Stephen Adolphe Wurm (, ; 19 August 1922 – 24 October 2001) was a Hungarian-born Australian linguist.

Early life

Wurm was born in

Budapest Budapest is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns of Hungary, most populous city of Hungary. It is the List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, tenth-largest city in the European Union by popul ...

, the second child to the

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

-speaking Adolphe Wurm and the Hungarian-speaking Anna Novroczky. He was christened Istvan Adolphe Wurm. His father died before Stephen was born. Both of his parents were multilingual, and Wurm showed an interest in languages from an early age. Attending school in

Vienna Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...

and travelling to all parts of Europe during his childhood, Wurm spoke roughly nine languages by the time he reached adulthood, a gift he inherited from his father, who spoke 17. Wurm went on to master at least 50 languages.

Career

Wurm grew up stateless, unable to take the nationality of either of his parent or of his country of residence,

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

. That enabled him to avoid military service and attend university. He studied

Turkic languages The Turkic languages are a language family of more than 35 documented languages, spoken by the Turkic peoples of Eurasia from Eastern Europe and Southern Europe to Central Asia, East Asia, North Asia (Siberia), and West Asia. The Turkic langua ...

at the Oriental Institute in Vienna, receiving his doctorate in linguistics and social anthropology in 1944 for a dissertation on Uzbek. In 1946, he married fellow student Helen Groger-Wurm, a specialist in African ethnography. He taught

Altaic The Altaic () languages are a group of languages comprising the Turkic, Mongolic and Tungusic language families, with some linguists including the Koreanic and Japonic families. These languages share agglutinative morphology, head-final ...

linguistics at the

University of Vienna The University of Vienna (, ) is a public university, public research university in Vienna, Austria. Founded by Rudolf IV, Duke of Austria, Duke Rudolph IV in 1365, it is the oldest university in the German-speaking world and among the largest ...

until 1951. After reading some works by

Sidney Herbert Ray Sidney Herbert Ray (28 May 1858 – 1 January 1939) was a British comparative and descriptive linguist who specialised in Melanesian languages.Papers and field notes relating to his linguistic work are held bSOAS Special Collections/ref> Bio ...

, Wurm became interested in

Papuan languages The Papuan languages are the non- Austronesian languages spoken on the western Pacific island of New Guinea, as well as neighbouring islands in Indonesia, Solomon Islands, and East Timor. It is a strictly geographical grouping, and does not imply ...

and began a correspondence with

Arthur Capell Arthur Capell (28 March 1902 – 10 August 1986) was an Australian linguist, who made major contributions to the study of Australian languages, Austronesian languages and Papuan languages. Early life Capell was born in Newtown, New South W ...

, a lecturer in linguistics at the

University of Sydney The University of Sydney (USYD) is a public university, public research university in Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in both Australia and Oceania. One of Australia's six sandstone universities, it was one of the ...

. Wurm began teaching himself

Tok Pisin Tok Pisin ( ,Laurie Bauer, 2007, ''The Linguistics Student's Handbook'', Edinburgh ; ), often referred to by English speakers as New Guinea Pidgin or simply Pidgin, is an English-based creole languages, English creole language spoken throughou ...

and

Hiri Motu Hiri Motu, also known as Police Motu, Pidgin Motu, or just Hiri, is a language of Papua New Guinea, which is spoken in surrounding areas of its capital city, Port Moresby. It is a simplified version of Motu, from the Austronesian language famil ...

from books and took up a position in London. In 1954, the Wurms moved to Australia, where Capell had organised for Wurm a post in the Anthropology Department at the

. In 1957, the Wurms moved to

Canberra Canberra ( ; ) is the capital city of Australia. Founded following the Federation of Australia, federation of the colonies of Australia as the seat of government for the new nation, it is Australia's list of cities in Australia, largest in ...

