Marianne Bakró-Nagy (born 2 November 1946 in

Budapest Budapest is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns of Hungary, most populous city of Hungary. It is the List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, tenth-largest city in the European Union by popul ...

) is a linguist and Finno-Ugrist who is emeritus professor at the

University of Szeged The University of Szeged () is a Public university, public research university in Szeged, Hungary. Established as the Jesuit Academy of Kolozsvár in present-day Cluj-Napoca in 1581, the institution was re-established as a university in 1872 by ...

and the

Hungarian Research Centre for Linguistics The Hungarian Research Centre for Linguistics () was created in 1949. It was under the supervision of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences from 1951 until 2019, when it was moved by a governmental decree to the supervision of Eötvös Loránd Resea ...

Education, career and honours

Bakró-Nagy studied English, Hungarian and Finno-Ugric linguistics to MA level at

Eötvös Loránd University Eötvös Loránd University (, ELTE, also known as ''University of Budapest'') is a Hungarian public research university based in Budapest. Founded in 1635, ELTE is one of the largest and most prestigious public higher education institutions in ...

between 1970 and 1976. She received her

candidate A candidate, or nominee, is a prospective recipient of an award or honor, or a person seeking or being considered for some kind of position. For example, one can be a candidate for membership in a group (sociology), group or election to an offic ...

(doctoral) degree from the

Hungarian Academy of Sciences The Hungarian Academy of Sciences ( , MTA) is Hungary’s foremost and most prestigious learned society. Its headquarters are located along the banks of the Danube in Budapest, between Széchenyi rakpart and Akadémia utca. The Academy's primar ...

in 1990, and her

Doctor of Sciences A Doctor of Sciences, abbreviated д-р наук or д. н.; ; ; ; is a higher doctoral degree in the Russian Empire, Soviet Union and many Commonwealth of Independent States countries. One of the prerequisites of receiving a Doctor of Sciences ...

degree (higher doctorate) from the same institution in 2002. Bakró-Nagy was affiliated with the

consistently from 1971 until her retirement in 2016, initially as a research fellow, then as deputy director (1982–1995), head of the department of Finno-Ugric and

historical linguistics Historical linguistics, also known as diachronic linguistics, is the scientific study of how languages change over time. It seeks to understand the nature and causes of linguistic change and to trace the evolution of languages. Historical li ...

(1993–2016), and research professor (2011–2016). In parallel to this, she was assistant professor at

from 1993 to 2001 as well as lecturer at the

University of Jyväskylä A university () is an institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly means "community of teachers and scholars". U ...

in Finland (1993–1995) and head of the Finno-Ugric department of the

Janus Pannonius University In ancient Roman religion and myth, Janus ( ; ) is the god of beginnings, gates, transitions, time, duality, doorways, passages, frames, and endings. He is usually depicted as having two faces. The month of January is named for Janus (''Ianu ...

Pécs Pécs ( , ; ; Slovak language, Slovak: ''Päťkostolie''; also known by #Name, alternative names) is List of cities and towns of Hungary#Largest cities in Hungary, the fifth largest city in Hungary, on the slopes of the Mecsek mountains in the c ...

(1996–1997). In 2001 she took up a position as full professor at the University of Szeged, which she again held until her retirement in 2016. Bakró-Nagy has received numerous honours and awards for her work, including an honorary doctorate from the

University of Helsinki The University of Helsinki (, ; UH) is a public university in Helsinki, Finland. The university was founded in Turku in 1640 as the Royal Academy of Åbo under the Swedish Empire, and moved to Helsinki in 1828 under the sponsorship of Alexander ...

(2007), the First Class Medal of the

Order of the White Rose of Finland The Order of the White Rose of Finland (; ) is one of three official orders in Finland, along with the Order of the Cross of Liberty, and the Order of the Lion of Finland. The President of Finland is the Grand Master of all three orders. The ...

(2011), and the Officer's Cross of the

Hungarian Order of Merit The Hungarian Order of Merit () is the fourth highest State Order of Hungary. Founded in 1991, the order is a revival of an original order founded in 1946 and abolished in 1949. Its origins, however, can be traced to the Order of Merit of the K ...

