Jørgen Rischel (; 10 August 193410 May 2007) was a

Danish Danish may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to the country of Denmark People * A national or citizen of Denmark, also called a "Dane," see Demographics of Denmark * Culture of Denmark * Danish people or Danes, people with a Danish ance ...

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. Lingui ...

who worked extensively with different subjects in linguistics, especially

phonetics Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that studies how humans produce and perceive sounds, or in the case of sign languages, the equivalent aspects of sign. Linguists who specialize in studying the physical properties of speech are phoneticians. ...

phonology Phonology is the branch of linguistics that studies how languages or dialects systematically organize their sounds or, for sign languages, their constituent parts of signs. The term can also refer specifically to the sound or sign system of a ...

lexicography Lexicography is the study of lexicons, and is divided into two separate academic disciplines. It is the art of compiling dictionaries. * Practical lexicography is the art or craft of compiling, writing and editing dictionaries. * Theoret ...

and documentation of

endangered languages An endangered language or moribund language is a language that is at risk of disappearing as its speakers die out or shift to speaking other languages. Language loss occurs when the language has no more native speakers and becomes a "dead langua ...

Childhood

As the third of four sons of

Lutheran Lutheranism is one of the largest branches of Protestantism, identifying primarily with the theology of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German monk and Protestant Reformers, reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practice of the Cathol ...

pastor A pastor (abbreviated as "Pr" or "Ptr" , or "Ps" ) is the leader of a Christian congregation who also gives advice and counsel to people from the community or congregation. In Lutheranism, Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Oriental Orthodoxy and ...

Ejner Rischel, Rischel's early interest in other cultures was stimulated by a gifted primary school teacher in the Kullerup Public School on

Fyn Funen ( da, Fyn, ), with an area of , is the third-largest island of Denmark, after Zealand and Vendsyssel-Thy. It is the 165th-largest island in the world. It is located in the central part of the country and has a population of 469,947 as of ...

Nina Grønnum Nina Grønnum (; born March 1st, 1945 in Copenhagen) is a Danish retired phonetician and associate professor emeritus from the University of Copenhagen. She is best known for her work on the pronunciation of Danish and especially her many studies ...

, Frans Gregersen and

Hans Basbøll Hans Basbøll (; born 12 July 1943) is a Danish linguist and professor of Nordic languages at the University of Southern Denmark since 1975, member of ''Det Kongelige Danske Videnskabernes Selskab'' since 1991 and member of '' Dansk Sprognævn' ...

In Memoriam: Jørgen Rischel, ''Phonetica''
2007; No. 64, p. 194-95. From the age of 11 he attended the

Nyborg Nyborg is a city in central Denmark, located in Nyborg Municipality on the island of Funen and with a population of 17,525 (2022). It is the easternmost settlement on Funen. By road, it is located 34 km east of Odense, 35 km north of ...

Realskole ''Realschule'' () is a type of secondary school in Germany, Switzerland and Liechtenstein. It has also existed in Croatia (''realna gimnazija''), the Austrian Empire, the German Empire, Denmark and Norway (''realskole''), Sweden (''realskola' ...

private school Private or privates may refer to: Music * "In Private", by Dusty Springfield from the 1990 album ''Reputation'' * Private (band), a Denmark-based band * Private (Ryōko Hirosue song), "Private" (Ryōko Hirosue song), from the 1999 album ''Private ...

with partial state funding), where he developed interests in chemistry,

biochemistry Biochemistry or biological chemistry is the study of chemical processes within and relating to living organisms. A sub-discipline of both chemistry and biology, biochemistry may be divided into three fields: structural biology, enzymology ...

and

ornithology Ornithology is a branch of zoology that concerns the "methodological study and consequent knowledge of birds with all that relates to them." Several aspects of ornithology differ from related disciplines, due partly to the high visibility and th ...