, where Stephen took up a post as Senior Fellow within the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies (RSPAS, now Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs) at the new

Australian National University The Australian National University (ANU) is a public university, public research university and member of the Group of Eight (Australian universities), Group of Eight, located in Canberra, the capital of Australia. Its main campus in Acton, A ...

(ANU). The same year, the Wurms received Australian citizenship. From then on, the main focus of Wurm's research was the study of the languages of

New Guinea New Guinea (; Hiri Motu: ''Niu Gini''; , fossilized , also known as Papua or historically ) is the List of islands by area, world's second-largest island, with an area of . Located in Melanesia in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, the island is ...

, but he also carried out research on a number of

Australian Aboriginal languages The Indigenous languages of Australia number in the hundreds, the precise number being quite uncertain, although there is a range of estimates from a minimum of around 250 (using the technical definition of 'language' as non-mutually intellig ...

. At the

, he was Professor of Linguistics from 1968 to 1987.

Honours and recognition

Wurm was elected fellow of the

Academy of Social Sciences in Australia The Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia (ASSA) is an independent, non-governmental organisation devoted to the advancement of knowledge and research in the social sciences. It has its origins in the Social Science Research Council of Aus ...

in 1976 and of the

Australian Academy of the Humanities The Australian Academy of the Humanities was established by Royal Charter in 1969 to advance scholarship and public interest in the humanities in Australia. It operates as an independent not-for-profit organisation partly funded by the Australi ...

in 1977. He was appointed a member of the

Order of Australia The Order of Australia is an Australian honours and awards system, Australian honour that recognises Australian citizens and other persons for outstanding achievement and service. It was established on 14 February 1975 by Elizabeth II, Monarch ...

in the 1987 Queen's Birthday Honours, for "service to education, particularly in the field of linguistics".

Legacy

In tribute to the scholarship of the man, the journal ''

Oceanic Linguistics ''Oceanic Linguistics'' is a biannual peer-reviewed academic journal covering research on the indigenous languages of the Oceanic area and parts of Southeast Asia, including the indigenous Australian languages, the Papuan languages of New Guinea, ...

'' titled an article on Wurm "Linguist Extraordinaire". In recognition of Wurm's outstanding contribution, the Stephen Wurm Graduate Prize for Pacific Linguistic Studies was inaugurated in 2008.

Bibliography

* ** Wurm, S.A. editor. ''New Guinea area languages and language study, Vol. 1, Papuan languages and the New Guinea linguistic scene''. C-38. 1975. ** Wurm, S.A. editor. ''New Guinea area languages and language study, Vol. 2, Austronesian languages''. C-39. 1976. ** Wurm, S.A. editor. ''New Guinea area languages and language study, Vol. 3, Language, culture, society, and the modern world''. C-40. 1977. * Wurm, S.A. and Laycock, D.C. editors. ''Pacific linguistic studies in honour of

''. C-13, xii + 1303 pages. Pacific Linguistics, The Australian National University, 1970. * Wurm, S.A. "Chapter 6: The Kiwaian Language Family". In Franklin, K. editor, ''The linguistic situation in the Gulf District and adjacent areas, Papua New Guinea''. C-26:217-260. Pacific Linguistics, The Australian National University, 1973. * Wurm, S.A. editor. ''Australian linguistic studies''. C-54, xvi + 770 pages. Pacific Linguistics, The Australian National University, 1979. * Wurm, S.A. ''Languages: Eastern, Western, and Southern Highlands, Territory of Papua and New Guinea''. D-4, + 000 pages. Pacific Linguistics, The Australian National University, 1961. * Wurm, S.A. editor. ''Language maps of the highlands Provinces'', Papua New Guinea. D-11, iv + 24 pages. Pacific Linguistics, The Australian National University, 1978. * Wurm, S.A. editor. ''Some Endangered Languages of Papua New Guinea: Kaki Ae, Musom, and Aribwatsa''. D-89, vi + 183 pages. Pacific Linguistics, The Australian National University, 1997. * * * *

References