- Kuryłowicz, Jerzy
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born Aug. 26, 1895, Stanislav, Galicia, Austria-Hungarydied Jan. 28, 1978, Kraków, Pol.Polish historical linguist.His identification of the Hittite medial h in 1927 substantiated the existence of laryngeals, the Indo-European speech sounds postulated by Ferdinand de Saussure, and stimulated much research in Indo-European phonology. His books include Apophony in Indo-European (1956) and The Inflectional Categories of Indo-European (1964).
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▪ Polish linguistborn Aug. 26, 1895, Stanislav, Galicia, Austria-Hungarydied Jan. 28, 1978, Kraków, PolandPolish historical linguist who was one of the greatest 20th-century students of Indo-European languages. His identification of the source of the Hittite (Hittite language) consonant ḫ in 1927 substantiated the existence of the laryngeals, Indo-European speech sounds postulated by the Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure in 1879. This discovery then stimulated much research in Indo-European phonology, the comparative study of changes in speech sounds.Kuryłowicz' contributions to Indo-European linguistics, particularly Romance and Germanic studies, began in 1924. In 1928 he became a professor at the university in Lwów (now Lviv, Ukraine) and wrote Études indo-européennes I (1935; “Indo-European Studies I”). After World War II he held professorships at the universities of Wrocław and Kraków, Poland. Two of his major works are L'Apophonie en indo-européen (1956; “Apophony in Indo-European”) and The Inflectional Categories of Indo-European (1964).* * *
Universalium. 2010.