. In the garden of the Kullerup rectory he carefully recorded in

musical notation Music notation or musical notation is any system used to visually represent aurally perceived music played with instruments or sung by the human voice through the use of written, printed, or otherwise-produced symbols, including notation fo ...

the characteristic song and variations of over 20 different

songbird A songbird is a bird belonging to the suborder Passeri of the perching birds ( Passeriformes). Another name that is sometimes seen as the scientific or vernacular name is Oscines, from Latin ''oscen'', "songbird". The Passeriformes contains 50 ...

s. Having assembled a

crystal radio A crystal radio receiver, also called a crystal set, is a simple radio receiver, popular in the early days of radio. It uses only the power of the received radio signal to produce sound, needing no external power. It is named for its most impo ...

receiver and transmitter, he once transmitted his mother Gunnild playing

Schumann Robert Schumann (; 8 June 181029 July 1856) was a German composer, pianist, and influential music critic. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest composers of the Romantic era. Schumann left the study of law, intending to pursue a career a ...

on her

grand piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keybo ...

. Rischel's transmission accidentally interfered with a national

Radio Denmark Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmitt ...

''(Statsradiofonien)'' broadcast. His biographers suggest that this may have been "an early manifestation of what later became a serious research activity, namely the construction of the analog parallel

synthesizer A synthesizer (also spelled synthesiser) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis ...

at the Institute of Phonetics in the late sixties." Rischel's interest in linguistics developed whilst still at the Realskole in Nyborg. Aware of how the local

dialect of

differed from the normative

Copenhagen Copenhagen ( or .; da, København ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a proper population of around 815.000 in the last quarter of 2022; and some 1.370,000 in the urban area; and the wider Copenhagen metropolitan ar ...

dialect, he also became interested in

Norwegian Norwegian, Norwayan, or Norsk may refer to: *Something of, from, or related to Norway, a country in northwestern Europe * Norwegians, both a nation and an ethnic group native to Norway * Demographics of Norway *The Norwegian language, including ...

after his school took a field trip to

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and t ...

. Having read

Bernhard Karlgren Klas Bernhard Johannes Karlgren (; 15 October 1889 – 20 October 1978) was a Swedish sinologist and linguist who pioneered the study of Chinese historical phonology using modern comparative methods. In the early 20th century, Karlgren conducte ...

’s introductory textbook on

Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of v ...

and a grammar of

Old Norse Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian, is a stage of development of North Germanic languages, North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and t ...

, Rischel raised rabbits and sold them to earn the money to purchase a copy of ''Danmarks Runeinskrifter'', a scholarly three-volume work on Danish

runes Runes are the letters in a set of related alphabets known as runic alphabets native to the Germanic peoples. Runes were used to write various Germanic languages (with some exceptions) before they adopted the Latin alphabet, and for specialised ...

edited by

Lis Jacobsen Elisabeth (Lis) Jacobsen, née Rubin, (29 January 1882 - 18 June 1961) was a Danish philologist, archaeologist and writer. She is remembered first and foremost for her research and publications on the history of the Danish language but she was a ...

and

Erik Moltke Erik Moltke (4 April 1901 – 19 October 1984) was a Danish runologist, writer, and editor. Through his leadership, the Runologist Section of the National Museum of Denmark became a world centre for the scientific study of runology.Moltke, Erik ( ...

and published during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

University studies

From 1952 to 1956 he studied

Nordic philology Scandinavian studies is an interdisciplinary academic field of area studies, mainly in the United States and Germany, that primarily focuses on the Scandinavian languages (also known as North Germanic languages) and cultural studies pertaining t ...

at the

University of Copenhagen The University of Copenhagen ( da, Københavns Universitet, KU) is a prestigious public university, public research university in Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark. Founded in 1479, the University of Copenhagen is the second-oldest university in ...

