Mario Alinei (born 1926, Turin) is Professor Emeritus at the University of Utrecht, where he taught from 1959 to 1987, currently living in Impruneta. He is founder and editor of Quaderni di semantica, a journal of theoretical and applied semantics. Until recently, he was president of Atlas Linguarum Europae at UNESCO.

Alinei has authored hundreds of publications and is a well known scholar in the field of dialectology. He is also the main proponent of the Paleolithic Continuity Theory, which contends that the Indo-European languages originated in Europe and have existed there since the Paleolithic.

Some of his main linguistical contributions, which were instrumental in creating the Paleolithic Continuity Theory, regarded tendencies towards the conservation of languages, as opposed to the theories of "biological laws" of linguistic change and the method of lexical self-dating.

Alinei was a pioneer in the use of computers in linguistics. According to Pavle Ivic "Alinei is one of the not so numerous European Linguist who already in the early sixties were willing and able to apply the results of technological innovations to the study of language".

Works

• Lingua e dialetti: Struttura, storia e geografia (Studi linguistici e semiologici)
• Dal totemismo al cristianesimo popolare: Sviluppi semantici nei dialetti italiani ed europei (Filologia, linguistica, semiologia)
• Origini delle lingue d'Europa 1996 (Collected texts and studies)
• Etrusco: una forma arcaica di ungherese, 2003, Il Mulino. The Etruscan language as an archaic form of Hungarian.

Fellowships

• Since 1996: honorary member of the International Society for Dialectology and Geolinguistics

• 1989-1996: President of the International Society for Dialectology and Geolinguistics

• 1989: President of the Societas Linguistica Europaea.

• 1979-1980: Research Fellowship of the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Studies.

• Since 1996: senior member of the Royal Academy Gustaf Adolf, Uppsala (Sweden).

• Ordinary member of the Royal Academy Gustaf Adolf, Uppsala (Sweden).

• Ordinary member of the Accademia Peloritana, Messina.

• Founding member of the Società Linguistica Italiana.

• Founding member of the Societé Internatonale de Linguistique et Géolinguistique

Past Positions

• Since 1980: General Editor of the journal «Quaderni di Semantica».

• 1970-1997: Co-founder, Vice-President and President (from 1982) of the Atlas Linguarum Europae, a UNESCO sponsored project.

• 1968-1987: Full Professor of Italian Linguistics and Literature, University of Utrecht (NL).

• 1962-1968: Associate Professor of Italian Linguistics and Literature, University of Utrecht (NL).

• 1959-1962: Assistant Professor of Italian Linguistics and Literature, University of Utrecht (NL).

• Consultant of Olivetti for advanced research on computational linguistics

• Consultant of IBM for advanced research on computational linguistics

References

• Nils, A. Hagen, Terho Itkonen, Pavle Ivic, Mieczyslaw Szymczak Århammer, Aspects of Language: Studies in Honour of Mario Alinei1986
• Aspects of Language: Studies in Honour of Mario Alinei, vol II: Theoretical and Applied Semantics. Papers Presented to Mario Alinei by his Friends... on the Occasion of his 60th Birthday.

External links

The following external links illustrate Alinei's general concept of continuity and the points of his criticism toward traditional historical linguistics.

• General concept of continuity (pdf file)
• Ideology and Historical Linguistics (pdf file)
• Conservation and change of languages (pdf file)
• The problem of dating in linguistics (pdf file)
• Towards an invasionless model of Indoeuropean origins: the continuity theory (pdf file)
• Alinei on the Renfrew's Neolithic Demic Diffusion model
• ''Quaderni di semantica''
• ''Atlas Linguarum Europae'' at UNESCO

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