In Memoriam
Lars Johanson (1936–2025)
Lars Johanson, a linguist of Swedish origin, played a decisive role in establishing the study of the Turkic languages as a modern linguistic discipline. In addition to his substantial contributions to Turkic linguistics, his general linguistic work—above all in language typology—is of great significance. The theoretical models he developed for the investigation of verbal aspect systems and contact-linguistic phenomena have been applied to numerous languages.
Lars first joined PIAC in 1969, Berlin, his next fruitful participation was in 1987, Bloomington. At the 1988 Weimar meeting, he was elected to the Medal Committee. He gave a lecture at the Oslo meeting in 1989 and another in 1990 at the Budapest meeting. His vivid talks on different linguistic subjects also through breaks and excursions remain in the memory of many of us.
Lars Johanson was born on 8 March 1936 in the town of Köping in central Sweden. He pursued his university studies at Uppsala, in Germanic, Scandinavian, Sanskrit and Slavic studies, in Turkology and general linguistics. He received his B.A. in 1959 and his M.A. in 1961. In 1959–1960 he frequented Oriental studies in Vienna. From 1960 onward he finally devoted himself to the Turkic languages. In 1966 he obtained his doctorate at the University of Uppsala, followed in 1971 by the Habilitation on the basis of his studies in Turkic linguistics. His 1971 monograph Aspekt im Türkischen met with wide recognition in linguistic circles.
In the following years he pursued intensive research and travelled to numerous Turkic-speaking countries as well as to China. In 1979–1980 he was a visiting professor at the University of Frankfurt, and from 1981 at the University of Mainz. At the latter he was appointed full professor in 1982, in the highest German professorial category, C4. Alongside his research and teaching at Mainz, from 1985 onward he edited the highly successful monograph series Turcologica at the Harrassowitz publishing house in Wiesbaden, a series in which more than 130 volumes have appeared to date. From 1995 he founded and edited there the journal Turkic Languages, which had reached its 29th volume by the time of his death.
Between 1966 and 2025 he published more than 500 works. Among the books he brought out in the last years of his life, the most important is Turkic, published by Cambridge University Press in 2021, a monumental comparative description of the Turkic languages. This unparalleled handbook is to appear in paperback in 2026. His theory of verbal aspect is presented in his book Aspect in the Languages of Europe, published in 2023, in which Johanson demonstrates that the theoretical framework he developed for the description of the Turkic verbal system is also eminently suitable for an adequate and innovative analysis of the verbal systems of the European languages. His contact-linguistic model is set out in his 2023 book Code Copying. The Strength of Languages in Take-over and Carry-over Roles. Besides presenting the model, this book aims to show that copying from other languages does not “corrupt” the recipient language; on the contrary, it can serve as a means of survival for endangered among the Turkic languages.
Throughout his career he was deeply engaged with the linguistic testimony of early Turkic texts written in non-Arabic scripts. His last book, published in 2025 together with his wife, Éva Á. Csató, is an edition of a seventeenth-century Latin-script Bible translation into Azeri.
Johanson continually expanded the online edition of the Encyclopedia of Turkic Languages and Linguistics (Brill), a work he himself initiated and edited, which is to comprise several hundred articles. In future its editorship will be taken over by Éva Á. Csató.
He was an excellent teacher much beloved and followed by his pupils. He pursued his teaching with great enthusiasm and dedication. The fruits of this are visible in the fact that most of his doctoral students now hold professorships in various countries, continuing and further developing their supervisor’s work in the study of the Turkic languages.
As an internationally recognized scholar he served as visiting professor or researcher in many countries: in Tokyo, Kyoto, Melbourne, Beijing, Istanbul (at Boğaziçi University), Yakutsk, and at the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study in the Social Sciences in Uppsala. Dearest to him, however, was his rich and enduring relationship with the Department of Altaic Studies at the University of Szeged. It was there that he was awarded an honorary doctorate in 1999.
On 24 November 2025, Lars Johanson laid his head down for eternal rest. His colleagues and pupils around the world will preserve his memory.
András Róna-Tas