Renée Kahane (née Toole, 9 December 1907 in

Argostoli Argostoli (, Katharevousa: ) is a town and a municipality on the island of Kefalonia, Ionian Islands (region), Ionian Islands, Greece. Since the 2019 local government reform it is one of the three municipalities on the island. It has been the capi ...

on, Greece – 10 December 2002 in

Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

) was a Romance philologist and linguist.

Career

Renée Toole Kahane studied Romance

philology Philology () is the study of language in Oral tradition, oral and writing, written historical sources. It is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics with strong ties to etymology. Philology is also de ...

at the Universities of

Leipzig Leipzig (, ; ; Upper Saxon: ; ) is the most populous city in the States of Germany, German state of Saxony. The city has a population of 628,718 inhabitants as of 2023. It is the List of cities in Germany by population, eighth-largest city in Ge ...

and

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

, receiving her PhD in 1931 under the supervision of . In 1931, she married Henry R. Kahane, whom she had met in 1927 when they were fellow PhD students in

. They became lifelong intellectual partners. After obtaining their PhDs, Henry and Renée Kahane moved to

Florence Florence ( ; ) is the capital city of the Italy, Italian region of Tuscany. It is also the most populated city in Tuscany, with 362,353 inhabitants, and 989,460 in Metropolitan City of Florence, its metropolitan province as of 2025. Florence ...

where they spent several years collecting a large corpus of Venetian loanwords used in Greek dialects. Following Henry's brief imprisonment in Florence by

Mussolini Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini (29 July 188328 April 1945) was an Italian politician and journalist who, upon assuming office as Prime Minister, became the dictator of Fascist Italy from the March on Rome in 1922 until his overthrow in 194 ...

as part of a general round up of immigrant Jews, the Kahanes moved to

Cephalonia Kefalonia or Cephalonia (), formerly also known as Kefallinia or Kephallonia (), is the largest of the Ionian Islands in western Greece and the 6th-largest island in Greece after Crete, Euboea, Lesbos, Rhodes and Chios. It is also a separate regio ...

, Greece, Renée Kahane's birthplace. From there they managed to emigrate to the US in 1939. From 1939-1941 they lived in Los Angeles. In 1941 they moved to the

University of Illinois The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC, U of I, Illinois, or University of Illinois) is a public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Champaign–Urbana metropolitan area, Illinois, United ...

when Henry took up a position, first, in the department of Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese and then in the department of Linguistics (which he founded). They stayed there for the remainder of their careers. A Festschift in honor of Henry and Renée Kahane was published by the

University of Illinois Press The University of Illinois Press (UIP) is an American university press and is part of the University of Illinois System. Founded in 1918, the press publishes some 120 new books each year, thirty-three scholarly journals, and several electroni ...

in 1973. Henry and Renée Kahane are estimated to have had a scholarly output of at least a dozen books and well over one hundred and fifty other publications dealing with various aspects of literary history and linguistics, such as

etymology Etymology ( ) is the study of the origin and evolution of words—including their constituent units of sound and meaning—across time. In the 21st century a subfield within linguistics, etymology has become a more rigorously scientific study. ...

, Romance and Mediterranean

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

stylistics Stylistics, a branch of applied linguistics, is the study and interpretation of texts of all types, but particularly literary texts, and spoken language with regard to their linguistic and tonal style, where style is the particular variety of l ...

morphology Morphology, from the Greek and meaning "study of shape", may refer to: Disciplines *Morphology (archaeology), study of the shapes or forms of artifacts *Morphology (astronomy), study of the shape of astronomical objects such as nebulae, galaxies, ...

, and

dialectology Dialectology (from Ancient Greek, Greek , ''dialektos'', "talk, dialect"; and , ''-logy, -logia'') is the scientific study of dialects: subsets of languages. Though in the 19th century a branch of historical linguistics, dialectology is often now c ...

. Beginning in the 1960s their particular focus became the investigation and recovery of the Hellenic heritage to the West, including a sociolinguistic study of the relations between

Byzantium Byzantium () or Byzantion () was an ancient Greek city in classical antiquity that became known as Constantinople in late antiquity and Istanbul today. The Greek name ''Byzantion'' and its Latinization ''Byzantium'' continued to be used as a n ...

and the West told through the reciprocal borrowings of words.

