Roy Andrew Miller (September 5, 1924 – August 22, 2014) was an

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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 ...

best known as the author of several books on

Japanese language is spoken natively by about 128 million people, primarily by Japanese people and primarily in Japan, the only country where it is the national language. Japanese belongs to the Japonic or Japanese- Ryukyuan language family. There have been ...

and linguistics, and for his advocacy of Korean and Japanese as members of the proposed Altaic language family.

Biography

Miller was born in

Winona Winona, Wynona or Wynonna may refer to: Places Canada * Winona, Ontario United States * Winona, Arizona * Winona, Indiana * Winona Lake, Indiana * Winona, Kansas * Winona, Michigan * Winona County, Minnesota ** Winona, Minnesota, the seat of ...

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, on September 5, 1924, to Andrew and Jessie (née Eickelberry) Miller. In 1953, he completed a Ph.D. in Chinese and Japanese at

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

in New York. Long a student of languages, his early work in the 1950s was largely with Chinese and

Tibetan Tibetan may mean: * of, from, or related to Tibet * Tibetan people, an ethnic group * Tibetan language: ** Classical Tibetan, the classical language used also as a contemporary written standard ** Standard Tibetan, the most widely used spoken diale ...

. For example, in 1969 he wrote the

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entry on the

Tibeto-Burman languages The Tibeto-Burman languages are the non- Sinitic members of the Sino-Tibetan language family, over 400 of which are spoken throughout the Southeast Asian Massif ("Zomia") as well as parts of East Asia and South Asia. Around 60 million people sp ...

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. He was Professor of Linguistics at the

International Christian University is a non-denominational private university located in Mitaka, Tokyo, Japan, commonly known as ICU. With the efforts of Prince Takamatsu, General Douglas MacArthur, and BOJ President Hisato Ichimada, ICU was established in 1949 as the first ...

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.46 ...

from 1955 to 1963. Subsequently he taught at

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the w ...

; between 1964 and 1970, he was chairman of the department of East and South Asian Languages and Literatures. From 1970 until 1989 he held a similar post at the

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seatt ...

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. He then taught in Europe, mainly in Germany and

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. He wrote extensively on the Japanese language, from ''A Japanese Reader'' (1963) and ''The Japanese Language'' (1967) to ''Japanese and the Other Altaic Languages'' (1971) and ''Nihongo: In Defense of Japanese'' (1986). He later broadened his scope by linking Korean both to Japanese and Altaic, most notably in ''Languages and History: Japanese, Korean, and Altaic'' (1996). On the occasion of his 75th birthday, Professors Karl Menges and Nelly Naumann prepared a

Festschrift In academia, a ''Festschrift'' (; plural, ''Festschriften'' ) is a book honoring a respected person, especially an academic, and presented during their lifetime. It generally takes the form of an edited volume, containing contributions from the ...

highlighting his career and including articles on Altaic languages.Menges, Karl H., and Nelly Naumann (eds.) (1999). ''Language and Literature – Japanese and the Other Altaic Languages: Studies in Honour of Roy Andrew Miller on His 75th Birthday''. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag.

Selected works

Books

* 1967a. ''The Japanese Language.'' Tokyo: Charles E. Tuttle. * 1971. ''Japanese and the Other Altaic Languages.'' Chicago: University of Chicago Press. . * 1975. '' The Footprints of the Buddha: An Eighth-Century Old Japanese Poetic Sequence,'' New Haven (CT): American Oriental Society. * 1976. ''Studies in the Grammatical Tradition in Tibet.'' Amsterdam: John Benjamins. * 1980. ''Origins of the Japanese Language: Lectures in Japan during the Academic Year 1977–78.'' Seattle: University of Washington Press. . * 1982. ''Japan's Modern Myth: The Language and Beyond.'' Tokyo: John Weatherhill Inc. . * 1986. ''Nihongo: In Defence of Japanese.'' London: Athlone Press. . * 1993. ''Prolegomena to the First Two Tibetan Grammatical Treatises.'' (''Wiener Studien zur Tibetologie und Buddhismuskunde'' 30.) Vienna: Arbeitskreis für Tibetische und Buddhistische Studien Universität Wien. * 1996. ''Languages and History: Japanese, Korean and Altaic.'' Oslo: Institute for Comparative Research in Human Culture. .

