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Michael Fortescue
British linguist From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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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.
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Biography
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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 literatures. 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 1975-1978[5] with the thesis Procedural discourse generation model for 'Twenty Questions'.[6] 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] where he was elected an associate of St Hugh's College.[7] An edited book was published as a festschrift in his honour in 2017.[8] In 2019, he was elected to Academia Europaea.[7]
He was chairman of the Linguistic Circle of Copenhagen 2005-2011.[2]
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Selected works
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His Comparative Eskimo Dictionary, co-authored with Steven Jacobson and Lawrence Kaplan,[9] is the standard work in its area, as is his Comparative Chukotko-Kamchatkan Dictionary.[10] In his book Pattern and Process,[11] Fortescue explores the possibilities of a linguistic theory based on the philosophical theories of Alfred North Whitehead.[12][13][better source needed]
A more complete listing is available in the Festschrift in his honor.[8]
- 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.
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