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Oswald John Louis Szemerényi, FBA (; 7 September 1913 in
London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
– 29 December 1996 in
Freiburg
Freiburg im Breisgau (; abbreviated as Freiburg i. Br. or Freiburg i. B.; Low Alemannic: ''Friburg im Brisgau''), commonly referred to as Freiburg, is an independent city in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. With a population of about 230,000 (as o ...
) was a
Hungarian Indo-Europeanist
Indo-European studies is a field of linguistics and an interdisciplinary field of study dealing with Indo-European languages, both current and extinct. The goal of those engaged in these studies is to amass information about the hypothetical pro ...
with strong interests in
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 ...
in general.
Biography
He was educated in
Hungary
Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Cr ...
, at
Eötvös Loránd University
Eötvös Loránd University ( hu, Eötvös Loránd Tudományegyetem, ELTE) is a Hungarian public research university based in Budapest. Founded in 1635, ELTE is one of the largest and most prestigious public higher education institutions in Hung ...
, and he studied at the universities of
Heidelberg
Heidelberg (; Palatine German: ') is a city in the German state of Baden-Württemberg, situated on the river Neckar in south-west Germany. As of the 2016 census, its population was 159,914, of which roughly a quarter consisted of students ...
and
Berlin
Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitu ...
. He was influenced by Hungarian linguist
Gyula Laziczius. In 1942 he was appointed lecturer in Greek at
Budapest
Budapest (, ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Hungary. It is the ninth-largest city in the European Union by population within city limits and the second-largest city on the Danube river; the city has an estimated population o ...
University. In 1944 he habilitated with a thesis on
Balto-Slavic
The Balto-Slavic languages form a branch of the Indo-European family of languages, traditionally comprising the Baltic and Slavic languages. Baltic and Slavic languages share several linguistic traits not found in any other Indo-European br ...
unity, and in 1947 he was appointed professor of comparative Indo-European linguistics in Budapest. He returned to England in 1948, where he worked for
Bedford College until 1960. He was professor of linguistics at
Freiburg University
The University of Freiburg (colloquially german: Uni Freiburg), officially the Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg (german: Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg), is a public research university located in Freiburg im Breisgau, Baden-Württemb ...
from 1965 to 1981. He founded the Freiburg Linguistics Circle, influenced by the
Budenz Circle, led by
Josef Budenz, the founder of
Finno-Ugric studies.
Selected bibliography
*1960 ''Studies in the Indo-European System of Numerals'', Heidelberg
*1964 ''Syncope in Greek and Indo-European and the Nature of Indo-European Accent'', Napoli
*1970 ''Einführung in die vergleichende Sprachwissenschaft'', Darmstadt
**1989 3., vollständig neu bearbeitete Auflage
**1996 ''Introduction to Indo-European Linguistics'', Oxford
*''Richtungen der modernen Sprachwissenschaft''
**1971 ''Teil I: Von
Saussure bis
Bloomfield, 1916-1950'', Heidelberg
**1982 ''Teil II: Die fünfziger Jahre, 1950-1960'', Heidelberg
*1972 ''Comparative Linguistics'' (Current Trends of Linguistics)
*1977 ''Studies in the Kinship Terminology of the Indo-European Languages'', Leiden
*1980 ''Four Old Iranian Ethnic Names: Scythian - Skudra - Sogdian - Saka'', Vienna
*''Scripta Minora: selected essays in Indo-European, Greek, and Latin'', edited by Patrick Considine and James T. Hooker, Innsbruck,
** 1987 Vol. I: ''Indo-European''
** 1987 Vol. II: ''Latin''
** 1987 Vol. III: ''Greek''
** 1991 Vol. IV: ''Indo-European Languages other than Latin and Greek'' (1991)
*1989 ''An den Quellen des lateinischen Wortschatzes'', Innsbruck
See also
*
Szemerényi's law
Szemerényi's law (or Szemerényi's lengthening) is both a sound change and a synchronic phonological rule that operated during an early stage of the Proto-Indo-European language (PIE). Though its effects are evident in many reconstructed as we ...
Sources
*''Prehistory, History, and Historiography of Language, Speech, and Linguistic Theory. (Papers in Honor of Oswald Szemerényi)'' (Amsterdam/Philadelphia 1992)
*''Historical Philology. Papers in Honor of Oswald Szemerényi II ''(Amsterdam/Philadelphia 1992)
*''Comparative-Historical Linguistics: Indo-European and Finno-Ugric. Papers in Honor of Oswald Szemerényi III'' (Amsterdam/Philadelphia 1993)
External links
* http://titus.uni-frankfurt.de/personal/galeria/szemeren.htm
Linguists from Hungary
Historical linguists
Linguists of Indo-European languages
1913 births
1996 deaths
20th-century linguists
Hungarian expatriates in Germany
Hungarian emigrants to the United Kingdom
Fellows of the British Academy
Indo-Europeanists
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