Bojan Čop (May 23, 1923 – August 3, 1994) was a Slovene linguist.

Life and work

Čop was born in

Ljubljana {{Infobox settlement , name = Ljubljana , official_name = , settlement_type = Capital city , image_skyline = {{multiple image , border = infobox , perrow = 1/2/2/1 , total_widt ...

. He became an assistant instructor at the

University of Ljubljana The University of Ljubljana (, , ), abbreviated UL, is the oldest and largest university in Slovenia. It has approximately 38,000 enrolled students. The university has 23 faculties and three art academies with approximately 4,000 teaching and re ...

's Department of Comparative and General Linguistics in 1949. After the retirement of Karel Oštir in 1959, Čop took over responsibility for lectures in comparative Indo-European grammar with an emphasis on modern trends such as the

laryngeal theory The laryngeal theory is a theory in historical linguistics positing that the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) language included a number of laryngeal consonants that are not linguistic reconstruction, reconstructable by direct application of the com ...

, Indo-European dialectology, and Indo-European antiquity. In 1966 Čop became the head of the university's Department of Comparative Linguistics and Eastern Studies. After 1970 he also lectured on the Indo-Uralic theory. Čop received his

PhD A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

in 1971 from the University of Ljubljana's Faculty of Arts. He was made a full professor in 1972. Čop was made a full member of the

Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts The Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts ( (SAZU)) is the national academy of Slovenia, which encompasses science and the arts and brings together the top Slovene researchers and artists as members of the academy. Cultural significance Establis ...

in 1976. He retired due to illness in 1990 and died in Ljubljana in 1994. Čop's research initially focused on Indo-European etymology, especially Greek, but he soon turned his attention to the ancient languages of Asia Minor. He authored several studies on grammatical and dialectology issues in Indo-European languages. Čop helped establish new directions in comparative linguistics and made significant contributions to the development of the discipline.

Legacy

Čop's law, which describes the sound change *''é.C₁ > aC₁.C₁'' in

Luwian Luwian (), sometimes known as Luvian or Luish, is an ancient language, or group of languages, within the Anatolian branch of the Indo-European language family. The ethnonym Luwian comes from ''Luwiya'' (also spelled ''Luwia'' or ''Luvia'') – ...

, is named after Čop.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cop, Bojan 1923 births 1994 deaths Linguists from Slovenia Members of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts Linguists from Yugoslavia