Stefán Einarsson
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Stefán Einarsson (9 June 1897 – 9 April 1972) was an Icelandic
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. Lingu ...
and literary historian, who was a professor at
Johns Hopkins University Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hemisphere. It consi ...
in
Baltimore Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic, and the 30th most populous city in the United States with a population of 585,708 in 2020. Baltimore was ...
in the United States.


Life and career

Stefán was born and raised on the farm of Höskuldsstaðir in Breiðdalur. His parents were Einar Gunnlaugsson and his wife Margrét Jónsdóttir. After attending school in Akureyri and graduating in 1917 from the Menntaskólinn in Reykjavík,Liberman, p. xv. he attended the
University of Iceland The University of Iceland ( is, Háskóli Íslands ) is a public research university in Reykjavík, Iceland and the country's oldest and largest institution of higher education. Founded in 1911, it has grown steadily from a small civil servant ...
and completed a master's degree in Icelandic in 1923–24; while a student, he assisted Sigfús Blöndal and Jón Ófeigsson on the Icelandic dictionary for four years. He then studied
phonetics Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that studies how humans produce and perceive sounds, or in the case of sign languages, the equivalent aspects of sign. Linguists who specialize in studying the physical properties of speech are phoneticians. ...
at the
University of Helsinki The University of Helsinki ( fi, Helsingin yliopisto, sv, Helsingfors universitet, abbreviated UH) is a public research university located in Helsinki, Finland since 1829, but founded in the city of Turku (in Swedish ''Åbo'') in 1640 as the R ...
in 1924–25 and at the
University of Cambridge , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...
and completed his PhD at the
University of Oslo The University of Oslo ( no, Universitetet i Oslo; la, Universitas Osloensis) is a public research university located in Oslo, Norway. It is the highest ranked and oldest university in Norway. It is consistently ranked among the top universit ...
with a dissertation on the phonetics of Icelandic.Dr. Stefán Einarsson: eini Breiðdælingurinn til þess að hljóta doktorsnafnabót á 20. öld
Breiðdæla, 2002. Retrieved 9 March 2013
He became a faculty member at Johns Hopkins the same year, 1927, at the invitation of Kemp Malone, for whom he had recorded a study text in Icelandic, and worked there until his retirement in 1962. He taught primarily in the English department, in the fields of
Old Norse Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian, is a stage of development of North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and their overseas settlement ...
and
Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th ...
, and beginning in 1945, Scandinavian literature. He became Professor of Scandinavian
Philology Philology () is the study of language in oral and written historical sources; it is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics (with especially strong ties to etymology). Philology is also defined as ...
in 1945.Biographical Note – Einarsson (Stefan) 1897–1972: Papers 1942–1959
Special Collections, The Milton S. Eisenhower Library, The Johns Hopkins University.
He remained loyal to Iceland, accepting all invitations to contribute articles about Iceland to reference works and becoming one of the founding officers of the Icelandic Patriotic Society, for whose journal he wrote at least one article a year. He edited ''Heimskringla'', the Icelandic newspaper published in
Winnipeg Winnipeg () is the capital and largest city of the province of Manitoba in Canada. It is centred on the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine rivers, near the longitudinal centre of North America. , Winnipeg had a city population of 749 ...
. In 1942 he was appointed Icelandic vice-consul in Baltimore; from 1952 to 1962, when he retired from Johns Hopkins, he served as consul. After retirement he moved back to Iceland and lived in Reykjavík until his death (in Hrafnista nursing home); he was awarded a
Guggenheim fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the art ...
for 1962–63. He played violin and piano and drew and painted well; several of his works include illustrations by him. He was married twice. His first wife, Margarethe Schwarzenberg (26 May 1892 – 7 January 1953), was an Estonian historian. They had no children. Her ashes are buried with his at the family farm.History of Hoskuldsstadir
Odin Tours Iceland. Retrieved 8 March 2013.
His second wife, whom he married in December 1954, was Ingibjörg Árnadóttir (1896–1980), from
Njarðvík Njarðvík () is a town in southwestern Iceland, on the peninsula of Reykjanes. As of 2009, its population was 4,400. History In 1995 it merged with the town of Keflavík and the village of Hafnir to form the new municipality of Reykjanesbær. ...
, a relative of Halldór Hermannsson, the librarian of the Fiske Icelandic collection at
Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to tea ...
. She had four children from a previous marriage.


