Pent Nurmekund (16 December 190628 December 1996) was an
Estonia
Estonia, officially the Republic of Estonia, is a country in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, and to the east by Ru ...
n
linguist
Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ...
and
polyglot
Multilingualism is the use of more than one language, either by an individual speaker or by a group of speakers. When the languages are just two, it is usually called bilingualism. It is believed that multilingual speakers outnumber monolin ...
. He could read over eighty languages.
Life
Nurmekund came from a poor peasant family and first attended school at the age of twelve.
From 1930 to 1935, he studied
Romance
Romance may refer to:
Common meanings
* Romance (love), emotional attraction towards another person and the courtship behaviors undertaken to express the feelings
** Romantic orientation, the classification of the sex or gender with which a pers ...
and
Germanic philology
Germanic philology is the philology, philological study of the Germanic languages, particularly from a Comparative method, comparative or historical perspective.
The beginnings of research into the Germanic languages began in the 16th century, wi ...
at
Tartu University
The University of Tartu (UT; ; ) is a Public university, public research university located in the city of Tartu, Estonia. It is the national university of Estonia. It is also the largest and oldest university in the country.Magister Philosophiae''.
In 1935, he became a founding member of the Estonian Oriental Society.
From 1955 to 1986, he was a lecturer at Tartu University, and in the 1950s founded the Oriental department there.
In 1991, he received the
Wiedemann Language Award
Wiedemann Language Award (, full name The State F. J. Wiedemann Language Award) is an Estonian state award which is granted each year to one natural person for outstanding merits upon study, organisation, teaching, promotion or use of the Estonia ...