(2016). In 2021 she was elected ordinary member of the

Academia Europaea The Academia Europaea is a pan-European Academy of humanities, letters, law, and sciences. The Academia was founded in 1988 as a functioning Europe-wide Academy that encompasses all fields of scholarly inquiry. It acts as co-ordinator of Europe ...

Research

Within the empirical domain of the

Finno-Ugric languages Finno-Ugric () is a traditional linguistic grouping of all languages in the Uralic language family except for the Samoyedic languages. Its once commonly accepted status as a subfamily of Uralic is based on criteria formulated in the 19th centur ...

, Bakró-Nagy's research has ranged broadly over topics including

and

language change Language change is the process of alteration in the features of a single language, or of languages in general, over time. It is studied in several subfields of linguistics: historical linguistics, sociolinguistics, and evolutionary linguistic ...

anthropological linguistics Anthropological linguistics is the subfield of linguistics and anthropology which deals with the place of language in its wider social and cultural context, and its role in making and maintaining cultural practices and societal structures. Whi ...

taboo A taboo is a social group's ban, prohibition or avoidance of something (usually an utterance or behavior) based on the group's sense that it is excessively repulsive, offensive, sacred or allowed only for certain people.''Encyclopædia Britannica ...

and secret languages, and cultural remembrance in

Mansi Mansi may refer to: * Mansi people, an Indigenous people of Russia ** Mansi language *Mansi (name), given name and surname *Mansi Junction railway station * Mansi Township, Myanmar ** Mansi, Myanmar, a town in the Kachin State of Myanmar (Burma) * ...

folklore Folklore is the body of expressive culture shared by a particular group of people, culture or subculture. This includes oral traditions such as Narrative, tales, myths, legends, proverbs, Poetry, poems, jokes, and other oral traditions. This also ...

texts. The

Ob-Ugric languages The Ob-Ugric languages are a commonly proposed branch of the Uralic languages, grouping together the Khanty (Ostyak) and Mansi (Vogul) languages. Both languages are split into numerous and highly divergent dialects, more accurately referred to a ...

have been a particular focus of her research. Along with Johanna Laakso and Elena Skribnik she is editor of the ''Oxford Guide to the

Uralic Languages The Uralic languages ( ), sometimes called the Uralian languages ( ), are spoken predominantly in Europe and North Asia. The Uralic languages with the most native speakers are Hungarian, Finnish, and Estonian. Other languages with speakers ab ...

(2022). Bakró-Nagy has been co-investigator on several international grant-funded projects, including ''Ob-Ugric languages: conceptual structures, lexicon, constructions, categories - "An innovative approach to creating descriptive resources for Khanty and Mansi"'' (2009–2015), ''Innovative Networking in Infrastructure for Endangered Languages'' (2011–2014), and ''Changes in the Eurasian steppes and their peripheries'' (2015–2018).

Selected publications

* Bakró-Nagy, Marianne. 1979. ''Die Sprache des Bärenkultes im obugrischen'' (The language of the Ob-Ugric bear cult). Akadémiai Kiadó. * Bakró-Nagy, Marianne. 1992. ''Proto-phonotactics: phonotactic investigation of the PU and PFU consonant system on the basis of the Uralisches etymologisches Wörterbuch'' (Uralic etymological dictionary). Berlin: Harrassowitz. * Bakró-Nagy, Marianne. 2012. The Uralic languages. ''Revue belge de Philologie et d'Histoire'' (Belgian review of philology and history) 90 (3), 1001–1027. * Bakró-Nagy, Marianne. 2018. Mansi loanword phonology: a historical approach to the typology of repair strategies of Russian loanwords in Mansi. In Huba Bartos, Marcel den Dikken, Zoltán Bánréti & Tamás Váradi (eds.), ''Boundaries Crossed, at the Interfaces of Morphosyntax, Phonology, Pragmatics and Semantics'', 51–66. Berlin: Springer. * Bakró-Nagy, Marianne, Johanna Laakso & Elena Skribnik (eds.). 2022. ''The Oxford guide to the Uralic languages''. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Bakró-Nagy, Marianne Living people Eötvös Loránd University alumni Academic staff of the University of Szeged Members of Academia Europaea Women linguists Historical linguists Anthropological linguists Hungarian Finno-Ugrists 1946 births