Pentti Aalto (22 July 1917 – 30 November 1998) was a Finnish linguist who was the

University of Helsinki The University of Helsinki ( fi, Helsingin yliopisto, sv, Helsingfors universitet, abbreviated UH) is a public research university located in Helsinki, Finland since 1829, but founded in the city of Turku (in Swedish ''Åbo'') in 1640 as the R ...

Docent The title of docent is conferred by some European universities to denote a specific academic appointment within a set structure of academic ranks at or below the full professor rank, similar to a British readership, a French " ''maître de conf ...

of Comparative Linguistics 1958–1980. Aalto was a student of G. J. Ramstedt. He defended his doctoral dissertation in 1949 in Helsinki. Aalto published on the

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through ...

gerundive In Latin grammar, a gerundive () is a verb form that functions as a verbal adjective. In Classical Latin, the gerundive is distinct in form and function from the gerund and the present active participle. In Late Latin, the differences were large ...

, the Latin

gerund In linguistics, a gerund ( abbreviated ) is any of various nonfinite verb forms in various languages; most often, but not exclusively, one that functions as a noun. In English, it has the properties of both verb and noun, such as being modifiab ...

, the

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

infinitive Infinitive ( abbreviated ) is a linguistics term for certain verb forms existing in many languages, most often used as non-finite verbs. As with many linguistic concepts, there is not a single definition applicable to all languages. The word is de ...

, the history of the Finnish study of Oriental, classical, and modern languages. He edited Ramstedt's comparative Altaic grammar and completed an edition of the Mongolian version of the '' Pan̂carakṣā'' and a collection of Latin sources of Northeast Asian peoples. He is also the first to translate the ancient

Tamil Tamil may refer to: * Tamils, an ethnic group native to India and some other parts of Asia ** Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka also called ilankai tamils **Tamil Malaysians, Tamil people native to Malaysia * Tamil language, na ...

moral text of the ''Tirukkural'' into Finnish.

Bibliography

* Aalto, Pentti. (1945). ''Notes on methods of decipherment of unknown writings and languages''. Helsinki: Societas Orientalis Fennica. * Aalto, Pentti. (1953). ''Studien zur Geschichte des Infinitivs im Griechischen''. Helsinki: Annales Academicae Scentiarum Fennicae, vol. 80.2. * Aalto, Pentti. (1961). ''Qutuγ-tu Pan̂carakṣā kemekü Tabun Sakiyan neretü Yeke Kölgen sudur, in Umschrift, mit Facsimile der mongolischen Handschrift (Leningr. MSZ. 130) herausgegeben''. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz. * Aalto, Pentti. (1971). ''Oriental studies in Finland 1828–1918''. Helsinki: Societas Scientiarum Fennica. * Aalto, Pentti. (1972). ''Kural—The Ancient Tamil Classic'' (1st ed.). Helsinki: Societas Orientalis Fennica. * Aalto, Pentti. (1987). ''Modern language studies in Finland 1828–1918''. Helsinki: Societas Scientiarum Fennica. * Aalto, Pentti. (1987). ''Studies in Altaic and comparative philology''. Helsinki: The Finnish Oriental Society. * Aalto, Pentti; & Pekkanen, T. (1975–1980). ''Latin sources on north-eastern Eurasia'' (2 Vols). Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz. * * * Ramstedt, G. J. (1952–1966). ''Einführung in die altaische Sprachwissenschaft, bearbeitet und herausgegeben'' von P. Aalto (3 Vols). Helsinki: Suomalais-Ugrilainen Seura.

References

Bibliography

* 1917 births 1998 deaths Linguists from Finland Paleolinguists Tamil–Finnish translators Translators of the Tirukkural into Finnish Linguists of Altaic languages 20th-century translators 20th-century linguists Tirukkural translators {{Finland-translator-stub