Stephen Adolphe Wurm ( hu, Wurm István Adolf, ; 19 August 1922 – 24 October 2001) was a Hungarian-born

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

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 ...

Early life

Wurm was born in

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 ...

, the second child to the

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ger ...

-speaking Adolphe Wurm and the Hungarian-speaking Anna Novroczky. He was christened Istvan Adolphe Wurm. His father died before Stephen was born. Both of his parents were multilingual, and Wurm showed an interest in languages from an early age. Attending school in

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

and travelling to all parts of Europe during his childhood, Wurm spoke roughly nine languages by the time he reached adulthood, a gift he inherited from his father, who spoke 17. Wurm went on to master at least 50 languages.

Career

Wurm grew up stateless, unable to take the nationality of either of his parent or of his country of residence,

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

. That enabled him to avoid military service and attend university. He studied

Turkic languages The Turkic languages are a language family of over 35 documented languages, spoken by the Turkic peoples of Eurasia from Eastern Europe and Southern Europe to Central Asia, East Asia, North Asia (Siberia), and Western Asia. The Turkic languag ...

at the Oriental Institute in Vienna, receiving his doctorate in linguistics and social anthropology in 1944 for a dissertation on Uzbek. In 1946, he married fellow student Helen Groger-Wurm, a specialist in African ethnography. He taught

Altaic Altaic (; also called Transeurasian) is a controversial proposed language family that would include the Turkic, Mongolic and Tungusic language families and possibly also the Japonic and Koreanic languages. Speakers of these languages are c ...

linguistics at the

University of Vienna The University of Vienna (german: Universität Wien) is a public research university located in Vienna, Austria. It was founded by Duke Rudolph IV in 1365 and is the oldest university in the German-speaking world. With its long and rich histor ...

until 1951. After reading some works by

Sidney Herbert Ray Sidney Herbert Ray (28 May 1858 – 1 January 1939) was a British comparative and descriptive linguist who specialised in Melanesian languages.Papers and field notes relating to his linguistic work are held bSOAS Special Collections/ref> In 189 ...

, Wurm became interested in

Papuan languages The Papuan languages are the non- Austronesian and non-Australian languages spoken on the western Pacific island of New Guinea in Indonesia and Papua New Guinea, as well as neighbouring islands, by around 4 million people. It is a strictly geogra ...

and began a correspondence with

Arthur Capell Arthur Capell (28 March 1902 – 10 August 1986) was an Australian linguist, who made major contributions to the study of Australian languages, Austronesian languages and Papuan languages. Early life Capell was born in Newtown, New South Wales ...

, a lecturer in linguistics at the

University of Sydney The University of Sydney (USYD), also known as Sydney University, or informally Sydney Uni, is a public research university located in Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in Australia and is one of the country's si ...

. Wurm began teaching himself

Tok Pisin Tok Pisin (,Laurie Bauer, 2007, ''The Linguistics Student’s Handbook'', Edinburgh ; Tok Pisin ), often referred to by English speakers as "New Guinea Pidgin" or simply Pidgin, is a creole language spoken throughout Papua New Guinea. It is an ...

and

Hiri Motu Hiri Motu, also known as Police Motu, Pidgin Motu, or just Hiri, is a language of Papua New Guinea, which is spoken in surrounding areas of Port Moresby (Capital of Papua New Guinea). It is a simplified version of Motu, from the Austronesian l ...

from books and took up a position in London. In 1954, the Wurms moved to Australia, where Capell had organised for Wurm a post in the Anthropology Department at the

. In 1957, the Wurms moved to

Canberra Canberra ( ) is the capital city of Australia. Founded following the federation of the colonies of Australia as the seat of government for the new nation, it is Australia's largest inland city and the eighth-largest city overall. The ci ...

, where Stephen took up a post as Senior Fellow within the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies (RSPAS, now

Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs The Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs is a constituent of the College of Asia and the Pacific, but was formerly part of the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, ANU, which was founded in 1946 as part of the Institute of Advanced ...

