Otto Jespersen facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Otto Jespersen
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Jespersen, c. 1915
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| Born | 16 July 1860 Randers, Denmark
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| Died | 30 April 1943 (aged 82) Roskilde, Denmark
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| Nationality | Danish |
| Occupation | Linguist |
Jens Otto Harry Jespersen (born 16 July 1860 – died 30 April 1943) was a Danish linguist. He was an expert in the grammar of the English language. He also created his own international language called Novial.
Contents
Early Life and Education
Otto Jespersen was born in Randers, a town in Jutland, Denmark. As a boy, he was inspired by the work of a Danish language expert named Rasmus Rask. With Rask's grammar books, Otto taught himself some Icelandic, Italian, and Spanish.
In 1877, when he was 17, he started studying at the University of Copenhagen. He first studied law, but he never stopped learning languages. By 1881, he decided to focus only on languages. In 1887, he earned his master's degree in French. English and Latin were his other main languages. To pay for his studies, he worked part-time as a schoolteacher. He also worked as a shorthand reporter in the Danish parliament.
From 1887 to 1888, Jespersen traveled to England, Germany, and France. He met famous linguists like Henry Sweet and Paul Passy. He also attended lectures at places like Oxford University. His mentor, Vilhelm Thomsen, advised him to return to Copenhagen. In August 1888, he began working on his PhD. His research was about the English case system. He successfully finished his PhD in 1891.
Academic Career and Key Ideas
Otto Jespersen became a professor of English at the University of Copenhagen. He taught there from 1893 to 1925. He was also the head of the university (Rector) from 1920 to 1921. His early work focused on how to teach languages better and on phonetics (the study of speech sounds). However, he is most famous for his later work on syntax (sentence structure) and how languages develop.
He developed two important ideas in grammar: Rank and Nexus. He wrote about these ideas in Danish papers.
- The Rank theory explains how words relate to each other in a sentence. For example, in the phrase "well honed phrase", "phrase" is the main word (primary). "Honed" describes "phrase" (secondary). "Well" describes "honed" (tertiary). This idea helped to understand how words modify each other.
- The Nexus idea describes how two concepts are joined together in one unit, like in "it rained, he ran indoors". This is different from a junction, which is one idea made of two or more parts. These ideas helped linguists understand how context works in language.
Important Books and Contributions
Jespersen was widely known for several of his books.
- Language: Its Nature, Development and Origin (1922) is often seen as his greatest work. It explores how language began and changed over time.
- Modern English Grammar on Historical Principles (1909–1949) focused on how English words are formed (morphology) and how sentences are built (syntax).
- Growth and Structure of the English Language (1905) gives a full view of the English language. It's still printed today, more than 100 years after it was first published.
- In Analytic Syntax (1937), he showed his ideas on sentence structure using his own special notation.
- The Philosophy of Grammar (1924) questioned common grammar rules. He suggested new definitions for terms like grammatical case, pronoun, object, and voice. This book is still used today in the study of structural linguistics.
- Mankind, Nation and Individual: from a linguistic point of view (1925) was one of the first books on sociolinguistics. This field studies how language is used in society.
Jespersen visited the United States twice. He gave lectures in St. Louis in 1904. In 1909–1910, he visited the University of California and Columbia University. While there, he also studied the American education system. His autobiography (his life story) was translated into English in 1995.
After he retired in 1925, Jespersen stayed active in the world of language studies. He kept writing books and articles. He also led the first International Meeting on Linguistic Research in Geneva in 1930. In 1936, he was president of the Fourth International Congress of Linguists in Copenhagen.
International Language Movement
Jespersen was a key person in the movement to create an international language. These are languages designed to be easy for people from different countries to learn and use. He supported Ido, which was a language that came from Esperanto. In 1928, he even created his own international language called Novial. He also worked with the International Auxiliary Language Association.
Awards and Recognition
Otto Jespersen received special honorary degrees from several universities. These included Columbia University in New York (1910), St. Andrews University in Scotland (1925), and the Sorbonne in Paris (1927). He was one of the first six international scholars to be chosen as honorary members of the Linguistic Society of America. In 1931, he was elected a foreign member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.
See also
In Spanish: Otto Jespersen para niños