Articles

* 1955a. "Studies in spoken Tibetan I: Phonemics". ''Journal of the American Oriental Society'' 75: 46–51. * 1955c. "Notes on the Lhasa dialect of the early ninth century". ''Oriens'' 8: 284–291. * 1955d. "The significance for comparative grammar of some ablauts in the Tibetan number-system". ''T'oung-pao'' 43: 287–296. * 1955e. "The Independent Status of Lhasa dialect within Central Tibetan". ''Orbis'' 4.1: 49–55. * 1956. "Segmental diachronic phonology of a Ladakh (Tibetan) dialect". ''Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morganländischen Gesellschaft'' 106: 345–362. * 1956. "The Tibeto-Burman ablaut system". ''Transactions of the International Conference of Orientalists in Japan / Kokusai Tōhō Gakusha Kaigi kiyō'' 1: 29–56. * 1957. "The phonology of the Old Burmese vowel system as seen in the Myazedi inscription". ''Transactions of the International Conference of Orientalists in Japan / Kokusai Tōhō Gakusha Kaigi kiyō'' 2: 39–43. * 1962. "The Si-tu Mahapandita on Tibetan phonology". 湯浅八郎博士古稀記念論文集 / ''Yuasa Hachirō hakushi koki kinen ronbunshu / To Dr. Hachiro Yuasa; A Collection of Papers Commemorating His Seventieth Anniversary'', 921–933. Tokyo: 国際基督教大学 / Kokusai Kirisutokyō Daigaku. * 1966. "Early evidence for vowel harmony in Tibetan". ''Language'' 42: 252–277. * 1967b
"Old Japanese phonology and the Korean–Japanese relationship".
* 1967c. "Some problems in Tibetan transcription of Chinese from Tun-huang". ''Monumenta Serica'' 27: 123–148 (publ. 1969). * 1976. "The Relevance of Historical Linguistics for Japanese Studies". ''The Journal of Japanese Studies'' 2.2: 335-388. * 1977. "The 'Spirit' of the Japanese Language". ''The Journal of Japanese Studies'' 3.2: 251-298. * 1978, "Is Tibetan genetically related to Japanese?", in: Proceedings of the Csoma de Körös memorial Symposium, ed. L. Ligeti, Budapest 1978, pp. 295–312.) * 2002. "The Middle Mongolian vocalic hiatus". ''Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae'' 55.1–3: 179–205. *2008 "The Altaic Aorist in *-Ra in Old Korean". Lubotsky, Alexander, ed. ''Evidence and counter-evidence : essays in honour of Frederik Kortlandt'' Amsterdam: Rodopi. (Studies in Slavic and general linguistics; 32–33) 267–282.

Reviews

* 1955b. Review of 稻葉正就 Inaba Shōju, チベット語古典文法学 / ''Chibettogo koten bunpōgaku'' 'Classical Tibetan Language Grammatical Studies''Kyoto: 法藏館 Hōzōkan, 1954 (昭和 Shōwa 29). ''Language'' 31: 481–482. * 1968. Review of András Róna-Tas, ''Tibeto-Mongolica: The Loanwords of Mongour and the Development of the Archaic Tibetan Dialects'' (''Indo-Iranian Monographs'' 7), The Hague: Mouton, 1966. In ''Language'' 44.1: 147–168. * 1970. Review of R. Burling’s Proto-Lolo-Burmese. ''Indo-Iranian Journal'' 12 (1970), 146–159. * 1974. "Sino-Tibetan: Inspection of a Conspectus". ''Journal of the American Oriental Society'' 94.2: 195–209. *1982. "Linguistic issues in the study of Tibetan Grammar". ''Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde Südasiens und Archiv für indische Philosophie'' 26: 86–116. * 1994. "A new grammar of written Tibetan". Review of Stephen Beyer, ''The Classical Tibetan Language'', Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992. ''Journal of the American Oriental Society'' 114.1: 67–76. * 1998, * 2001 Review of Philip Denwood, "Tibetan", (London Oriental and African Language Library, vol. 3). Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 1999. ''Journal of the American Oriental Society'' 121.1:125–128.

References

External links

Roy Andrew Miller (1924–2014)
by Marc Miyake.
Roy Andrew Miller, an unsung hero (villain) of academic dissing
{{DEFAULTSORT:Miller, Roy Andrew 1924 births 2014 deaths People from Winona, Minnesota Gustavus Adolphus College alumni Columbia University alumni University of Washington faculty Linguists from the United States American Japanologists Tibetologists Paleolinguists Linguists of Altaic languages Linguists of Sino-Tibetan languages Linguists of Japanese