Anna Wierzbicka (born in 1938 in Poland) is a linguist at the Australian National University. She also lectures at Warsaw University and Maria Curie-Skłodowska University in Lublin, Poland. She studied at Warsaw University. In 1972 she moved from Poland to Australia.
Wierzbicka is famous for her work in semantics, pragmatics, and cross-cultural linguistics. She is especially known for Natural Semantic Metalanguage, particularly the concept of semantic primes. This is a research agenda resembling Leibniz's original "alphabet of human thought", which Wierzbicka credits her colleague, linguist Andrzej Bogusławski, with reviving in the late 1960s.
Famous quotes containing the word anna:
“Monday’s child is fair in face,
Tuesday’s child is full of grace,
Wednesday’s child is full of woe,
Thursday’s child has far to go,
Friday’s child is loving and giving,
Saturday’s child works hard for its living;
And a child that is born on a Christmas day,
Is fair and wise, good and gay.”
—Anonymous. Quoted in Traditions, Legends, Superstitions, and Sketches of Devonshire, vol. 2, ed. Anna E.K.S. Bray (1838)