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Bror Oscar Eilert Ekwall (8 January 1877 inVallsjö – 23 November 1964 inLund) was a Swedish academic, Professor of English at Sweden'sLund University from 1909 to 1942 and one of the outstanding scholars of theEnglish language in the first half of the 20th century. He wrote works on the history of English, but he is best known as the author of numerous important books on Englishplace-names (in the broadest sense) andpersonal names.
His chief works in this area areThe Place-Names of Lancashire (1922),English Place-Names in -ing (1923, new edition 1961),English River Names (1928),Studies on English Place- and Personal Names (1931),Studies on English Place-Names (1936),Street-Names of the City of London (1954),Studies on the Population of Medieval London (1956), and the monumentalConcise Oxford Dictionary of English Place-Names (1936, new editions 1940, 1947/51 and the last in 1960). TheDictionary remained the standard national reference resource for over 40 years, and is still valuable even though some aspects of Ekwall's methodology and some of his ideas are no longer accepted.[1] Although not a county editor of the survey conducted by theEnglish Place-Name Society (1923-date), his philological advice was often sought and acknowledged by scholars preparing the county volumes, such asAllen Mawer andFrank Stenton. He was competent not only in English philology, but also inScandinavian andCeltic, making him ideally qualified as an authority on linguistic aspects of the place-names of England.
His other work on English included scholarly editions of classic early-modern works such as John Jones'Practical Phonography of 1701 (1907), the anonymousWriting Scholar's Companion of 1695 (1911), andJohn Lydgate'sSiege of Thebes (1930). Notable other books or booklets were that on modern English phonology and morphology originally published in German in 1914, and still being reprinted in 1965 (English edition finally after Ekwall's death, in 1975); and that on the genitive of groups, with much relevance for place-name studies (1943).
Ekwall also left behind an extensive body of influential academic articles and notes (many collected in the books of 1931 and 1936 mentioned above), local working papers of Lund University, and a very large number of book reviews, all published over a period of some 60 years, in English, Swedish and German, and mostly referenced in von Feilitzen's bibliography.
From 1935, Ekwall was a Fellow of theSwedish Academy of Letters and theSwedish Academy of Sciences. He and his wife Dagny founded abursary for students at Lund University from theSmåland region.
