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Holger Pedersen | |
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| Born | (1867-04-07)7 April 1867 |
| Died | 25 October 1953(1953-10-25) (aged 86) Hellerup, Denmark |
| Alma mater | University of Copenhagen |
| Known for | Contributions to historical linguistics, includingPedersen's law, theruki sound law, and early support forlaryngeal theory |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | linguistics,comparative linguistics,historical linguistics |
| Institutions | University of Copenhagen |
Holger Pedersen (Danish:[ˈhʌlˀkɐˈpʰe̝(ː)ðɐsn̩]; 7 April 1867 – 25 October 1953) was a Danish linguist who made significant contributions to language science and wrote about thirty authoritative works concerning several languages. He was born in Gelballe, Denmark, and died inHellerup, next toCopenhagen.
(Principal source: Koerner 1983)
Pedersen studied at theUniversity of Copenhagen withKarl Verner,Vilhelm Thomsen, andHermann Möller. He subsequently studied at theUniversity of Leipzig withKarl Brugmann,Eduard Sievers,Ernst Windisch, andAugust Leskien.
In the fall of 1893, Pedersen enrolled at the University of Berlin, where he studied withJohannes Schmidt. The following year he studied Celtic languages and Sanskrit withHeinrich Zimmer at theUniversity of Greifswald.
In 1895 he spent several months in theAran Islands in Ireland to study the conservativeform of Irish spoken there.
Pedersen submitted his doctoral dissertation to the University of Copenhagen in 1896. It dealt withaspiration inIrish. It was accepted and published in 1897. The dissertation committee included Vilhelm Thomsen andOtto Jespersen.
Also in 1897, Pedersen took a position as a lecturer onCeltic languages at the University of Copenhagen. In 1900 he became a reader incomparative grammar there. In 1902 he was offered a professorship at theUniversity of Basel, which he declined, but was able at the same time to persuade the University of Copenhagen to establish an extraordinary professorship for him (Koerner 1983:xii). Pedersen also turned down the offer in 1908 of a professorship at theUniversity of Strassburg (ib.). Following the retirement of Vilhelm Thomsen in 1912, Pedersen acceded to Thomsen'schair at the University of Copenhagen. He remained at the University of Copenhagen for the rest of his life.
In 1893, Pedersen traveled toCorfu with Karl Brugmann to studyAlbanian in place. Subsequently, Pedersen published a volume of Albanian texts collected on this journey (1895). The publication was due to the recommendation of Brugmann and Leskien (Koerner 1983:x). He continued to publish work on Albanian for many years thereafter. Pedersen's work on Albanian is often cited inVladimir Orel'sAlbanian Etymological Dictionary (1995).
Among students of theCeltic languages Pedersen is best known for hisVergleichende Grammatik der keltischen Sprachen, 'Comparative Grammar of the Celtic Languages', which is still regarded as the principal reference work in Celtichistorical linguistics.
HisHittitisch und die anderen indoeuropäischen Sprachen, 'Hittite and the Other Indo-European Languages', represented a significant step forward in Hittite studies, and is often relied on in Friedrich'sHethitisches Elementarbuch (2d ed. 1960), the standard handbook ofHittite.
Also influential was hisTocharisch vom Gesichtspunkt der indoeuropäischen Sprachvergleichung, 'Tocharian from the Viewpoint of Indo-European Language Comparison'. For example,André Martinet (2005:179n) states that his discussion of sound changes inTocharian is "fondé sur la présentation du tokharien par Holger Pedersen," 'based on the presentation of Tocharian by Holger Pedersen'.
It was Pedersen who formulated theruki law, an important sound change inIndo-Iranian,Baltic, andSlavic.
He is also known for the description ofPedersen's Law, a type of accentual shift occurring in Baltic and Slavic languages (1933a).
Pedersen endorsed thelaryngeal theory (1893:292) at a time when it "was regarded as an eccentric fancy of outsiders" (Szemerényi 1996:123). In his classic exposition of the theory,Émile Benveniste (1935:148) credits Pedersen as one of those who contributed most to its development, along withFerdinand de Saussure,Hermann Möller, andAlbert Cuny.
Two of Pedersen's theories have been receiving considerable attention in recent times after decades of neglect, often known today under the names of theglottalic theory and theNostratic theory.
In a work published in 1951, Pedersen pointed out that the frequency ofb inIndo-European is abnormally low. Comparison of languages, however, shows that it would be normal if it had once been the equivalent voicelessstopp, which is infrequent or absent in many languages.
He also posited that the Indo-European voiced aspirates,bh dh gh, could be better understood as voiceless aspirates,ph th kh.
Pedersen therefore proposed that the three stop series of Indo-European,p t k,bh dh gh, andb d g, had at an earlier time beenb d g,ph th kh, and(p) t k, with the voiceless and voiced non-aspirates reversed.
This theory attracted relatively little attention until the American linguistPaul Hopper (1973) and the two Soviet scholarsTamaz V. Gamkrelidze andVyacheslav V. Ivanov proposed, in a series of articles culminating in a major work by Gamkrelidze and Ivanov published in 1984 (English translation 1995), that the Indo-Europeanb d g series had originally been aglottalized series,p' t' k'. Under this form, the theory has attracted wide interest; however, since the original claim of typological oddity has been falsified, no direct evidence for glottalized stops has been found,[1] in the last few years publications in support of the so-called glottalic model have been steadily declining, and "the traditional paradigm remains absolutely in place".[2]
Pedersen seems to have first used the term "Nostratic" in an article on Turkish phonology published in 1903. The kernel of Pedersen's argument for Nostratic in that article was as follows (1903:560-561; "Indo-Germanic" = Indo-European):
Pedersen's last sentence should be understood as referring to the article he was writing, not the rest of his career. Although he defined the Nostratic family, he himself never produced the work of synthesis the concept seemed to call for. That would await the work of the Russian scholarsIllich-Svitych andDolgopolsky in the 1960s for its first iteration. Nevertheless, Pedersen did not abandon the subject. He produced a substantial (if overlooked) article on Indo-European and Semitic in 1908. He produced a detailed argument in favor of the kinship of Indo-European and Uralic in 1933. In effect, the three pillars of the Nostratic hypothesis areIndo-Uralic,Ural–Altaic, andIndo-Semitic. Pedersen produced works on two of these three, so the impression is incorrect that he neglected this subject in his subsequent career. His interest in the Nostratic idea remained constant amid his many other activities as a linguist.
English "Nostratic" is the normal equivalent of Germannostratisch, the form used by Pedersen in 1903, and Danishnostratisk (compare Frenchnostratique). His 1931 American translator renderednostratisk by "Nostratian," but this form did not catch on.
In his 1924 book, Pedersen defined Nostratic as follows (1931:338):
In his view,Indo-European was most clearly related toUralic, with "similar, though fainter, resemblances" toTurkish,Mongolian, andManchu; toYukaghir; and toEskimo (1931:338). He also considered Indo-European might be related toSemitic and that, if so, it must be related toHamitic and possibly toBasque (ib.). In his abovementioned 1903 article he expressed the view that the "Semitic-Hamitic" languages were "indubitably" included in Nostratic (1903:560).
In modern terms, we would say he was positinggenetic relationship between Indo-European and theUralic,Altaic, Yukaghir, Eskimo, andAfro-Asiatic language families. (The existence of the Altaic family is controversial, and few would now assign Basque to Afro-Asiatic.)
However, in Pedersen's view the languages listed did not exhaust the possibilities for Nostratic (ib.):