, specializing in West Nordic, obtaining two one-year government scholarships to continue his studies in

Reykjavík Reykjavík ( ; ) is the capital and largest city of Iceland. It is located in southwestern Iceland, on the southern shore of Faxaflói bay. Its latitude is 64°08' N, making it the world's northernmost capital of a sovereign state. With a pop ...

and

Oslo Oslo ( , , or ; sma, Oslove) is the capital and most populous city of Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality. The municipality of Oslo had a population of in 2022, while the city's greater urban area had a population of ...

. He took classes in Danish

dialectology Dialectology (from Greek , ''dialektos'', "talk, dialect"; and , '' -logia'') is the scientific study of linguistic dialect, a sub-field of sociolinguistics. It studies variations in language based primarily on geographic distribution and their asso ...

with Poul Andersen and in

with

Eli Fischer-Jørgensen Eli Fischer-Jørgensen (; 11 February 1911, Nakskov, Denmark – 27 February 2010, Virum) was a professor of phonetics at the University of Copenhagen and led the Institute for Phonetics. She was a member of the Danish resistance movement figh ...

. At Oslo he met linguist

Einar Haugen Einar Ingvald Haugen (; April 19, 1906 – June 20, 1994) was an American linguist, writer, and professor at University of Wisconsin–Madison and Harvard University. Biography Haugen was born in Sioux City, Iowa, to Norwegian immigrants from t ...

, who was to be a great influence on Rischel's life.

Career

In 1974 Rischel earned a doctorate in linguistics. He was a specialist in the Greenlandic language (Kalaallisut); his 1974 thesis was the most comprehensive phonological study of that language to date. He published extensively on topics in

, Faroese and

Greenlandic * Something of, from, or related to Greenland, a country * List of people from Greenland *Greenlandic Inuit are people identified with the country of Greenland, or of Greenlandic descent: see Demographics of Greenland ** List of Greenlandic Inuit ...

, particularly phonetics and phonology. From 1978 he was a professor of linguistics at the

; from 1981 he was chair in phonetics; on his retirement in 1998 he became professor

emeritus ''Emeritus'' (; female: ''emerita'') is an adjective used to designate a retired chair, professor, pastor, bishop, pope, director, president, prime minister, rabbi, emperor, or other person who has been "permitted to retain as an honorary title ...

there. In retirement he focused on

Mon–Khmer languages The Austroasiatic languages , , are a large language family in Mainland Southeast Asia and South Asia. These languages are scattered throughout parts of Thailand, Laos, India, Myanmar, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Nepal, and southern China and are t ...

; as a guest researcher at

Mahidol University Mahidol University (Mahidol), an autonomous research institution in Thailand, had its origin in the establishment of Siriraj Hospital in 1888. Mahidol had an acceptance rate for Medicine of 0.4% as of the 2016 academic year. Becoming the Univer ...

he did extensive fieldwork in

Thailand Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 million. The country is b ...

and Laos, particularly on the

Mlabri Mlabri can refer to: * Mlabri people * Mlabri language Mlabri is a language spoken by the Mlabri people in the border area between Thailand and Laos. It is usually classified as a Khmuic language, a subgroup of the Austroasiatic languages. Lin ...

tribal language, an endangered and previously undescribed

dialect The term dialect (from Latin , , from the Ancient Greek word , 'discourse', from , 'through' and , 'I speak') can refer to either of two distinctly different types of linguistic phenomena: One usage refers to a variety of a language that ...

of a

Khmuic The Khmuic languages are a branch of the Austroasiatic languages spoken mostly in northern Laos, as well as in neighboring northern Vietnam and southern Yunnan, China. Khmu language, Khmu is the only widely spoken language in the group. Homelan ...

language. His 1995 book described Mlabri phonology, morphology and syntax whilst supplying a lexicon with illustrative examples.

Honours and organizations

In 1978 he was elected a member of the

Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters {{Infobox organization , name = The Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters , full_name = , native_name = Det Kongelige Danske Videnskabernes Selskab , native_name_lang = , logo = Royal ...

