Vilhelm Ludwig Peter Thomsen (25 January 1842 – 12 May 1927) was a
Danish
Danish may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to the country of Denmark
People
* A national or citizen of Denmark, also called a "Dane," see Demographics of Denmark
* Culture of Denmark
* Danish people or Danes, people with a Danish a ...
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 ...
and
Turkologist
Turkology (or Turcology or Turkic studies) is a complex of humanities sciences studying languages, history, literature, folklore, culture, and ethnology of people speaking Turkic languages and Turkic peoples in chronological and comparative con ...
. He successfully deciphered the
Orkhon inscriptions
The Orkhon inscriptions (also known as the Orhon inscriptions, Orhun inscriptions, Khöshöö Tsaidam monuments (also spelled ''Khoshoo Tsaidam'', ''Koshu-Tsaidam'' or ''Höshöö Caidam''), or Kul Tigin steles ( zh, t=闕特勤碑, s=阙特勤 ...
which were discovered during the expedition of
Nikolai Yadrintsev
Nikolai Mikhailovich Yadrintsev (russian: Николай Михайлович Ядринцев; October 18, 1842, Omsk – June 7, 1894, Barnaul) was a Siberian public figure, explorer, archaeologist, and turkologist. His discoveries include ...
in 1889.
Early life and education
Vilhelm Thomsen was born in Copenhagen. He was the son of Chamber Councillor (''kammerråd'') Ludvig Frederik Thomsen and the elder brother of painter and illustrator
Carl Thomsen
Carl Christian Frederik Jacob Thomsen (6 April 1847 – 4 October 1912) was a Danish painter and illustrator. He specialized in genre painting and also illustrated the works of several Danish authors.
Biography
Born in Copenhagen, Thomsen was th ...
(1847–1912).
He studied at the
University of Copenhagen
The University of Copenhagen ( da, Københavns Universitet, KU) is a prestigious public university, public research university in Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark. Founded in 1479, the University of Copenhagen is the second-oldest university in ...
in 1859, graduating in 1867 and earning a
PhD in 1869 with a dissertation on Germanic loanwords in Finnic.
Career
He taught Greek at the Borgerdyd school in Copenhagen before becoming a professor at the
University of Copenhagen
The University of Copenhagen ( da, Københavns Universitet, KU) is a prestigious public university, public research university in Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark. Founded in 1479, the University of Copenhagen is the second-oldest university in ...
;
From 1875 he was an associate professor of comparative linguistics at the University of Copenhagen, and in 1887 he was appointed professor.
In 1876 he was invited to give the
Ilchester Lectures
The Ilchester Lectures are a series of academic lectures in the University of Oxford, England, founded by William Fox-Strangways, 4th Earl of Ilchester (1795–1865).
History
Lord Ilchester was a diplomat representing Great Britain and Ireland an ...
at the
University of Oxford
, mottoeng = The Lord is my light
, established =
, endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019)
, budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20)
, chancellor ...
, which were later published as ''The Relations Between Ancient Russia and Scandinavia, and the Origin of the Russian State''.
Thomsen made a number of important contributions to linguistics, including his work on the Germanic, Baltic, and Indo-Iranian influences on Finnic. In 1893, he deciphered the Turkic
Orkhon inscriptions
The Orkhon inscriptions (also known as the Orhon inscriptions, Orhun inscriptions, Khöshöö Tsaidam monuments (also spelled ''Khoshoo Tsaidam'', ''Koshu-Tsaidam'' or ''Höshöö Caidam''), or Kul Tigin steles ( zh, t=闕特勤碑, s=阙特勤 ...
in advance of Russian linguist
Wilhelm Radloff
Vasily Vasilievich Radlov or Friedrich Wilhelm Radloff (russian: Васи́лий Васи́льевич Ра́длов; in Berlin – 12 May 1918 in Petrograd) was a German-born Russian founder of Turkology, a scientific study of Turkic peoples. ...
(1837–1918).
Vilhelm Thomsen first published the translation in French in 1899. He then published another interpretation in Danish in 1922 with a more complete translation.
According to an article on "The history of Uralic linguistics" by Bo Wickman (1988:808),
:The Danish scholar Vilhelm Thomsen (1842–1927) was one of the greatest linguists of all times. He was active in an astoundingly great number of linguistic disciplines, and he was equally masterful in all of them.
Personal life
Thomsen married Karen Charlotte Allen (22 August 1852 – 15 August 1934), a daughter of historian C.F. Allen (1811–71) and Ide Marie Dorph (1812–1910), on 5 May 1876 in
Frederiksberg
Frederiksberg () is a part of the Capital Region of Denmark. It is formally an independent municipality, Frederiksberg Municipality, separate from Copenhagen Municipality, but both are a part of the City of Copenhagen. It occupies an area of ...