Publications

Stefán Einarsson published prolifically, over 500 books and articles in all. In addition to books and articles on linguistic and literary topics, in English he published a grammar of the Icelandic language (which grew out of a wartime Armed Forces course and contains a valuable glossary of Modern Icelandic words) and two histories of Icelandic literature, one of the first treatments of modern Icelandic literature and the other the first survey spanning the entire national literature from the settlement to the contemporary period, including émigré literature. He was the first Icelander to take a structuralist approach to Icelandic phonetics, and an early explorer of the idea of a link between skaldic and Latin meter. In Icelandic, in addition to two further books on Icelandic literature, one of them an expansion of his general survey published in English,Málþing um ævi og störf Stefáns Einarssonar
Austur.is,
012 012 may refer to: * Tyrrell 012, a Formula One racing car * The dialing code for Pretoria, South Africa See also * 12 (disambiguation) Twelve or 12 may refer to: * 12 (number) * December, the twelfth and final month of the year Years * 12 BC ...
Retrieved 9 March 2013
he also co-edited and wrote a large part of a book on the history of his native Breiðdalur and was responsible for two of the annuals of the Ferðafélag Íslands, covering Eastern Region. His publications show three areas of emphasis: Icelandic language and culture as revealed in literature; the East Fjords; and great living Icelanders, particularly
Sigurður Nordal Sigurður Nordal (14 September 1886 – 21 September 1974) was an Icelandic scholar, writer, and ambassador. He was influential in forming the theory of the Icelandic sagas as works of literature composed by individual authors. Education Nor ...
, with whom he studied, Þórbergur Þórðarson, and
Halldór Laxness Halldór Kiljan Laxness (; born Halldór Guðjónsson; 23 April 1902 – 8 February 1998) was an Icelandic writer and winner of the 1955 Nobel Prize in Literature. He wrote novels, poetry, newspaper articles, essays, plays, travelogues and ...
. Early in his career, at Sigurður's urging, he wrote a biography of Eiríkr Magnússon, who was his maternal great uncle. However, he ranged extremely widely in his reviews, "from Medieval Latin to Strindberg and Icelandic telephone directories." He was also on the editorial boards of the '' Journal of English and Germanic Philology'', ''
Modern Language Notes ''Modern Language Notes'' (''MLN'') is an academic journal established in 1886 at the Johns Hopkins University, where it is still edited and published, with the intention of introducing continental European literary criticism into American scho ...
'', and '' Scandinavian Studies (and Notes)''.Liberman, p. xxxv.


Honors

Stefán was an honorary member of numerous learned societies, including the
American Philosophical Society The American Philosophical Society (APS), founded in 1743 in Philadelphia, is a scholarly organization that promotes knowledge in the sciences and humanities through research, professional meetings, publications, library resources, and communit ...
, to which he was only the second Icelander to be elected. He was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Order of the Falcon, Iceland's highest honour, in 1939,"Just Begging to be Explored: Breiðdalur Valley of East Iceland"
''The Icelandic Times'', September 2011.
and in 1962 received an honorary doctorate from the University of Iceland. There is a room dedicated to his work at the Breiðdalur Institute in Breiðdalsvík.


Selected works


In English

* ''Icelandic: Grammar, Texts, Glossary''. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1945. . 2nd ed. repr. 2000. * ''History of Icelandic Prose Writers, 1800–1940''. ''Islandica'' 32–33. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University, 1948. * ''A History of Icelandic Literature''. The American-Scandinavian Foundation. New York: Johns Hopkins, 1957. 3rd printing 1969.


In Icelandic

* ''Skáldaþing''. Reykjavík: G. Ó. Guðjonsson, 1948. * ''Islensk bókmenntasaga, 874–1960''. Reykjavík: S. Jónsson, 961 * with Jón Helgason, ed. and contributor. ''Breiðdæla: drög til sögu Breiðdals''. Reykjavik, 1948. * ''Austfirðir sunnan Gerpis''. Árbók Ferðafélags Islands. eykjavík Ferðafélag Íslands, 1955. * with Tómas Tryggvason. ''Austfirðir norðan Gerpis''. Árbók Ferðafélags Islands. eykjavík Ferðafélag Íslands, 1957. * ''Austfirzk skáld og rithöfundar''. Austurland safn austfirzkra fræða 6. eykjavík Bókaforlag Odds Björnssonar, 1964.


References


External links


Chronological list of Stefán Einarsson's publications

Breiðdalssetur Sagan Research and Heritage Center:Biography - Symposium and exhibition opening in honour to Dr. Stefán Einarsson, June 11th 2011
{{DEFAULTSORT:Einarsson, Stefan Stefán Einarsson 1897 births 1972 deaths Johns Hopkins University faculty Stefán Einarsson Stefán Einarsson Old Norse studies scholars Stefán Einarsson University of Helsinki alumni Alumni of the University of Cambridge University of Oslo alumni 20th-century linguists 20th-century philologists