. In November 1991 Rischel was knighted into the

Order of the Dannebrog The Order of the Dannebrog ( da, Dannebrogordenen) is a Danish order of chivalry instituted in 1671 by Christian V. Until 1808, membership in the order was limited to fifty members of noble or royal rank, who formed a single class known ...

by Queen

Margrethe II of Denmark Margrethe II (; Margrethe Alexandrine Þórhildur Ingrid, born 16 April 1940) is Queen of Denmark. Having reigned as Denmark's monarch for over 50 years, she is Europe's longest-serving current head of state and the world's only incumbent fema ...

. He had served as a co-editor of the ''

International Journal of American Linguistics The ''International Journal of American Linguistics'' (''IJAL'') is an academic journal devoted to the study of the indigenous languages of the Americas. ''IJAL'' focuses on the investigation of linguistic data and the presentation of grammatical ...

'' (a journal begun by

Franz Boas Franz Uri Boas (July 9, 1858 – December 21, 1942) was a German-American anthropologist and a pioneer of modern anthropology who has been called the "Father of American Anthropology". His work is associated with the movements known as historical ...

in 1917).

Selected publications

Co-author or contributor

* 1972, Jørgen Rischel, "Consonant Reduction in Faroese Noncompound Wordforms", in Firchow, E. S., Grimstad, K. Hasselmo, N. & W. A. O’Neil (eds.), ''Studies for Einar Haugen, presented by Friends and Colleagues'', pp. 482–497. * 1992, Jørgen Rischel, "A diachronic-typological view of the Faroese language" in ''The Nordic Languages and Modern Linguistics 7'', Vol. I pp. 93–118. Jonna Louis-Jensen and J. H. W. Poulsen (eds.). Føroya Fródskaparfelag, Tórshavn. * 1992, Jørgen Rischel, "Isolation, contact, and lexical variation in a tribal setting" in ''Language Contact'', pp. 149–177. Ernst Håkon Jahr (ed.). Mounton-de Gruyter, Berlin - New York. * 1995, Jørgen Rischel, Introduction to ''Aspects of Danish Prosody, pp. 3–20. Jørgen Rischel and Hans Basbøll (eds.). Odense University Press,

Odense Odense ( , , ) is the third largest city in Denmark (behind Copenhagen and Aarhus) and the largest city on the island of Funen. As of 1 January 2022, the city proper had a population of 180,863 while Odense Municipality had a population of 2 ...

. * 1995, Jørgen Rischel, "Sprog og begrebsdannelse" in ''Sprog og tanke - Fire essays'', pp. 17–62. Poul Lindegård Hjorth (ed.).,

, Copenhagen. (in Danish) * 1998, I. Kleivan, C. Berthelsen, R. Petersen, Jørgen Rischel, B. Jacobsen: "Oqaatsinut Tapiliussaq / Oqaatsit Supplementsbind", Atuakkiorfik-Ilinniusiorfik,

Nuuk Nuuk (; da, Nuuk, formerly ) is the capital and largest city of Greenland, a constituent country of the Kingdom of Denmark. Nuuk is the seat of government and the country's largest cultural and economic centre. The major cities from other co ...

, 184 pp. (in Greenlandic and Danish)

Books

* 1974, ''Topics in West Greenlandic Phonology''. Copenhagen: Akademisk Forlag (Ph.D. thesis). * 1995, ''Minor Mlabri: A Hunter-Gatherer Language of Northern Indochina.'' Museum Tusculanum Press, Copenhagen, 367 pp.