.
He died on 12 May 1927 in Copenhagen and is buried in
Solbjerg Park Cemetery
Solbjerg Park Cemetery ( da, Solbjerg Parkkirkegård) Is a 19-hectare cemetery in Frederiksberg in the western outskirts of inner Copenhagen, Denmark. Founded in 1865, it is one of three cemeteries in Frederiksberg Municipality
Frederiksberg Ko ...
.
Honours
*In 1912 he received membership of the
Order of the Elephant
The Order of the Elephant ( da, Elefantordenen) is a Danish order of chivalry and is Denmark's highest-ranked honour. It has origins in the 15th century, but has officially existed since 1693, and since the establishment of constitutional ...
.
*Thomsen is honored on a
stela
A stele ( ),Anglicized plural steles ( ); Greek plural stelai ( ), from Greek , ''stēlē''. The Greek plural is written , ''stēlai'', but this is only rarely encountered in English. or occasionally stela (plural ''stelas'' or ''stelæ''), whe ...
set up in central
Copenhagen
Copenhagen ( or .; da, København ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a proper population of around 815.000 in the last quarter of 2022; and some 1.370,000 in the urban area; and the wider Copenhagen metropolitan ar ...
along with three other Danish pioneers of modern linguistics;
Rasmus Rask
Rasmus Kristian Rask (; born Rasmus Christian Nielsen Rasch; 22 November 1787 – 14 November 1832) was a Danish linguist and philologist. He wrote several grammars and worked on comparative phonology and morphology. Rask traveled extensively to ...
,
Niels Ludvig Westergaard
Niels Ludvig Westergaard (27 October 1815 – 9 September 1878) was a Danish Orientalist and professor.
Biography
Westergaard was born in Copenhagen, Denmark.
In 1833, he became a student at Borgerdivskolen in Copenhagen.
Westergaard studied Ol ...
and
Karl Verner
Karl Adolph Verner (; 7 March 1846 – 5 November 1896) was a Danish linguist. He is remembered today for Verner's law, which he published in 1876.
Biography
Verner's interest in languages was stimulated by reading about the work of Rasmus Chris ...
.
*Thomsen was President of the Danish Academy from 1909 until his death, and was an honorary member of the
Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland
The Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, commonly known as the Royal Asiatic Society (RAS), was established, according to its royal charter of 11 August 1824, to further "the investigation of subjects connected with and for the en ...
.
[Konow 1927]
*''Wilhelm Thomsen Caddesi'' is a street is named after him in
Ankara
Ankara ( , ; ), historically known as Ancyra and Angora, is the capital of Turkey. Located in the central part of Anatolia, the city has a population of 5.1 million in its urban center and over 5.7 million in Ankara Province, maki ...
,
Turkey
Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...
, on which the
National Library of Turkey
The National Library of Turkey ( tr, Millî Kütüphane) is the national library of Turkey, located in Ankara. It was founded on April 15, 1946.
History
The National Library of Turkey, established in the Çankaya district of the city Ankara was e ...
is located.
Selected publications
*The relations between ancient Russia and Scandinavia and the origin of the Russian state. Three lectures delivered at the Taylor Institution, Oxford, in May, 1876, in accordance with the terms of Lord Ilchester's bequest to the university
*1896: ''Inscriptions De L'Orkhon Déchiffrées''
*''On the influence of the Germanic languages on the Finnish-Lappish''
See also
*
Old Turkic script
The Old Turkic script (also known as variously Göktürk script, Orkhon script, Orkhon-Yenisey script, Turkic runes) was the alphabet used by the Göktürks and other early Turkic khanates from the 8th to 10th centuries to record the Old T ...
References
Sources
* Brøndal, Viggo. 1927. "L'œuvre de Vilhelm Thomsen." ''Acta philologica scandinavica'' 2:289–318. København.
* Wickman, Bo. 1988. "The history of Uralic linguistics." In ''The Uralic Languages: Description, History and Foreign Influences'', edited by Denis Sinor. Leiden: Brill.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Thomsen, Vilhelm
Balticists
Linguists from Denmark
Linguists of Turkic languages
1842 births
1927 deaths
University of Copenhagen alumni
Corresponding members of the Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences
Corresponding Members of the Russian Academy of Sciences (1917–1925)
Corresponding Members of the USSR Academy of Sciences
Recipients of the Pour le Mérite (civil class)
Rectors of the University of Copenhagen
Paleolinguists
Linguists of Indo-Uralic languages