Eugene Arnoldovich Helimski (sometimes also spelled Eugene Khelimski; ; 15 March 1950 – 25 December 2007) was a Soviet and Russian linguist (in the latter part of his life working in Germany). He was a Doctor of Philology (1988) and Professor. Helimski researched Samoyedic and Finno-Ugric languages, problems of Uralic and Nostratic linguistic affinity, language contact, the theory of genetic classification of languages, and the cultural history of Northern Eurasia and of shamanism. He became one of the world's leading specialists in Samoyedic languages.

Biography

Helimski graduated from the Department of Structural and Applied Linguistics of

Moscow State University Moscow State University (MSU), officially M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University,. is a public university, public research university in Moscow, Russia. The university includes 15 research institutes, 43 faculties, more than 300 departments, a ...

(1972); completed a Dissertation on "Ancient Ugro-Samoyedic Linguistic Ties" (Tartu, 1979); completed the Doctoral Dissertation on "Historical and Descriptive Dialectology of the Samoyedic Languages" (Tartu, 1988); worked at the Institute of Slavic and Balkan Studies at the

Russian Academy of Sciences The Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS; ''Rossíyskaya akadémiya naúk'') consists of the national academy of Russia; a network of scientific research institutes from across the Russian Federation; and additional scientific and social units such ...

(1978–1997); lectured at the RSUH (1992–1998), University of Budapest (1994–1995) and other European universities. From 1998 onward, he was Professor of Hamburg University and Director of the Institute of Finno-Ugrian and Uralic Studies in Hamburg.

Scientific contributions

Helimski was a participant and organizer of numerous linguistic expeditions to Siberia and to the Taimyr Peninsula; field studies of all Samoyedic languages, one of the authors of the well-known ''Studies on the Selkup Language'', which was based on field studies and has substantially broadened the linguistic understanding of Samoyedic. He exposed a number of regularities in the historical phonetics of Hungarian, and substantiated the existence of grammatical and lexical Ugro-Samoyedic parallels. He gathered all accessible data on Mator, the extinct South-Samoyedic language, and published its dictionary and grammar. He proposed a number of novel Uralic, Indo-European and Nostratic etymologies, and collected a large body of material on the borrowed lexicon of the languages of Siberia (including Russian). Helimski proposed a number of modifications to the traditional theory of the "genealogical tree" with respect to the Uralic data, which affected comparative studies in general. He worked on problematics of shamanism among the Samoyedic peoples, collected and published texts of shamanistic incantations. He published several editions of "Таймырский этнолингвистический сборник" ("Taimyr Ethno-Linguistic Compendium", RSUH) and other works on Uralistics. Helimski initiated the development of a digital database of Uralic, which later became part of Sergei Starostin'
StarLing Project
(The database is based largely on Károly Rédei's ''Uralic Etymological Dictionary'', UEW.)

Main publications

* Очерки по селькупскому языку: Тазовский диалект. Ч. 1–3. М., 1980, 1993, 2002 (Co-authored with: А. И. Кузнецова et al.). * Древнейшие венгерско-самодийские языковые параллели: Лингвистическая и этногенетическая интерпретация. М., 1982. * The Language of the First Selkup Books. Szeged, 1983 – (Studia Uralo-Altaica 22). * Die Matorische Sprache: Wörterbuch – Grundzüge der Grammatik – Sprachgeschichte unter Mitarbeit von Beáta Nagy. Szeged, 1997. – (Studia Uralo-Altaica 41). * Компаративистика, уралистика: Лекции и статьи. М., 2000. * Самодийско-тунгусо-маньчжурские лексические связи. М.: Языки славянской культуры, 2007 (co-author: А. Е. Аникин).

Notes

References

A comprehensive bibliography
appears in the article (in Czech) about Helimski (referred to as ''Evgenij Chelimskij'') by Václav Blažek, of the University of Brno. This bibliography is particularly useful since the author's personal web sites are no longer functional (see below). The article is available from th

University of Frankfurt.
Home page
To move to University of Hamburg servers, as of June 2011.

(link defunct)

Obituary in Linguistica Uralica

Biography

Scientific contributions

Main publications

Notes

References

Further reading