Jörundur Garðar Hilmarsson (15 March 1946 – 13 August 1992), was an

Iceland Iceland is a Nordic countries, Nordic island country between the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge between North America and Europe. It is culturally and politically linked with Europe and is the regi ...

ic linguist, scholar and grammarian specializing in comparative grammar of

Indo-European languages The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the northern Indian subcontinent, most of Europe, and the Iranian plateau with additional native branches found in regions such as Sri Lanka, the Maldives, parts of Central Asia (e. ...

. He finished his doctoral thesis, ''Studies in Tocharian Phonology, Morphology and Etymology with special emphasis on the o-vocalism'' at the

Leiden University Leiden University (abbreviated as ''LEI''; ) is a Public university, public research university in Leiden, Netherlands. Established in 1575 by William the Silent, William, Prince of Orange as a Protestantism, Protestant institution, it holds the d ...

. He gave great importance to the study of

Tocharian languages The Tocharian (sometimes ''Tokharian'') languages ( ; ), also known as the ''Arśi-Kuči'', Agnean-Kuchean or Kuchean-Agnean languages, are an extinct branch of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family spoken by inhabitants o ...

, authoring a detailed

etymological dictionary An etymological dictionary discusses the etymology of the words listed. Often, large dictionaries, such as the ''Oxford English Dictionary'' and ''Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Webster's'', will contain some etymological informat ...

for the language. Jörundur also established the international scholarly journal ''

Tocharian and Indo-European Studies ''Tocharian and Indo-European Studies'' (''TIES'') is a scholarly journal on Tocharian in the Indo-European context, established in 1987 by Icelandic linguist Jörundur Garðar Hilmarsson. The journal initially appeared in Reykjavík, Iceland, ...

'' (TIES) in 1987 and continued to head its editorial staff from

Reykjavík Reykjavík is the Capital city, capital and largest city in Iceland. It is located in southwestern Iceland on the southern shore of Faxaflói, the Faxaflói Bay. With a latitude of 64°08′ N, the city is List of northernmost items, the worl ...

until his premature death in 1992 at the age of 46. Upon his death, ''Tocharian and Indo-European Studies'' moved from Reykjavík to

Copenhagen Copenhagen ( ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a population of 1.4 million in the Urban area of Copenhagen, urban area. The city is situated on the islands of Zealand and Amager, separated from Malmö, Sweden, by the ...

, with the Danish professor of Indo-European languages

Jens Elmegård Rasmussen Jens Elmegård Rasmussen (15 March 1944 – 15 May 2013) was a Danish linguist who served as associate professor of Indo-European Studies and head of the Roots of Europe research center at the University of Copenhagen from its initiation in 2008 u ...

as the new executive editor. Upon Jörundur's death, the journal published most of his work in 1996 under the title: "Materials for a Tocharian Historical and Etymological Dictionary".

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hilmarsson, Jorundur Balticists Linguists of Indo-European languages Linguists from Iceland 1946 births 1992 deaths