AUSTERLITZ, Robert Paul. Bucharest, Romania 13.12.1923 — New York 9.9.1994. U.S. (born in Romania) Linguist and Uralic Scholar in the U.S.A. (naturalised 1946), wrote on Dravidian in the 1960s. Son of Austrian father, Otto Austerlitz, and American mother, Rose Zellenka (with Bohemian roots), grew up in Braşov, learned there German, Hungarian and Romanian. Came to the U.S.A. in 1938, high school in New York, then at Washington Square College and after army service in WW II at Loyola College. Studies of Linguistics at Columbia University (B.A. and M.A. 1950, Ph.D. 1955). In 1951-53 further studies of Uralic at Helsinki and 1953-54 of Tungusic and Nivkh at Tokyo. Assistant Professor to Associate Professor 1958-65, from 1965 Professor of Linguistics and Uralic Studies at Columbia University. Retired 1992. Hon. dr. 1994 Helsinki. Died of cancer. Married 1953 with Sylvi Nevanlinna (d. 1981), one daughter and one son.
Austerlitz was a polyglot, who knew many Uralic, Altaic and Siberian languages, Japanese, Korean, Ainu, etc. Beside linguistics he was interested in folk poetry in various languages.
Publications: Mostly on Uralic (beginning with his diss. The metrical structure of Ob-Ugric folk poetry.), also on Altaic, Nivkh (Gilyak), folk poetry, metrics, the history of linguistics, etc.
– “Long-range comparisons of Tamil and Dravidian with other Language Families in Eurasia”, Asher (ed.), Proc. of the 2nd Intern. Conference Seminar of Tamil Studies 1972, 254-261.
Sources: D. Abondolo, Language 80, 2004, 142-152 with bibliography; *A. Kokko-Salcman, Études finno-ougriennes 27, 1995, 189f.; Dir. Am. Scholars 8th ed. vol. 3, 1982; prabook.com; Wikipedia.
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