Bojan Čop (May 23, 1923 – August 3, 1994) was a Slovene linguist.

Life and work

Čop was born in

Ljubljana Ljubljana (also known by other historical names) is the capital and largest city of Slovenia. It is the country's cultural, educational, economic, political and administrative center. During antiquity, a Roman city called Emona stood in the ar ...

. He became an assistant instructor at the

University of Ljubljana The University of Ljubljana ( sl, Univerza v Ljubljani, , la, Universitas Labacensis), often referred to as UL, is the oldest and largest university in Slovenia. It has approximately 39,000 enrolled students. History Beginnings Although certain ...

's Department of Comparative and General Linguistics in 1949. After the retirement of Karel Oštir in 1959, Čop took over responsibility for lectures in comparative Indo-European grammar with an emphasis on modern trends such as the

laryngeal theory The laryngeal theory is a theory in the historical linguistics of the Indo-European languages positing that: * The Proto-Indo-European language (PIE) had a series of phonemes beyond those reconstructable by the comparative method. That is, the ...

, Indo-European dialectology, and Indo-European antiquity. In 1966 Čop became the head of the university's Department of Comparative Linguistics and Eastern Studies. After 1970 he also lectured on the

Indo-Uralic Indo-Uralic is a controversial hypothetical language family consisting of Indo-European languages, Indo-European and Uralic languages, Uralic. The suggestion of a genetic relationship (linguistics), genetic relationship between Indo-European a ...

theory. Čop received his

PhD PHD or PhD may refer to: * Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), an academic qualification Entertainment * '' PhD: Phantasy Degree'', a Korean comic series * ''Piled Higher and Deeper'', a web comic * Ph.D. (band), a 1980s British group ** Ph.D. (Ph.D. albu ...

in 1971 from the University of Ljubljana's Faculty of Arts. He was made a full professor in 1972. Čop was made a full member of the

Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts The Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts ( sl, Slovenska akademija znanosti in umetnosti (SAZU)) is the national academy of Slovenia, which encompasses science and the arts and brings together the top Slovene researchers and artists as members o ...

in 1976. He retired due to illness in 1990, and died in Ljubljana in 1994. Čop's research initially focused on Indo-European etymology, especially Greek, but he soon turned his attention to ancient languages of Asia Minor. He authored several studies on grammatical and dialectology issues in Indo-European languages. Čop helped establish new directions in comparative linguistics and made significant contributions to the development of the discipline.

Legacy

Čop's law, which describes the sound change *''é.C₁ > aC₁.C₁'' in

Luwian The Luwians were a group of Anatolian peoples who lived in central, western, and southern Anatolia, in present-day Turkey, during the Bronze Age and the Iron Age. They spoke the Luwian language, an Indo-European language of the Anatolian sub-fa ...

, is named after Čop.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cop, Bojan 1923 births 1994 deaths Linguists from Slovenia Members of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts Linguists from Yugoslavia