Oswald Szemerényi

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Oswald John Louis Szemerényi (born September 7, 1913 in London , † December 29, 1996 in Freiburg ) was a Hungarian comparative linguist specializing in Indo-European studies .

Life

Szemerényi received his training at the University of Budapest as well as at the universities in Heidelberg and Berlin . The Hungarian linguist Gyula Laziczius had a strong influence on him . In 1942 he received a position as a lecturer in Greek at the University of Budapest . In 1944 he completed his habilitation with a thesis on the unity of the Baltoslawischen and in 1947 he became professor for comparative Indo-European studies in Budapest. In 1948 he went to England and worked at Bedford College until 1960 . From 1965 to 1981 Szemerényi was professor of linguistics at the Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg . There he founded the Freiburg Linguistic Circle. This circle was strongly influenced by the Budenz circle , which goes back to Josef Budenz , a pioneer of Finno-Ugric studies .

In 1982 he was elected a member ( Fellow ) of the British Academy .

Publications (selection)

  • 1960 Studies in the Indo-European System of Numerals , Heidelberg
  • 1964 Syncope in Greek and Indo-European and the Nature of Indo-European Accent , Naples
  • 1970 Introduction to Comparative Linguistics , Darmstadt
    • 1989 Third, completely revised edition
    • 1996 Introduction to Indo-European Linguistics , Oxford
  • Directions of modern linguistics
    • 1971 Part I: From Saussure to Bloomfield , 1916–1950 , Heidelberg
    • 1982 Part II: The 1950s, 1950–1960 , Heidelberg
  • 1972 Comparative Linguistics (Current Trends of Linguistics)
  • 1977 Studies in the Kinship Terminology of the Indo-European Languages , Leiden
  • 1980 Four Old Iranian Ethnic Names: Scythian - Skudra - Sogdian - Saka , Vienna
  • Scripta Minora. Selected essays in Indo-European, Greek, and Latin. Edited by Patrick Considine and James T. Hooker , Innsbruck (Innsbruck Contributions to Linguistics 53, 1-3),
    • 1987 Vol. I: Indo-European
    • 1987 Vol. II: Latin
    • 1987 Vol. III: Greek
    • 1991 Vol. IV: Indo-European Languages ​​other than Latin and Greek (1991)
  • 1989 At the sources of the Latin vocabulary , Innsbruck

literature

  • Prehistory, History, and Historiography of Language, Speech, and Linguistic Theory. Papers in Honor of Oswald Szemerényi. (Amsterdam / Philadelphia 1992)
  • Historical Philology. Papers in Honor of Oswald Szemerényi II. (Amsterdam / Philadelphia 1992)
  • Comparative-Historical Linguistics: Indo-European and Finno-Uralic. Papers in Honor of Oswald Szemerényi III. (Amsterdam / Philadelphia 1993)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Fellows: Oswald Szemerényi. British Academy, accessed August 4, 2020 .
personal data
SURNAME Szemerényi, Oswald
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Szemerényi, Oswald John Louis (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Hungarian etymologist specializing in Indo-European studies
DATE OF BIRTH September 7, 1913
PLACE OF BIRTH London
DATE OF DEATH December 29, 1996
Place of death Freiburg