Stephen Adolphe Wurm (August 19, 1922–October 24, 2001) was an Australian linguist. August 19 is the 231st day of the year (232nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1922 (MCMXXII) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display full calendar). ... October 24 is the 297th day of the year (298th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar, with 68 days remaining. ... Year 2001 (MMI) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar. ... The following is a list of linguists, those who study linguistics. ...

Biography

Wurm was born in Budapest, the second child to the German-speaking Adolphe Wurm and Hungarian-speaking Anna Novroczky, and was christened Istvan Adolphe Wurm. His father died before Stephen was born. This article or section does not cite any references or sources. ... German (called Deutsch in German; in German the term germanisch is equivalent to English Germanic), is a member of the western group of Germanic languages and is one of the worlds major languages. ... Hungarian (magyar nyelv  ) is a Finno-Ugric language (more specifically an Ugric language) unrelated to the other languages of Central Europe. ...

Both of his parents were multilingual and Wurm also showed an interest in languages from an early age. Attending school in Vienna and travelling to all parts of Europe during his childhood, Wurm spoke nine languages by the time he reached adulthood. Vienna (German: , see also other names) is the capital of Austria, and also one of the nine States of Austria. ...

Wurm grew up stateless, unable to take the nationality of either parent or of his country of residence, Austria. This enabled him to avoid military service and attend university. He studied Turkic languages at the Oriental Institute in Vienna, receiving his doctorate in linguistics and social anthropology in 1944 for a dissertation on the Uzbek language. The Turkic languages constitute a language family of some thirty languages, spoken across a vast area from Eastern Europe to Siberia and Western China with an estimated 140 million native speakers and tens of millions of second-language speakers. ... 1944 (MCMXLIV) was a leap year starting on Saturday. ... Uzbek (O‘zbek tili in Latin script, Ўзбек тили in Cyrillic script) is an Eastern Turkic language and the official language of Uzbekistan. ...

In 1946 he married fellow student Helene (Helen) Maria Groeger, a specialist in African ethnography. He taught Altaic linguistics at the University of Vienna until 1951. 1946 (MCMXLVI) was a common year starting on Tuesday. ... The University of Vienna (German: Universität Wien) in Vienna, Austria is the oldest university in the current Austro-Hungarian domain; it formally opened in 1365. ...

After reading some works by S. H. Ray, Wurm became interested in Papuan languages and began a correspondence with Rev. Dr. Arthur Capell, lecturer in linguistics at the University of Sydney. Wurm began teaching himself Tok Pisin and Police Motu from books and took up a position in London. In 1954 the Wurms moved to Australia where Capell had organised for Wurm a post in the Anthropology Department at the University of Sydney. In 1957 the Wurms moved to Canberra where Stephen took up a post as Senior Fellow within the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studes at the new Australian National University. That same year the Wurms took up Australian citizenship. From this time on the main focus of Wurm's research was the study of the languages of New Guinea, although he also carried out research on a number of Australian Aboriginal languages. The term Papuan languages refers to those languages of the western Pacific which are neither Austronesian nor Australian. ... Arthur Capell (March 28, 1902–1986) was an Australian linguist. ... The University of Sydney, established in Sydney in 1850, is the oldest university in Australia. ... This article includes a list of works cited or a list of external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks in-text citations. ... Year 1954 (MCMLIV) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... 1957 (MCMLVII) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... The Australian National University, or ANU, is a public university located in Canberra, the national capital of Australia. ... The Australian Aboriginal languages comprise several language families and isolates native to Australia and a few nearby islands, but by convention excluding Tasmania. ...

Publications and collections of work

• "Languages of Australia and Tasmania" (Mouton, Den Haag, 1972)

• In 1963, he began publishing his series entitled "Pacific Languages"：
  • "New Guinea area languages and language study（3 volumes）" ~ "Pacific Linguistics, 1975-1977"

• "Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger of Disappearing" (1996)

[1] (book)

• "The Duungidjawu language of southeast Queensland: Grammar, texts and vocabulary" (Pacific Linguistics)

[2] (book)

Mouton may refer to: // People Alexander Mouton, a United States Senator from Louisiana Jean Mouton (c. ... Year 1963 (MCMLXIII) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Pacific Linguistics is a non-profit publisher located at the Australian National University, Canberra, printing linguistic materials (such as grammars and dictionaries) on the languages of Oceania and Southeast Asia. ...

References

• Pawley, Andrew. 2002. Stephen Wurm, 1922-2001: Linguist Extraordinaire. Oceanic Linguistics, 41:1.

External links

• Pacific Linguistics （publisher）
• Foundation For Endangered Languages
• Academy of the Humanities - Fellows of the Academy : Wurm
  • PDF
• Project MUSE