Helmer Smith

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Helmer Smith (born April 26, 1882 in Stockholm , † January 9, 1956 ) was a Swedish Indologist .

Life

Smith studied from 1900 to 1904 in Uppsala, where he passed his examination as a candidate in Sanskrit , Latin , Greek , including the Slavic and North Germanic languages . He continued his studies in Berlin from 1905-06 under Pischel and Geldner before he passed the examination in 1908 as Philosophiae Licentiatus .

With the scholarship of the Bergstedtske Fund he went on a study trip to Berlin 1909-10, then to Copenhagen, where he studied Sanskrit, Iranian languages , Sinhala , Arabic a. a. continued to study and immersed himself in the library's palm leaf manuscripts .

After he familiarized himself with the Pali manuscripts left by Carl Vilhelm Trenckner , he devoted himself increasingly to the study of the Pāli and despite the offer of a job in London for the processing of the lexicon of the English Pali Text Society , he moved to Copenhagen and to participate in the continuation of Trenckner's Lexicon, the publication of which the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences was preparing.

With his in-depth knowledge of the Pali manuscripts and his keen critical talent, he undoubtedly occupied the first place among contemporary Pali researchers. In 1921 he became a lecturer in Indology at Lund University . In 1927 he received an honorary doctorate there . From 1936 to 1947 he was professor of Sanskrit and comparative Indo-European language research at Uppsala University. He made repeated study trips to Paris for manuscript studies, where he had the opportunity to study several New Indian languages ​​( Hindi , Bengali , Tamil ) at the same time . For several years he did the extensive preparatory work for his edition of the great and extremely important grammatical work Saddaniti .

Helmer Smith married Ellen, who survived him.

Publications

  • A new critical edition of the Sutta Nipata (in collaboration with Dines Andersen, Pali Text Societys Writings, London, 1913)
  • The Khuddaka-Pāṭha, together with its commentary Paramatthajotikā (1915, London, PTS)
  • Sutta-Nipāta commentary, being Paramatthajotikā (I-III, London, 1916–18, PTS)
  • The Pāli Dhātupāṭha and the Dhātumañjūsā , edited with indexes (in collaboration with Dines Andersen , Kbhvn., 1921, Det Kongelige Danske Videnskabernes Selskab, Historisk-filologiske Meddelelser, 4: 6.)
  • A Critical Pāli Dictionary , begun, revised, continued and published by Trenckner, Vol. I (With Epilegomena), in collaboration with Dines Andersen , Kbhvn., 1924–48
  • The Commentary on the Dhammapada , London, 1925, PTS
  • Saddanīti, la grammaire palie d'Aggavaṁsa . Texts établi. 1-5.1. Lund 1928–1954 (Writings of the Royal Humanistic Science Fund )
  • Désinences verbales de type apabhraṁśa en pali (Bulletin de la Société de Linguistique de Paris, 33, 1932)
  • Descendants de nikaṭa et nikṛṣṭa en neo-india (Ibidem, 34, 1933)
  • Singhalais ruval "la voile" (Ib.)
  • Hindi sabh "tous" et les génitifs à désinence multiple
  • Quatre notes [à propos de l'article Le traitement du groupe Sanskrit sifflante + m et la désinence du locatif en moyen-indien, par J. Bloch] (Mémoires de la Société de linguistique de Paris, 23, 1935.)
  • Materials on the Iranian Pamir languages, by H. Sköld . Published from the estate on behalf of the Royal Society of Humanities in Lund. Lund 1936 (in collaboration with G. Morgenstierne and G. Jarring, writings of the Royal Humanistic Science Fund )
  • Dictionaries (Ib.)
  • Metriska tabeller , Uppsala, 1940
  • Några indoeuropeiska kasus , Uppsala Universitets Årsskrift 1945: 12 (Språkvetenskapliga sällskapets i Uppsala förhandlingar, 1943-45)
  • Wilhelm Geiger et le vocabulaire du Singalais classique . ( Journal asiatique , 1950.)
  • Archaic verses in Daśabhūmīśvara . (Journal of the Ceylon branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, NS, 1, 1950.)
  • Les deux prosodies du vers bouddhique (Human. Vetenskapssamfundets i Lund Årsberättelse, 1949-50)
  • Retractationes rhythmicae . Helsingfors 1951. (Studia Orientalia, 16: 5)
  • Le futur moyen indien et ses rythmes (Journal asiatique, 240, 1952.)
  • Inventaire rythmique des Pūrva-Mīmāṁsā-Sūtra , Uppsala Universitets Årsskrift 1953: 8.
  • Analecta Rhythmica (Studia Orientalia, 1954)
  • En marge du vocabulaire Sanskrit des bouddhistes , 1 (Orientalia suecana II 1953)
  • En marge du vocabulaire … 2 (Orientalia suec. III, 1954)
  • En marge du vocabulaire … 3 (Orientalia suec. IV, 1955)

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hans Hendriksen; Critical Pāli Dictionary , obituary notice from Helmer Smith, Institur for Tværkulturelle og Regionale Studier, University of Copenhagen (1960).
personal data
SURNAME Smith, Helmer
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swedish Indologist
DATE OF BIRTH April 26, 1882
PLACE OF BIRTH Stockholm
DATE OF DEATH January 9, 1956