George Sherman Lane (28 September 1902 in Wayne County, Iowa – 18 September 1981 in

Chapel Hill, North Carolina Chapel Hill is a town in Orange, Durham and Chatham counties in the U.S. state of North Carolina. Its population was 61,960 in the 2020 census, making Chapel Hill the 17th-largest municipality in the state. Chapel Hill, Durham, and the state ca ...

) was an

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

linguist Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguis ...

. His research focus was the

Tocharian language The Tocharian (sometimes ''Tokharian'') languages ( or ), also known as ''Arśi-Kuči'', Agnean-Kuchean or Kuchean-Agnean, are an extinct branch of the Indo-European language family spoken by inhabitants of the Tarim Basin, the Tocharians. The l ...

Life

Lane began his studies in 1922 at the

University of Iowa The University of Iowa (UI, U of I, UIowa, or simply Iowa) is a public university, public research university in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. Founded in 1847, it is the oldest and largest university in the state. The University of Iowa is org ...

, where he studied under

Henning Larsen Henning Larsen, Hon. FAIA (20 August 1925 – 22 June 2013) was a Danish architect. He is internationally known for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs building in Riyadh and the Copenhagen Opera House. Larsen studied at the Royal Danish Academy ...

and received his first award, the ''

Early English Text Society The Early English Text Society (EETS) is a text publication society founded in 1864 which is dedicated to the editing and publication of early English texts, especially those only available in manuscript. Most of its volumes contain editions of ...

Prize''. In 1926, he graduated first of his class, and in 1927 obtained a Master of Arts in English. This was followed by studies in

Reykjavík Reykjavík ( ; ) is the capital and largest city of Iceland. It is located in southwestern Iceland, on the southern shore of Faxaflói bay. Its latitude is 64°08' N, making it the world's northernmost capital of a sovereign state. With a po ...

, where he learned

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...

, as well as in

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

, where he studied under

Meillet Paul Jules Antoine Meillet (; 11 November 1866 Moulins, France – 21 September 1936 Châteaumeillant, France) was one of the most important French linguists of the early 20th century. He began his studies at the Sorbonne University, where he was ...

, Vendryes and

Benveniste The Spanish Benveniste family is an old, noble, wealthy, and scholarly Jewish family of Narbonne, France and northern Spain established in the 11th century. The family was present in the 11th to the 15th centuries in Hachmei Provence, France, Barc ...

. At the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...

he collaborated with

Carl Darling Buck Carl Darling Buck (October 2, 1866 – February 8, 1955), born in Bucksport, Maine, was an American philologist. Biography He graduated from Yale in 1886, was a graduate student there for three years, and studied at the American School of Classica ...

on the latter's ''Dictionary of selected synonyms in the principal Indo-European languages''. After his dissertation, he joined the

University of North Carolina The University of North Carolina is the multi-campus public university system for the state of North Carolina. Overseeing the state's 16 public universities and the NC School of Science and Mathematics, it is commonly referred to as the UNC Sy ...

in Chapel Hill, where he conducted further research on the

, particularly the grammar of

Tocharian B Kuchean (also known as Tocharian B or West Tocharian) was a Western member of Tocharian branch of Indo-European languages, extinct from ninth century. Once spoken in the Tarim Basin in Central Asia. Tocharian B shows an internal chronological de ...

. In 1952, he was admitted to the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...

. His son, Eugene N. Lane (1936–2007), became a

professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who pr ...

in classical philology.

Selected works

* ''Words for clothing in the principal Indo-European languages.'' Chicago, 1930. * ''Vocabulary to the Tocharian Puṇyavantajātaka.'' Baltimore, 1948. * ''Studies in Kuchean grammar.'' Baltimore, 1952.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lane, George Sherman American philologists 1902 births 1981 deaths Linguists of Indo-European languages University of Chicago alumni University of Iowa alumni University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill faculty 20th-century philologists Linguists of Tocharian languages

Life

Selected works

Further reading

References