Journals and symposia

* 1985, "Was There a Fourth Vowel in Old Greenlandic?" in ''International Journal of American Linguistics,'' Vol. 51, Issue 4, October 1985, pp. 553–554. * 1990, "Fieldwork among spirits" in ''Journal of Pragmatics'' 13, pp. 861–869. * 1990, "What is phonetic representation?" in ''Journal of Phonetics'' 18, pp. 395–410. * 1991, "The relevance of phonetics for phonology: A commentary" in ''Phonetica'' 48, pp. 233–262. * 1991, "Invariance in the linguistic expression, with digressions into music" (pp. 68–77), "Comments on the symposium" (pp. 434–440), and "Summary and discussion of speech and music combined" (pp. 429–433), all in ''Music, Language, Speech and Brain'' (Wenner-Gren International Symposium Series vol. 59). J. Sundberg, L. Nord and R. Carlson (eds.). Macmillan Press, London. * 1992
"Acharn Kraisri and phonetic notation"
in ''Thai-Yunnan Project Newsletter'' 18 (September 1992), pp. 16–18 (a discussion of the contributions of Acharn Krisri to

comparative linguistics Comparative linguistics, or comparative-historical linguistics (formerly comparative philology) is a branch of historical linguistics that is concerned with comparing languages to establish their history, historical relatedness. Genetic relat ...

and the difficulty of devising a standard romanization system for

transliteration Transliteration is a type of conversion of a text from one script to another that involves swapping letters (thus ''trans-'' + '' liter-'') in predictable ways, such as Greek → , Cyrillic → , Greek → the digraph , Armenian → or ...

Thai Thai or THAI may refer to: * Of or from Thailand, a country in Southeast Asia ** Thai people, the dominant ethnic group of Thailand ** Thai language, a Tai-Kadai language spoken mainly in and around Thailand *** Thai script *** Thai (Unicode bloc ...

). * 1992, "Formal linguistics and real speech" in ''Speech Communication'' 11, pp. 379–392. * 1993, "Lexical variation in two 'Kammuic' languages" in ''Pan-Asiatic Linguistics, Proceedings of the Third International Symposium on Language and Linguistics'' vol. III pp. 1451–1462. Amara Prasithathsint et al. (eds.).

Chulalongkorn University Chulalongkorn University (CU, th, จุฬาลงกรณ์มหาวิทยาลัย, ), nicknamed Chula ( th, จุฬาฯ), is a public and autonomous research university in Bangkok, Thailand. The university was originally fo ...

Bangkok Bangkok, officially known in Thai as Krung Thep Maha Nakhon and colloquially as Krung Thep, is the capital and most populous city of Thailand. The city occupies in the Chao Phraya River delta in central Thailand and has an estimated populatio ...

. * 2000. "The Dialect of Bernatzik’s (1938) 'Yumbri' refound?" in ''Mon–Khmer Studies Journal'', 30:115-122. * 2004, ''Pan-dialectal databases: Mlabri, an oral Mon–Khmer language'',

Lexicography Lexicography is the study of lexicons, and is divided into two separate academic disciplines. It is the art of compiling dictionaries. * Practical lexicography is the art or craft of compiling, writing and editing dictionaries. * Theoret ...

conference,

Payap University Payap University ( th, มหาวิทยาลัยพายัพ; ), established in 1974, is a private and non-profit institution founded by the Foundation of the Church of Christ in Thailand. Payap University is a liberal arts and pre-pr ...

Chiangmai Chiang Mai (, from th, เชียงใหม่ , nod, , เจียงใหม่ ), sometimes written as Chiengmai or Chiangmai, is the largest city in northern Thailand, the capital of Chiang Mai province and the second largest city in ...

. * 2004,
In what sense is Mlabri a West Khmuic language
'', presentation to 37th International Conference on Sino-Tibetan Languages and Linguistics,

Mon–Khmer The Austroasiatic languages , , are a large language family in Mainland Southeast Asia and South Asia. These languages are scattered throughout parts of Thailand, Laos, India, Myanmar, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Nepal, and southern China and are th ...

workshop,

Lund University , motto = Ad utrumque , mottoeng = Prepared for both , established = , type = Public research university , budget = SEK 9 billion 1934 births 2007 deaths Linguists from Denmark Dialectologists Linguists of Eskaleut languages 20th-century linguists Eskimologists