
Computational linguistics is an interdisciplinary field concerned with the computational modelling of natural language, as well as the study of appropriate computational approaches to linguistic questions. In general, computational linguistics d ...
(
lexicostatistics
Lexicostatistics is a method of comparative linguistics that involves comparing the percentage of lexical cognates between languages to determine their relationship. Lexicostatistics is related to the comparative method but does not reconstruct a ...
and
glottochronology Glottochronology (from Attic Greek γλῶττα ''tongue, language'' and χρόνος ''time'') is the part of lexicostatistics which involves comparative linguistics and deals with the chronological relationship between languages.Sheila Embleton ( ...
).
In his book ''Numerals'', Blažek discusses words for
numerals in several language families of Eurasia and Africa (Indo-European, Uralic, Altaic, Kartvelian, Egyptian, Berber, Nubian, and Saharan), with briefer discussions of numerals in other languages around the world.
References
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External links
Selection of Articles by Václav BlažekVáclav Blažek Bibliography
{{DEFAULTSORT:Blazek, Vaclav
1959 births
Living people
People from Sokolov
Linguists from the Czech Republic
Czech educational theorists
Paleolinguists
Linguists of Nostratic languages
Linguists of Dené–Caucasian languages
Masaryk University faculty
University of West Bohemia faculty
Long-range comparative linguists