PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

András Kornai

Also known as Kornai András

András Kornai is a mathematical linguist whose research uses mathematics to study natural language. He earned degrees in mathematics and linguistics and held research and industry roles at IBM, BBN Technologies, Belmont Research, Northern Light, and MetaCarta. His work included open-source NLP tools, the 4lang semantics project, digital language vitality research, and language-model evaluation. He received an ACM distinction and was elected to the Academy of Europe. He is a full professor at BME and leads its Human Language Technology group.

Works
264
Citations
2,534
h-index
21
Badges

Publication numbers from OpenAlex, as of 18 October 2026.

Timeline

  1. 1957–1991

    Mathematics and linguistics degrees

    He is born in Budapest in 1957, earns a mathematics degree from Eötvös Loránd University in 1983, and earns a linguistics degree from Stanford in 1991.

  2. 1993–2009

    From IBM to MetaCarta

    He works on IBM Research's staff from 1993 to 1997 and is a senior scientist at BBN Technologies in 1997–1998. At Belmont Research he is principal scientist in 1999–2000, then chief scientist at Northern Light in 2000–2002 and MetaCarta in 2002–2009.

  3. 2005–2007

    Open-source NLP tools and a monograph

    He coauthors the open-source word-analysis paper Hunmorph in 2005 and the open-source trigram-tagger paper HunPos in 2007. He publishes his monograph Mathematical Linguistics through Springer in November 2007.

  4. 2009–2013

    An ACM distinction and ACL role

    ACM names him a Distinguished Member in 2009. In 2013, he becomes president of the Association for Computational Linguistics' Mathematics of Language special interest group.

  5. 2010–2013

    4lang and digital language vitality

    From 2010, he leads 4lang, a theory and software library for representing language meaning. In 2013, he publishes Digital Language Death and argues that fewer than 5% of languages can still ascend to the digital realm.

  6. 2019–2024

    Language models and an academy election

    The Academy of Europe elects him to its Linguistic Studies section in 2019. In 2021, he coauthors an evaluation of contextualized language models for Hungarian; in 2024, he publishes “What is the simplest semantics imaginable?”

  7. As of October 2026

    BME professor and HLT leader

    He becomes a full professor at BME in 2014 and leads its Human Language Technology group as of October 2026. His research covers mathematical aspects of natural language processing, speech recognition, and OCR.

Career

  1. Since 2014Budapest University of Technology and EconomicsFull professor
  2. 2012–2014Hungarian Research Network
  3. 2009–2012Harvard University
  4. 2008–2014Hungarian Academy of Sciences
  5. 2002–2009MetaCartaChief scientist
  6. 2000–2002Northern LightChief scientist
  7. 1999–2000Belmont ResearchPrincipal scientist
  8. 1997–1998BBN TechnologiesSenior scientist
  9. 1993–1997IBM Research

Education

  1. 1991Stanford UniversityLinguistics degree
  2. 1983Eötvös Loránd UniversityMathematics degree

From the biography and OpenAlex affiliations (the years of papers that list the organization), so some years are approximate.

Most-cited works

  1. Parallel corpora for medium density languages2007 · Amsterdam studies in the theory and history of linguistic science. Series 4, Current issues in linguistic theory · 375 citations
  2. Dynamics of Conflicts in Wikipedia2012 · PLoS ONE · 257 citations
  3. The X-bar theory of phrase structure1990 · Language · 213 citations
  4. Digital Language Death2013 · PLoS ONE · 208 citations
  5. HunPos2007 · 190 citations

From OpenAlex, as of 18 October 2026.

  1. Stanford University trained or employed 27 of the 111 AI major-prize winners, more than any other universityIncludes Stanford University. Stanford University trained or employed 27 of the 111 AI major-prize winners, more than any other university. We compare doctorate and employment links for major-prize and best-paper winners.
  2. The company share of AI researchers’ top papers rose from 3% to 32%Includes Budapest University of Technology and Economics. We estimate where leading AI researchers worked when their most-cited papers appeared. The company share rose from 3% in 1975–1979 to 32% in 2020–2024.
  3. Google had the most people shaping AI every year from 2014 to 2025Includes Stanford University. Our estimates of which organizations employed the most people shaping AI from 1961 to 2025, with a year-by-year chart.
  4. More people shaping AI studied at Massachusetts Institute of Technology than at any other institutionIncludes Stanford University. Our estimates of where the people shaping AI studied and where their careers led, from education records in cited biographies.

Colleagues

People with dated positions at the same organization in the same years.

Sources and credits

Photo: We have no published photo of András Kornai yet. Send us a free-licensed photo.

  1. Andras Kornai's Home Page kornai.com. Checked 18 October 2026.
  2. András Kornai - Wikipedia en.wikipedia.org. Checked 18 October 2026.
  3. Academy of Europe: Kornai András ae-info.org. Checked 18 October 2026.
  4. Hunmorph: Open Source Word Analysis - ACL Anthology aclanthology.org. Checked 18 October 2026.
  5. Poster paper: HunPos – an open source trigram tagger - ACL Anthology aclanthology.org. Checked 18 October 2026.
  6. Publications of András Kornai kornai.com. Checked 18 October 2026.
  7. 4lang | SZTAKI HLT hlt.bme.hu. Checked 18 October 2026.
  8. Digital Language Death | PLOS One journals.plos.org. Checked 18 October 2026.
  9. SZTAKI HLT | András Kornai hlt.bme.hu. Checked 18 October 2026.
  10. SZTAKI HLT hlt.bme.hu. Checked 18 October 2026.