Vladimir Orel
Encyclopedia
Vladimir Orel was a Russian linguist
Linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....

.

Biography

At the Moscow State University
Moscow State University
Lomonosov Moscow State University , previously known as Lomonosov University or MSU , is the largest university in Russia. Founded in 1755, it also claims to be one of the oldest university in Russia and to have the tallest educational building in the world. Its current rector is Viktor Sadovnichiy...

 he studied theoretical linguistics (1971) and structural linguistics (1973). He defended his Ph.D. in 1981 (Sostav i xarakteristika balkanoslavjanskix jazykov), on the comparative analysis of Balto-Slavic languages
Balto-Slavic languages
The Balto-Slavic language group traditionally comprises Baltic and Slavic languages, belonging to the Indo-European family of languages. Baltic and Slavic languages share several linguistic traits not found in any other Indo-European branch, which points to the period of common development...

. Until 1990 he worked at the Institute of Slavic and Balkan Studies in Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...

, where he completed his second doctoral thesis in 1989 (Sravniteľno-istoričeskaja grammatika albanskogo jazyka: fonetika i morfologija.), on the historical grammar of Albanian
Albanian language
Albanian is an Indo-European language spoken by approximately 7.6 million people, primarily in Albania and Kosovo but also in other areas of the Balkans in which there is an Albanian population, including western Macedonia, southern Montenegro, southern Serbia and northwestern Greece...

.

In the period 1989-1990 he also taught historical linguistics
Historical linguistics
Historical linguistics is the study of language change. It has five main concerns:* to describe and account for observed changes in particular languages...

 at Moscow State University. After his emigration to Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

 he continued to teach at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem ; ; abbreviated HUJI) is Israel's second-oldest university, after the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. The Hebrew University has three campuses in Jerusalem and one in Rehovot. The world's largest Jewish studies library is located on its Edmond J...

 (1991-1992). Later he relocated to the Tel-Aviv University, where he taught in the Department of Classical Studies in the period of 1992-97, on comparative linguistics, mythology and folklore, history and philosophy. In 1994 he worked at the Shalom Hartman Institute
Shalom Hartman Institute
Shalom Hartman Institute is a Jewish research and education institute based in Jerusalem, Israel, that offers pluralistic Jewish thought and education to scholars, rabbis, educators, and Jewish community leaders in Israel and North America...

 in Jerusalem when he was dedicated to the biblical studies, and the following two years acting as a visiting scholar at Wolfson College, Oxford
Wolfson College, Oxford
Wolfson College is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. Located in north Oxford along the River Cherwell, Wolfson is an all-graduate college with over sixty governing body fellows, in addition to both research and junior research fellows. It caters to a wide range of...

. The last two years in Israel (1997-99) he spent at Bar-Ilan University
Bar-Ilan University
Bar-Ilan University is a university in Ramat Gan of the Tel Aviv District, Israel.Established in 1955, Bar Ilan is now Israel's second-largest academic institution. It has nearly 26,800 students and 1,350 faculty members...

.

Afterward he went to Calgary
Calgary
Calgary is a city in the Province of Alberta, Canada. It is located in the south of the province, in an area of foothills and prairie, approximately east of the front ranges of the Canadian Rockies...

 in Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

, where he started to work at Zi Corporation
Zi Corporation
Zi Corporation was a software company based in Calgary, Canada specializing in Predictive text.On February 26, 2009, Nuance Communications .Nuance...

 as a director of research and language teaching (2001-02). After a brief activity at the Princeton University
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....

 in New Jersey (2001-02), where he worked in the department of testing services, he started to work at the universities in Alberta
Alberta
Alberta is a province of Canada. It had an estimated population of 3.7 million in 2010 making it the most populous of Canada's three prairie provinces...

, Canada, specifically Athabasca University
Athabasca University
Athabasca University is a Canadian university in Athabasca, Alberta. It is an accredited research institution which also offers distance education courses and programs. Courses are offered primarily in English with some French offerings. Each year, 32,000 students attend the university. It offers...

 (since 2003), Mount Royal College
Mount Royal College
Mount Royal University is a public university in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Founded in 1910 as a primary and secondary school, Mount Royal became a post-secondary institution in 1931 as Mount Royal College offering transfer courses to the University of Alberta and later to the University of Calgary...

 (since 2003), University of Calgary
University of Calgary
The University of Calgary is a public research university located in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Founded in 1966 the U of C is composed of 14 faculties and more than 85 research institutes and centres.More than 25,000 undergraduate and 5,500 graduate students are currently...

 (since 2004), University of Lethbridge
University of Lethbridge
The University of Lethbridge is a publicly-funded comprehensive academic and research university, founded in the liberal education tradition, located in Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada, with two other urban campuses in Calgary and Edmonton. The main building sits among the coulees on the west side of...

 (2004-05). There he lectured on comparative linguistics, Biblical Studies, as well as on also business English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

, English literature
English literature
English literature is the literature written in the English language, including literature composed in English by writers not necessarily from England; for example, Robert Burns was Scottish, James Joyce was Irish, Joseph Conrad was Polish, Dylan Thomas was Welsh, Edgar Allan Poe was American, J....

, creative writing, etc. Since 2005, he ran the Translation Center at the Calgary Regional Health Authority.

