Olena Kurylo (7 October 1890 – 1946) was a Ukrainian linguist and specialized in Ukrainian

dialects The term dialect (from Latin , , from the Ancient Greek word , 'discourse', from , 'through' and , 'I speak') can refer to either of two distinctly different types of linguistic phenomena: One usage refers to a variety of a language that is a ...

and

folklore Folklore is shared by a particular group of people; it encompasses the traditions common to that culture, subculture or group. This includes oral traditions such as tales, legends, proverbs and jokes. They include material culture, ranging ...

. She helped in codifying the

orthography An orthography is a set of conventions for writing a language, including norms of spelling, hyphenation, capitalization, word breaks, emphasis, and punctuation. Most transnational languages in the modern period have a writing system, and ...

in 1928-1929. Her contributions in Ukraine linguistics include both theoretical as well as practical. She was the author of textbooks in Ukrainian language, and compiled the Ukrainian scientific terminology.

Biography

Born as Olena Borysivna Kurylo in a

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

family on 7 October 1890 in Slonim,

Grodno Region Grodno Region ( pl, Grodzieńszczyzna) or Grodno Oblast or Hrodna Voblasts ( be, Гродзенская вобласць, ''Hrodzienskaja vobłasć'', , ''Haradzienščyna''; russian: Гродненская область, ''Grodnenskaya oblast' ...

Belarus Belarus,, , ; alternatively and formerly known as Byelorussia (from Russian ). officially the Republic of Belarus,; rus, Республика Беларусь, Respublika Belarus. is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by ...

, Russian Empire, Olena Kurylo studied philosophy at the

university of Königsberg The University of Königsberg (german: Albertus-Universität Königsberg) was the university of Königsberg in East Prussia. It was founded in 1544 as the world's second Protestant academy (after the University of Marburg) by Duke Albert of Pruss ...

. In 1911 she enrolled at department of Slavic Studies in the

university of Warsaw The University of Warsaw ( pl, Uniwersytet Warszawski, la, Universitas Varsoviensis) is a public university in Warsaw, Poland. Established in 1816, it is the largest institution of higher learning in the country offering 37 different fields o ...

where she graduated with a teacher's certificate in 1913 which qualified her to teach

pedagogy Pedagogy (), most commonly understood as the approach to teaching, is the theory and practice of learning, and how this process influences, and is influenced by, the social, political and psychological development of learners. Pedagogy, taken ...

, history of pedagogy, and methods of the Russian language. In 1921 she became a lecturer at the Institute of the People's Education,

Kyiv Kyiv, also spelled Kiev, is the capital and most populous city of Ukraine. It is in north-central Ukraine along the Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2021, its population was 2,962,180, making Kyiv the seventh-most populous city in Europe. Kyi ...

, Ukraine. She later joined as a senior associate at the All Ukrainian Academy of Sciences (VUAN) where she served as a member of its Ethnographic, Regional Studies and Dialectological commissions. She also worked as a consultant of the Institute of the Ukrainian Scientific Language. She played an instrumental role in the normalization of Ukrainian language and Ukrainian scientific terminology. Her Ukrainian grammar textbook for children was widely used. In the early 1930s, she sought refuge in Moscow and started teaching there until her arrest in 1937. She was later released and was allowed to stay in the northern part of Russia, where she died in 1946.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kurylo, Olena 1890 births 1946 deaths Women linguists 20th-century linguists 20th-century Ukrainian Jews Jewish linguists University of Königsberg alumni University of Warsaw alumni Linguists of Ukrainian