) at the new

Australian National University The Australian National University (ANU) is a public research university located in Canberra, the capital of Australia. Its main campus in Acton encompasses seven teaching and research colleges, in addition to several national academies and ...

(ANU). The same year, the Wurms received

Australian citizenship Australian nationality law details the conditions in which a person holds Australian legal nationality. The primary law governing nationality regulations is the Australian Citizenship Act 2007, which came into force on 1 July 2007 and is applic ...

. From then on, the main focus of Wurm's research was the study of the languages of

New Guinea New Guinea (; Hiri Motu Hiri Motu, also known as Police Motu, Pidgin Motu, or just Hiri, is a language of Papua New Guinea, which is spoken in surrounding areas of Port Moresby (Capital of Papua New Guinea). It is a simplified version of ...

, but he also carried out research on a number of

Australian Aboriginal languages The Indigenous languages of Australia number in the hundreds, the precise number being quite uncertain, although there is a range of estimates from a minimum of around 250 (using the technical definition of 'language' as non-mutually intellig ...

. At the

, he was Professor of Linguistics from 1968 to 1987. He was elected fellow of the

Academy of Social Sciences in Australia The Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia (ASSA) is an independent, non-governmental organisation devoted to the advancement of knowledge and research in the social sciences. It has its origins in the Social Science Research Council of Austr ...

in 1976.

Legacy

In tribute to the scholarship of the man, the journal ''Oceanic Linguistics'' titled an article on Wurm "Linguist Extraordinaire". In recognition of Wurm's outstanding contribution, the Stephen Wurm Graduate Prize for Pacific Linguistic Studies was inaugurated in 2008.

Bibliography

* ** Wurm, S.A. editor. ''New Guinea area languages and language study, Vol. 1, Papuan languages and the New Guinea linguistic scene''. C-38. 1975. ** Wurm, S.A. editor. ''New Guinea area languages and language study, Vol. 2, Austronesian languages''. C-39. 1976. ** Wurm, S.A. editor. ''New Guinea area languages and language study, Vol. 3, Language, culture, society, and the modern world''. C-40. 1977. * Wurm, S.A. and Laycock, D.C. editors. ''Pacific linguistic studies in honour of

''. C-13, xii + 1303 pages. Pacific Linguistics, The Australian National University, 1970. * Wurm, S.A. "Chapter 6: The Kiwaian Language Family". In Franklin, K. editor, ''The linguistic situation in the Gulf District and adjacent areas, Papua New Guinea''. C-26:217-260. Pacific Linguistics, The Australian National University, 1973. * Wurm, S.A. editor. ''Australian linguistic studies''. C-54, xvi + 770 pages. Pacific Linguistics, The Australian National University, 1979. * Wurm, S.A. ''Languages: Eastern, Western, and Southern Highlands, Territory of Papua and New Guinea''. D-4, + 000 pages. Pacific Linguistics, The Australian National University, 1961. * Wurm, S.A. editor. ''Language maps of the highlands Provinces'', Papua New Guinea. D-11, iv + 24 pages. Pacific Linguistics, The Australian National University, 1978. * Wurm, S.A. editor. ''Some Endangered Languages of Papua New Guinea: Kaki Ae, Musom, and Aribwatsa''. D-89, vi + 183 pages. Pacific Linguistics, The Australian National University, 1997. * * * *

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wurm, Stephen 1922 births 2001 deaths Linguists of Turkic languages Linguists from Australia Linguists of Oceanic languages Fellows of the Australian Academy of the Humanities Fellows of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia Linguists of Australian Aboriginal languages Linguists of Papuan languages Writers from Budapest Hungarian emigrants to Australia Hungarian people of German descent Paleolinguists Linguists of Uzbek 20th-century linguists Australian National University faculty

Early life

Career

Legacy

Bibliography

See also

References