Work

Even though he worked only three decades as a professional research linguist, Orel's work encompassed extraordinary variety of interests: from Slavic
Slavic languages
The Slavic languages , a group of closely related languages of the Slavic peoples and a subgroup of Indo-European languages, have speakers in most of Eastern Europe, in much of the Balkans, in parts of Central Europe, and in the northern part of Asia.-Branches:Scholars traditionally divide Slavic...

 via modern Balkan languages
Balkan languages
This is a list of languages spoken in regions ruled by Balkan countries. With the exception of several Turkic languages, Hungarian, and Circassian, all of them belong to the Indo-European family...

 to Paleo-Balkan languages
Paleo-Balkan languages
Paleo-Balkan is a geolinguistic term referring to the Indo-European languages that were spoken in the Balkans in ancient times. Except for Greek and the language that gave rise to Albanian , they are all extinct, due to Hellenization, Romanization, and Slavicisation.- Classification :The following...

 (most notably Phrygian
Phrygian language
The Phrygian language was the Indo-European language of the Phrygians, spoken in Asia Minor during Classical Antiquity .Phrygian is considered to have been closely related to Greek....

), from Proto-Indo-European
Proto-Indo-European language
The Proto-Indo-European language is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European languages, spoken by the Proto-Indo-Europeans...

 roots and its Nosratic
Nostratic languages
Nostratic is a proposed language family that includes many of the indigenous language families of Eurasia, including the Indo-European, Uralic and Altaic as well as Kartvelian languages...

 context on one side, to the analysis of Biblical Hebrew and Old Testament
Old Testament
The Old Testament, of which Christians hold different views, is a Christian term for the religious writings of ancient Israel held sacred and inspired by Christians which overlaps with the 24-book canon of the Masoretic Text of Judaism...

 texts and Proto-Afroasiatic language on the other side.

He has left behind about 200 articles and over two dozen reviews. Above all, however, are 6 monographs, four of which are etymological dictionaries (with the unassuming titles such as "Handbook of Germanic etymology" actually hiding a full etymological dictionary). Finally, the 3rd part of his "Russian etymological dictionary" (which was already termed as "new Vasmer
Max Vasmer
Max Vasmer was a Russian-born German linguist who studied problems of etymology of Indo-European, Finno-Ugric and Turkic languages and worked on history of Slavic, Baltic, Iranian, and Finno-Ugric peoples....

") was unfinished due to his premature death.

His "Albanian Etymological Dictionary" (1998) is a particularly useful overview of existing etymologies, and it well complements his "Albanian Historical Grammar" (2000).

Monograph "Phrygian Language" (1997) summarizes the old/neo-Phyrigian epigraphy, interpretation of all the known inscriptions until the 1990s and the corresponding grammatical comments.

Orel also dealt with the Indo-European languages
Indo-European languages
The Indo-European languages are a family of several hundred related languages and dialects, including most major current languages of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and South Asia and also historically predominant in Anatolia...

, especially with Balto-Slavic
Balto-Slavic languages
The Balto-Slavic language group traditionally comprises Baltic and Slavic languages, belonging to the Indo-European family of languages. Baltic and Slavic languages share several linguistic traits not found in any other Indo-European branch, which points to the period of common development...

, Germanic
Germanic languages
The Germanic languages constitute a sub-branch of the Indo-European language family. The common ancestor of all of the languages in this branch is called Proto-Germanic , which was spoken in approximately the mid-1st millennium BC in Iron Age northern Europe...

, Albanian
Albanian language
Albanian is an Indo-European language spoken by approximately 7.6 million people, primarily in Albania and Kosovo but also in other areas of the Balkans in which there is an Albanian population, including western Macedonia, southern Montenegro, southern Serbia and northwestern Greece...

 and Celtic branches
Celtic languages
The Celtic languages are descended from Proto-Celtic, or "Common Celtic"; a branch of the greater Indo-European language family...

. He also took interest in Semitic languages
Semitic languages
The Semitic languages are a group of related languages whose living representatives are spoken by more than 270 million people across much of the Middle East, North Africa and the Horn of Africa...

, Hebrew in the first place, and more broadly in Afroasiatic languages as a whole, where lie his most controversial results. Through collaboration with Olga Stolbova he published "Hamito-Semitic Etymological Dictionary" (1995) which on one hand brought a number of interesting and new sub-lexical comparison, especially Semitic-Chadic. On the other hand, the value of the benefits of reduced transcriptions used and inaccurate translations, absence of primary sources for non-written languages, and especially countless pseudo-reconstructions formulated ad hoc often on two or even a single word were seriously frowned upon by the specialists, which also pointed out to some other serious errors in the work (especially in Kushitic material, as well as not neglecting massive amount Arabic borrowings in Berberic languages).

He published the following monographs:
  • (together with Olga Stolbova) Hamito-Semitic Etymological Dictionary. Leiden: Brill, 1995 (578 pp.)
  • The Language of Phrygians. Ann Arbor: Caravan Books, 1997 (501 pp.)
  • Albanian Etymological Dictionary. Leiden: Brill, 1998 (670 pp.)
  • A Concise Historical Grammar of Albanian. Leiden: Brill, 2000 (350 pp.)
  • Handbook of Germanic Etymology. Leiden: Brill, 2003 (700 pp.)
  • Russian Etymological Dictionary. Vol. 1. Calgary: Octavia, 2007 (400 pp.)
  • Russian Etymological Dictionary. Vol. 2. Calgary: Octavia, 2007 (400 pp.)
  • Russian Etymological Dictionary, Vol. 3. Calgary: Octavia, 2008.
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