Johan_Vandewalle
Johan Vandewalle
Belgian linguist
Johan Vandewalle (born 15 February 1960)[1] is a Belgian linguist. He teaches at Ghent University and specializes in Turkic languages.[2]
Johan Vandewalle | |
|---|---|
| Born | (1960-02-15) 15 February 1960 (age 64) Bruges, Belgium |
| Nationality | Belgian |
| Spouse | Linda Gezels |
| Children | 2 |
| Academic background | |
| Alma mater | Ghent University |
| Thesis | De Turkse en Oezbeekse weergave van de semantiek van Russische prefixwerkwoorden die een verplaatsing uitdrukken (2013) |
| Doctoral advisor | Raymond Detrez |
| Academic work | |
| Discipline | Linguist |
| Institutions | Ghent University |
| Main interests | Turkic languages |
Vandewalle first became interested in Turkish at the age of thirteen, during a family holiday to Turkey.[3][4]
He initially studied civil engineering and architecture, before deciding to focus on languages.[2][4]
In 1987, at the age of twenty-six, he won the Polyglot of Flanders/Babel Prize, after demonstrating communicative competence in nineteen languages (Arabic, Azerbaijani, Bashkir, Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Kyrgyz, Persian, Russian, Swahili, Tajik, Tatar, Turkish, Turkmen, Tuvan, Uyghur, and Uzbek).[5] Seven old languages that he had studied (such as Latin and Old Church Slavonic) were not tested,[3] and he has since gone on to study many more languages.[6]
In 1993, together with his wife, Linda Gezels, he founded Orientaal vzw, a centre dedicated to the teaching of Oriental languages and cultures.[7]
He has been awarded several prizes for his work in relation to the Turkish language, including the Türkçe Öğretiminde Başarı Ödülü in 1990 and the Ali Şir Nevai Türk Diline Hizmet Ödülü in 2005.[2][4]
- "Centrum voor Islam in Europa". Archived from the original on 9 June 2007.
- "Dr. Johan Vandewalle". Ghent University. Archived from the original on 28 November 2022.
- Erard, Michael (2012). Babel No More: The Search for the World's Most Extraordinary Language Learners. New York: Free Press. pp. 249–253. ISBN 978-1-4516-2825-8.
- "Over de oprichter van Orientaal vzw, Johan Vandewalle" (in Dutch). Archived from the original on 12 July 2021.
- "Polyglot of Flanders/Babel Prize certificate". 23 January 1987. Archived from the original on 7 June 2020.
- "Orientaal vzw, Centrum voor Oosterse Talen en Culturen" (in Dutch). Archived from the original on 1 December 2021.
- "Turkic Languages, Multilingualism and Polyglottery", a talk given by Vandewalle at the Polyglot Conference 2017
- "Creating and Using Bilingual Texts for Learning a Diversity of Languages", a talk given by Vandewalle at the Polyglot Conference 2018