Harald Haarmann

Harald Haarmann (born 16.4.1946) is a German linguist and cultural scientist who lives and works in Finland. Haarmann studied general linguistics, various philological disciplines and prehistory at the universities of Hamburg, Bonn, Coimbra and Bangor. He obtained his PhD in Bonn (1970) and his habilitation (qualification at professorship level) in Trier (1979). He taught and conducted research at a number of German and Japanese universities. He is Vice-President of the Institute of Archaeomythology (headquartered in Sebastopol, California) and director of its European branch (based in Luumäki, Finland).

Haarmann is the author of more than 80 books and more than 450 articles and essays. He has also edited and co-edited some 20 anthologies. Haarmann writes books in English and in German, and articles in various languages. Some of the books have been published in up to 17 languages. His preferred fields of study are cultural history, archaeomythology, history of writing, language evolution, contact linguistics and history of religion.