Horace Gray Lunt (September 12, 1918 – August 11, 2010) was a
linguist
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguis ...
in the field of Slavic Studies. He was Professor Emeritus at the Slavic Language and Literature Department and the Ukrainian Institute at
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...
.
Born in
Colorado Springs
Colorado Springs is a home rule municipality in, and the county seat of, El Paso County, Colorado, United States. It is the largest city in El Paso County, with a population of 478,961 at the 2020 United States Census, a 15.02% increase since ...
, Lunt attended
Harvard College
Harvard College is the undergraduate college of Harvard University, an Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636, Harvard College is the original school of Harvard University, the oldest institution of higher lea ...
(BA 1941), the
University of California
The University of California (UC) is a public land-grant research university system in the U.S. state of California. The system is composed of the campuses at Berkeley, Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, Merced, Riverside, San Diego, San Franci ...
Columbia University
Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
(PhD 1950). As a student of
Roman Jakobson
Roman Osipovich Jakobson (russian: Рома́н О́сипович Якобсо́н; October 11, 1896Kucera, Henry. 1983. "Roman Jakobson." ''Language: Journal of the Linguistic Society of America'' 59(4): 871–883. – July 18, There he taught the course on Old Church Slavonic grammar for four decades, creating what has become the standard handbook on it, now in its seventh edition.
He published numerous monographs, articles, essays, and reviews on all aspects of Slavic comparative and historical linguistics and philology.
Lunt also wrote the first English grammar of Macedonian in the early 1950s.''Horace G. Lunt and the beginning of Macedonian studies in the United States of America'' (Victor A. Friedman), p. 117. He has been criticized for espousing some Macedonist myths prominent in Macedonian historiography.James F. Clarke (1988) ''The Pen and the Sword: Studies in Bulgarian History'', (ed. Dennis P. Hupchick), Boulder: East European Monographs; New York: Columbia University Press. read online here /ref> Lunt publicly admitted that he received
financial aid
Student financial aid in the United States is funding that is available exclusively to students attending a post-secondary educational institution in the United States. This funding is used to assist in covering the many costs incurred in the p ...
from the Yugoslav Council for Science and Culture and the Macedonian Ministry of Education, Science and Culture for his work in the area.
He died at the age of 91. He was survived by his wife, Sally Herman Lunt, daughters Catherine and Elizabeth, five grandchildren, and son-in-law David.
Selected works
* Lunt, H.G. (2001) ''Old Church Slavonic Grammar'', 7th ed. (Walter de Gruyter) ; first ed. 1955 (Mouton & Co.)
* Lunt, H.G. (1952) '' A Grammar of the Macedonian Literary Language'' (Skopje)