Michael Fortescue

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Michael David Fortescue
Born (1946-08-08) 8 August 1946 (age 77)
United Kingdom
OccupationLinguist

Michael David Fortescue (born 8 August 1946, Thornbury[1]) is a British-born[2] linguist specializing in Arctic and native North American languages, including Kalaallisut, Inuktun, Chukchi and Nitinaht.

Fortescue is known for his reconstructions of the Eskaleut, Chukotko-Kamchatkan, Nivkh, and Wakashan proto-languages.

Biography[edit]

As a young teenager, Michael Fortescue and his family moved to California where he went to La Jolla High School 1956-1959.[1][3] He finished school at Abingdon School in 1963.[4] In 1966, he received a B.A. with "Honours with great Distinction" in Slavic languages and literatures from University of California, Berkeley, where he then taught Russian 1968-1970 and finished an M.A. in Slavic languages and liteatures. In the years 1971-1975 he taught English for the International Language Centre in Osaka and the University of Aix/Marseille.[3] He took a PhD in Linguistics at the University of Edinburgh from 1975[3] and finished it in 1978 with the thesis Procedural discourse generation model for 'Twenty Questions'.[5] With a Danish scholarship, he visited University of Copenhagen and did fieldwork in Greenland in 1978-79, and this research became supported from the Danish Research Council for the Humanities in the period 1979-1982. In 1984, he became associate professor in eskimology at the University of Copenhagen, and in 1989 docent.[3] He became professor in linguistics in 1999, and retired in 2011.[2]

On the occasion of his retirement in 2011, a special issue in the journal Grønland was published in 2012 as a festschrift. After retiring, he moved to England.[1]

He was chairman of the Linguistic Circle of Copenhagen 2005-2011.[2]

Selected works[edit]

His Comparative Eskimo Dictionary, co-authored with Steven Jacobson and Lawrence Kaplan,[6] is the standard work in its area, as is his Comparative Chukotko-Kamchatkan Dictionary.[7] In his book Pattern and Process,[8] Fortescue explores the possibilities of a linguistic theory based on the philosophical theories of Alfred North Whitehead.[9][10][better source needed]

A more complete listing is available in the Festschrift in his honor.[11]

  • 1984. Some Problems Concerning the Correlation and Reconstruction of Eskimo and Aleut Mood Markers. Institut for Eskimologi, Københavns Universitet.
  • 1990. From the Writings of the Greenlanders: Kalaallit Atuakklaannit. University of Alaska Press.
  • 1991. Inuktun: An Introduction to the Language of Qaanaaq, Thule. Institut for eskimologis skriftrække, Københavns Universitet.
  • 1992. Editor. Layered Structure and Reference in a Functional Perspective. John Benjamins Publishing Co.
  • 1994. With Steven Jacobson and Lawrence Kaplan. Comparative Eskimo Dictionary with Aleut Cognates. Alaska Native Language Center.
  • 1998. Language Relations across Bering Strait: Reappraising the Archaeological and Linguistic Evidence. London and New York: Cassell.
  • 2001. Pattern and Process: A Whiteheadian Perspective on Linguistics. John Benjamins Publishing Co.
  • 2002. The Domain of Language. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press.
  • 2005. Comparative Chukotko-Kamchatkan Dictionary. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.
  • 2007. Comparative Wakashan Dictionary. Munich: LINCOM Europa.
  • 2016. Comparative Nivkh Dictionary. Munich: LINCOM Europa.

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b c Grove, Arnaq (2012). "Introduktion til festskrift i anledning af Michael Fortescues fratrædelse fra Københavns Universitet". Grønland. 60 (2): 80–83.
  2. ^ a b c Riegels, Naja (30 January 2009). "Michael Fortescue". Den Store Danske (in Danish). Lex.dk. Retrieved 15 November 2023.
  3. ^ a b c d "Michael David Fortescue - Curriculum vitae - Staff". University of Copenhagen. 20 August 2022. Archived from the original on 20 August 2022. Retrieved 15 November 2023.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
  4. ^ "Valete Et Salvete" (PDF). The Abingdonian.
  5. ^ Fortescue, Michael D. (1978). Procedural discourse generation model for 'Twenty Questions' (Ph.D. thesis). University of Edinburg. hdl:1842/17443.
  6. ^ Reviews:
    • Bobaljik, Jonathan David (1998). "Review of Comparative Eskimo Dictionary with Aleut Cognates". Book Reviews. Anthropological Linguistics. 40 (3): 514–518. JSTOR 30028655.
    • Dorais, Louis-Jacques (2011). "Review of Comparative Eskimo Dictionary With Aleut Cognates, Second Edition". Book Reviews. Études/Inuit/Studies. 35 (1–2): 294. doi:10.7202/1012850ar.
  7. ^ Reviews:
  8. ^ Review:
    • Vajda, Edward J. (2003). "Review of Pattern and Process: A Whiteheadian Perspective on Linguistics". Book Notices. Language. 79 (3): 653. doi:10.1353/lan.2003.0194.
  9. ^ "Michael David Fortescue – Københavns Universitet". Inss.ku.dk. 8 August 2007. Retrieved 25 January 2010.
  10. ^ "Michael David Fortescue – University of Copenhagen". Research.ku.dk. Archived from the original on 19 July 2011. Retrieved 25 January 2010.
  11. ^ Kaplan, Lawrence D.; Berge, Anna, eds. (2017). "Publications on Indigenous Languages by Michael D. Fortescue". Studies in Inuit Linguistics. In Honor of Michael Fortescue. Fairbanks, Alaska: Alaska Native Language Center. pp. 185–190. ISBN 978-1-55500-125-4.



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