Distinguished Professor Emeritus Paul Newman is regarded as the pre-eminent scholar on the Chadic family as a whole and on the Hausa language in particular, he was a founding editor of the Journal of African Languages and Linguistics, now approaching its 40th year, and a charter member of the advisory board of the online journal Language Documentation & Conservation. His areas of specialization in teaching and research include African languages (especially Hausa), historical linguistics, morphophonology, tone, field methods, lexicography, and language and law.