Honors

Henry and Renée Kahane were awarded Bicentennial Gold Medals by the

Georgetown University Georgetown University is a private university, private Jesuit research university in Washington, D.C., United States. Founded by Bishop John Carroll (archbishop of Baltimore), John Carroll in 1789, it is the oldest Catholic higher education, Ca ...

Linguistics Department in 1989 in recognition of their lifetime contributions to the field of Romance linguistics. Henry and Renée Kahane were awarded honorary doctorates from the

at Urbana-Champaign in 1977 and the Freie Universität-Berlin in 1988. Renée Kahane's doctorate from the University of Berlin was restored to her in 1984.

Selected works

* Kahane, Renée. ''Wortgeschichtliche Studien, "toupin" und "bronze"'', Berliner Beiträge zur Romanischen Philologie, III, 4, Jena-Leipzig 1934. * Kahane, Henry R.; Kahane, Renée, Italienische Ortsnamen in Griechenland, ''Texte und Forschungen zur byzantinisch-neugriechischen Philologie'' 36, Athen 1940. * Kahane, Henry R.; Kahane, Renée, Ralph L. Ward, ''Spoken Greek'', 2 vols., New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1945 - 46. * Kahane, Henry R.; Kahane, Renée. ''The Augmentative Feminine in the Romance Languages''. Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 1949. * Kahane, Henry R.; Kahane, Renée. The Position of the Actor Expression in Colloquial Mexican Spanish. ''Language'' 26, 236-263, 1950. * Kahane, Henry R.; Kahane, Renée. ''The Mediterranean Term Surgere "to Anchor"''. Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 1951. * Kahane, Henry R.; Kahane, Renée. Mediterranean Words. ''Romance Philology'' V: 174-80. 1951-1952. * Kahane, Henry R.; Kahane, Renée. ''The System of the Verb in the Western Languages''. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer, 1957. * Kahane, Henry R.; Kahane, Renée. ''Magic and Gnosticism in the "Chanson de Roland"''. Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 1959. * Kahane, Henry R.; Kahane, Renée, Andreas Tietze, ''The Lingua Franca in the Levant: Turkish Nautical Terms of Italian and Greek Origin'', Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1958. * Kahane, Henry R.; Kahane, Renée. ''Animalia Pyrricha''. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck et Ruprecht, 1960. * Kahane, Henry R.; Kahane, Renée. "Germanic Derivations of Romance Words." '' Journal of English and Germanic Philology'', 60:3 (July, 1961), pp. 460-476. * . * Kahane, Henry R.; Kahane, Renée; Bremner, Lucille. ''Glossario degli antichi portolani italiani'', Florence: Olschki, 1967. * Kahane, Henry R.; Kahane, Renée. ''Abendland und Byzanz: Sprache'', Amsterdam: Adolf M. Hakkert, 1976. * Kahane, Henry R.; Kahane, Renée. "Virtues and Vices in the American Language: A History of Attitudes." ''

TESOL Quarterly ''TESOL Quarterly'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal published by Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of TESOL International Association. It covers English language teaching and learning, standard English as a second dialect, including articles ...

'', 11:2 (June, 1977), pp. 185-202. * Kahane, Henry R.; Kahane, Renée; Ash, Roberta. "Linguistic Evidence in Historical Reconstruction." ''Linguistic Method. Essays in Honor of Herbert Penzl.'' Eds. Irmengard Rauch and Gerald F. Carr. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton, 1979: 67-121. * Kahane, Henry R.; Kahane, Renée. "Byzantium's Impact on the West: The Linguistic Evidence." ''Illinois Classical Studies'', 6:2 (Fall 1981), pp. 389-415. * Kahane, Henry R.; Kahane, Renée. "Humanistic Linguistics." ''Journal of Aesthetic Education'', 17:4, Special Issue: Distinguished Humanities Lectures (Winter 1983), pp. 65-89. * Kahane, Henry R. "A Typology of the Prestige Language." ''Language'', 62:3 (September, 1986), pp. 495-508. * Kahane, Henry R.; Kahane, Renée. "Religious Key Terms in Hellenism and Byzantium: Three Facets." ''Illinois Classical Studies'', 12:2, Byzantium and its Legacy (Fall 1987), pp. 243-263.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kahane, Renée American women linguists Women philologists 1907 births 2002 deaths Romance philologists American philologists 20th-century philologists Historical linguists Comparative literature academics University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign faculty Greek emigrants to the United States

Career

Honors

Selected works

Further reading

References