Brian D. Joseph

Brian D. Joseph (born November 22, 1951) is an American linguist specializing in historical linguistics. He is a Distinguished University Professor of Linguistics and the Kenneth E. Naylor Professor of South Slavic Linguistics at Ohio State University . His research interests include language change, Greek, Albanian, and general Balkan linguistics, and morphological theory. He was elected a Member of the American Philosophical Society in 2019.

Early life and education Joseph was born in New York City on 22 November 1951. He received an Bachelor of Arts, cum laude in linguistics from Yale University in 1973, with a minor in classics. During 1971–72, he studied in Athens, Greece, as part of a junior-year abroad program. He later attended Harvard University, His doctoral dissertation, Morphology and Universals in Syntactic Change: Evidence from Medieval and Modern Greek, was based in part on dissertation research conducted in Greece during 1976–77.

Career

Ohio State University After a year at the University of Alberta (September 1978 – August 1979) as an Izaak Walton Killam Memorial Post-doctoral Fellow, he moved to Ohio State University, where he has spent his entire professional career, retiring in June 2024 and becoming Professor Emeritus. He became associate professor in 1985 and professor in 1988. From 1987 to 1997, he served as chair of the Department of Linguistics. In 1997, he was appointed Kenneth E. Naylor Professor of South Slavic Languages and Linguistics, a position jointly held between the Department of Linguistics and the Department of Slavic and East European Languages and Cultures.

Joseph was the Vice-President of the Linguistic Society of America in 2018 and served as the organization's President in 2019 (actually from January 2019 to January 2020). He was previously President of the North American Association for the History of the Language Sciences and currently serves as co-editor of the Journal of Greek Linguistics, a journal he helped to found in 2000.

Visiting appointment Joseph has held numerous visiting and instructional appointments internationally, including positions at the Linguistic Society of America summer institutes at the University of California, Santa Cruz; Michigan State University; the University of Illinois; and the University of Chicago. He has also taught or lectured at institutions including the University of Canterbury in New Zealand, Karl-Franzens University Graz in Austria, the University of Pavia, the University of the Basque Country, the University of Copenhagen, the University of the Aegean, and the Università per Stranieri di Siena.

His teaching and research have focused particularly on Balkan linguistics, historical linguistics, language contact, morphology, and sociolinguistics.

Research and scholarships Joseph's research has focused on Balkan linguistics, Greek linguistics, historical linguistics, language contact, morphology, and syntactic change. Athens Ministry of Education

Selected bibliography

Friedman, Victor A.; Joseph, Brian D. (2025). The Balkan Languages. Cambridge University Press.

Articles

Personal life Joseph is married and has two children and three grandchildren.