Raimo Aulis Anttila (April 21, 1935 – January 27, 2023)Michael Shapiro
Raimo Aulis Anttila (1935–2023)
Language Lore by Michael Shapiro. was a Finnish linguist and professor of Indo-European linguistics at the

University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Its academic roots were established in 1881 as a normal school the ...

Biography

Raimo Aulis Anttila was born in Finland in 1935. He was a professor of

comparative linguistics Comparative linguistics is a branch of historical linguistics that is concerned with comparing languages to establish their historical relatedness. Genetic relatedness implies a common origin or proto-language and comparative linguistics aim ...

at the

University of Helsinki The University of Helsinki (, ; UH) is a public university in Helsinki, Finland. The university was founded in Turku in 1640 as the Royal Academy of Åbo under the Swedish Empire, and moved to Helsinki in 1828 under the sponsorship of Alexander ...

from 1971 to 1976. He was appointed a professor of Indo-European linguistics at the

(UCLA) in 1976. Anttila was also an authority on

Finno-Ugric languages Finno-Ugric () is a traditional linguistic grouping of all languages in the Uralic language family except for the Samoyedic languages. Its once commonly accepted status as a subfamily of Uralic is based on criteria formulated in the 19th centur ...

. Along with

Marija Gimbutas Marija Gimbutas (, ; January 23, 1921 – February 2, 1994) was a Lithuanian archaeology, archaeologist and anthropologist known for her research into the Neolithic and Bronze Age cultures of "Old European Culture, Old Europe" and for her Kurgan ...

, Edgar C. Polomé, and Roger Pearson, Anttila was a cofounder of the ''

Journal of Indo-European Studies The ''Journal of Indo-European Studies'' (''JIES'') is a peer-reviewed academic journal of Indo-European studies. The journal publishes papers in the fields of anthropology, archaeology, mythology and linguistics relating to the cultural histo ...

'', and he was a member of its editorial committee in the 1970s. Anttila was elected a corresponding member of the

Finnish Academy of Science and Letters The Finnish Academy of Science and Letters (; ) is a Finnish learned society. It was founded in 1908 and is thus the second oldest academy in Finland. The oldest is the Finnish Society of Sciences and Letters, which was founded in 1838. Member ...

in 1995. Anttila retired from UCLA as a professor emeritus.

Selected works

* 1992: "Field Theory of Meaning and Semantic Change." In: G. Kellermann and M. Morrissey, eds., ''Diachrony within Synchrony: Language History and Cognition'', pp. 23–83. (= ''Duisburger Arbeiten zur Sprach- und Kulturwissenschaft'' 14). Frankfurt: Peter Lang. * 1993: "Change and Metatheory at the Beginning of the 1990s: The Primacy of History." In: Charles Jones, ed., ''Historical Linguistics: Perspectives and Problems'', pp. 43–73. London: Longman. * 1995: "Pattern Explanation and Etymology: Collateral Evidence and Estonian ''kolle'' 'hearth', and Related Words." ''Studi Finno-Ugrici'' 1: 29–48.

References

Citations

Sources

* * 1935 births 2023 deaths Finnish editors Finnish writers Linguists from Finland Linguists of Indo-European languages Academic staff of the University of Helsinki University of California, Los Angeles faculty Finnish expatriates in the United States {{Finland-linguist-stub