TUNELD, Ebbe Oskar. Malmö 7.4.1877 — 27.6.1947. Swedish Indologist and Linguist. Professor in Lund. Son of an elementary school teacher, Johan Oskar T. and Hedvig Charlotte Andersson, brother of industrialist John T. Matriculated from Malmö in 1895 and started studies at Lund. M.A. 1900 and Lic.Phil. 1905 Lund. In 1902-04 further studies at Berlin and Leipzig, in 1912 at Göttingen (Oldenburg) and 1912-14 at Paris (Meillet, Lévi). Ph.D. 1915 Lund. From 1915 PD of Indology at Lund, in 1923 Professor’s title. After Flensburg’s death several times acting Professor. His main work, however, was the great Swedish Dictionary of the Academy of Sweden, in which he participated from 1905 until 1942, in 1920-42 as its editor-in-chief. In 1933 he was seriously ill and again in 1940 and retired.

Tuneld was a junggrammarian linguist, who knew many languages. At Lund he even taught Chinese. His work at the Academy Dictionary took a major part of his time and left little for further scholarly work. In retirement he was mainly interested in local history.

Publications: Diss. Recherches sur la valeur des traditions Bouddhiques palie et non-palie. Deux chapitres de la biographie du Bouddha étudiés d’après les sources palies, sanscrites, chinoises et thibétaines. Lund 1915.

– “Udbhaṭas framställning av upamā”, Filol. fören. Språkl. upps. 3, Lund 1906, 262-278; “Le Mahāvastu et le Lalitavistara”, Studier tillegnade Es. Tegnér. Lund 1918, 575-578; “La biographie Majjhima-Nikāya du Bouddha”, Actes du 5. congrès intern. des religions, Lund 1929; obituary notices in H.V.S.L. Årsbok on Nils Flensburg (1926-27), Herbert Petersson (1927-28), and Hannes Sköld (1930-31); a few articles on Swedish linguistics.

Sources: *F. Böök, E.T. Minnesteckning. 209 p. 1960; Charpentier 1924, 70f.; A. Lindqvist, Svenska män och kvinnor 8, 1955, 61f. with photo; Lund Univ. Matrikel 1924-25 & 1939 (with bibliography); SwedishWikipedia with photo.