Eric P. Hamp is an American linguist. Born in 1921, he received his PhD from Harvard University in 1950s and since then he taught at the University of Chicago where he is Robert Maynard Hutchins Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus, Departments of Linguistics, Slavic Languages and Literatures, Psychology (Cognition and Communication) and the Committee on the Ancient Mediterranean World). His field is Indo-European linguistics, particularly Celtic languages and Albanian. He is known for his interest in and expertise on the smaller Indo-European languages. Unlike many Indo-Europeanists, who work entirely on the basis of written materials, he has conducted extensive fieldwork on lesser-known Indo-European languages and dialects, such as Albanian, Breton, Welsh, Irish, and Scots Gaelic. His wide-ranging interests, however, included American Indian languages. He served for many years as editor of the International Journal of American Linguistics and did field work on Quileute and Ojibwa. Harvard University (incorporated as The President and Fellows of Harvard College) is a private university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. ... The 1950s was the decade spanning the years 1950 to 1959. ... The University of Chicago will crush your soul. ... The Celtic languages are the languages descended from Proto-Celtic, or Common Celtic, spoken by ancient and modern Celts alike. ... The International Journal of American Linguistics (IJAL) is an academic journal devoted to the study of the indigenous languages of the Americas. ... Quileute is a group of Native American peoples from western Washington state in the United States. ... The Ojibwa, Aanishanabe or Chippewa (also Ojibwe, Ojibway, Chippeway, Anishinaabe, or Anishinabek) are the largest group of Native Americans/First Nations north of Mexico, including Métis. ...

In 1960 he held the Hermann and Klara H. Collitz Professorship for Comparative Philology at the Linguistic Society of America Summer Institute. He has received two festschriften. In 1981 he was honored with Studies in Balkan Linguistics to Honor Eric P. Hamp on his Sixtieth Birthday, Folia Slavica 4, 2-3, edited by Howard I. Aronson and Bill J. Darden. In 1990 he was honored with Celtic Language, Celtic Culture: A Festschrift for Eric P. Hamp, edited by A.T. E. Matonis and Daniel F. Melia. He is a member of the Royal Danish Academy and the Albanian Academy of Sciences, and holds an honorary doctorate from the University of Calabria.

In spite of his advanced age, he continues to write and speak at conferences and remains an Associate Editor of the journal Anthropological Linguistics.

Bibliography

• Hamp, Eric P., Martin Joos, Fred W. Householder, and Robert Austerlitz, editors Readings in Linguistics I & II. With a new Preface by Eric Hamp. Abridged edition. 302 p. 8-1/2 x 11 1957, 1966, 1995
• Hamp, Eric P. "Mabinogi." Transactions of the Honourable Society of the Cymmrodorion . 1974-75. 243-49.
• Hamp, Eric. 1979. "Toward the history of Slavic scholarship," Slovene Studies 1/2: 61-62.
• Hamp, Eric. 1988. "Indo-European o-grade deverbal thematics in Slovene," Slovene Studies 10/1: 65-70
• Hamp, Eric. 1989. "On the survival of Slovene o-grade deverbal thematics in Resian," Slovene Studies 10/2: 171-173.
• Hamp, Eric. 1989. "Chronological marriage patterns in Resia," Slovene Studies 10/2: 201-202.
• Hamp, Eric. 1996. On the Indo-European origins of the retroflexes in Sanskrit." The Journal of the American Oriental Society, October 21, 1996: 719-724.

External links

• Books
• Linguistic Society of America Summer Institutes
• Anthropological Linguistics
• University of Chicago archives
• University of Chicago Linguistics faculty