George Tobias Flom (April 12, 1871 – January 4, 1960) was an American professor of linguistics and author of numerous reference books.

Background

George Tobias Flom was born in Utica, Dane County, Wisconsin. His grandfather had immigrated to the U.S. from

Aurland Aurland () is a municipality in the county of Vestland, Norway. It is located on the south side of the Sognefjorden in the traditional district of Sogn. The administrative center is the village of Aurlandsvangen. Other villages include Bakka, ...

in Sogn og Fjordane in Norway at the beginning of the 1840s. Flom studied at the University of Wisconsin in

Madison Madison may refer to: People * Madison (name), a given name and a surname * James Madison (1751–1836), fourth president of the United States Place names * Madison, Wisconsin, the state capital of Wisconsin and the largest city known by this ...

from 1889 to 1893, received his master's degree from Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee in 1894, and studied in Copenhagen and Leipzig from 1898 to 1899. He received his doctorate from Columbia University in 1900 for a thesis on the Nordic influence on the Scots language.

Career

Flom was a professor of Scandinavian languages and literature at the University of Iowa (1900–1909) and at the University of Illinois (1909–1927). In 1911 he was an organizer of the Society for the Advancement of Scandinavian Study and served as editor of that society’s journal. He was also an associate editor of the '' Journal of English and Germanic Philology''. He was a linguist and a member of the American Philological Society. In 1936, he was the president of the Linguistic Society of America. His areas of expertise included Scandinavian

paleography Palaeography ( UK) or paleography ( US; ultimately from grc-gre, , ''palaiós'', "old", and , ''gráphein'', "to write") is the study of historic writing systems and the deciphering and dating of historical manuscripts, including the analysi ...

and philology,

Norse literature Old Norse literature refers to the vernacular literature of the Scandinavian peoples up to c. 1350. It chiefly consists of Icelandic writings. In Britain From the 8th to the 15th centuries, Vikings and Norse settlers and their descendants colon ...

and

comparative linguistics Comparative linguistics, or comparative-historical linguistics (formerly comparative philology) is a branch of historical linguistics that is concerned with comparing languages to establish their historical relatedness. Genetic relatedness ...

relating to English, German and the Scandinavian languages. As an author, articles by Flom frequently appears in the literary magazine ''

Symra ''Symra'' was a Norwegian language periodical published between 1905 and 1914. ''Symra; En Aarbog for Norske Paa Begge Sider Af Havet'' (Symra; an Annual for Norwegians on Both Sides of the Sea) was established to publish the literary works of N ...

''. Flom was the author of ''A History of Norwegian Immigration to the United States: From the Earliest Beginning Down to the Year 1848''. In this 1909 study, Flom laid out the establishment of early Norwegian immigrant settlement in North America starts with the settlement of Orange County, New York by Norwegian immigrants, known as "Sloopers." The study follows the journey of Norwegian immigrants as they settled in communities principally located in Illinois, Wisconsin and Iowa. Flom was a member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, and he was knighted by 1 Class of the Royal Norwegian Order of St. Olav in 1939. George T. Flom Library at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign contains the former personal library of Flom. It consisted largely of collections of Danish, Swedish, Old Norse, Icelandic, Faroese, and Norwegian language, literature, and culture.George T. Flom Library (University Library. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

/ref>

Selected bibliography

*''Scandinavian Influence on Southern Lowland Scotch'' (1900) *''Chapters on Scandinavian Immigration to Iowa'' (1906) *''A History of the Scandinavian Studies in American Universities, Together with a Bibliography'' (1907) *''A History of Norwegian Immigration to the United States: From the Earliest Beginning Down to the Year 1848'' (1909) *''The Kensington Rune-Stone: An Address'' (1910) *''The Phonology of the Dialect of Aurland, Norway'' (1915) *''The Language of the Konungs Skuggsja (Speculum Regale)'' (1923) *''Introductory Old English Grammar and Reader'' (1930) *''Journal of English and Germanic Philology'' (1930) *''Old Norwegian General Law of the Gulathing: According to Codex Gl.k.S. 1154 Folio'' (1937) *''The Morphology of the Dialect on Aurland in Sogn, Norway'' (1944) *''Bjornson's Synnove Solbakken'' (1944)

References

External links

“University of Illinois Archives - George T. Flom Papers”“The Promise of America – George Tobias Flom””Journal of English and Germanic Philology””American Philological Association”Linguistic Society of America”
* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Flom, George Linguists from the United States Anglo-Saxon studies scholars American people of Norwegian descent Germanic studies scholars Linguists of Germanic languages People from Christiana, Dane County, Wisconsin University of Wisconsin–Madison alumni University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign faculty 1871 births 1960 deaths Members of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters People from Urbana, Illinois Linguistic Society of America presidents