Witold Mańczak (12 August 1924 – 12 January 2016)[1] was a Polish linguist. He was a member of Polish Academy of Learning and the Polish Academy of Sciences.
He is best known for his historical linguistics work on identifying, via statistical methods focusing especially on well-studied European languages, overarching tendencies in analogical change.[2] He has also argued that Gothic is closer to German than to Scandinavian, and suggests Goths originally hailed from somewhere around present day Austria, rather than from Scandinavia."[3]
Publications
Witold Manczak, The Method of Comparing the Vocabulary in Parallel Texts. Journal of Quantitative Linguistics 10(2): 93–103 (2003) [1]
Witold Mańczak (1999). Wieża Babel. Wrocław: Zakład Narodowy im. Ossolińskich. ISBN83-04-04463-3.[4]
Witold Manczak: "Lingwistyka a Prehistoria". BULLETIN DE LA SOCIÉTÉ POLONAISE DE LINGUISTIQUE, fasc. LV, 1999 ISSN0032-3802pdf
Folia Linguistica Historica, Acta Societatis Linguisticae Europaeae .ISSN0165-4004 Vol. XXI / 1–2 (2000)[2]
WM: Criticism of naturalness: Naturalness or frequency of occurrence?
WM: Damaris Nübling, Prinzipien der Irregularisierung. Ein kontrastive Analyse von zehn Verben in zehn germanischen Sprachen
WM: O Odcyfrowaniach pism. BULLETIN DE LA SOCIÉTÉ POLONAISE DE LINGUISTIQUE, fasc. LX, 2004, ISSN0032-3802
^Hock, Hans Henrich (1988). Principles of Historical Linguistics. Page 210: "the question whether there are any natural tendencies or directionalities in analogical change... Two Polish scholars, Jerzy Kuryłowicz and Witold Mańczak, have dealt most comprehensively with this change. . Mańczak... based his obeservations on a statistical investigation of the analogical changes postulated in standard handbooks on... various European languages"
