SHAFER, Robert – Persons of Indian Studies by Prof. Dr. Klaus Karttunen

SHAFER, Robert Lloyd (Schafer). 1893 — 1969. U.S. Linguist and Sino-Tibetan scholar. Ph.D. Director of Sino-Tibetan Linguistic Project at U.C. Berkeley. Famous, but rather much criticised for his brave hypotheses.

Publications: “Nahali, a linguistic study in paleoethnography”, HJAS 5, 1940, 346-371; “Linguistics in History”, JAOS 67, 1947, 296-305; other articles.

– “L’annamite et le tibéto-birman”, BEFEO 40, 1940, 439-442; “Prefixes in Tibeto-Burman”, HJAS 9, 1945, 45-50; “Phonétique historique des langues lolo”, TP 41, 1952, 191-229; “Classification of the Sino-Tibetan languages”, Word 11, 1955, 94-111; “Note on Angami Dialects”, Anthropos 57, 1962, 188-190

– “Études sur l’Austroasian”, BSL 48, 1952, 111-158; Studies in Austroasian II. 69 p. StOr 30:5. Helsinki 1965.

– Ethnography of ancient India. 175 p. Wb. 1954.

– Bibliography of Sino-Tibetan languages. 11+211 p. Wb. 1957.

– “The Eurasial [sic!] Linguistic Superfamily”, Anthropos 60, 1965, 445-468 (IE & Sino-Tibetan).

– Introduction to Sino-Tibetan. 1-4. 6+408 p. Wb. 1966-70, 2nd ed.541 p. Wb. 1974.

– Also wrote on American Indian languages.

Sources: P.K. Benedict, “Where it all began: memories of R.S. and the ‘Sino-Tibetan Linguistic Project’ Berkeley 1939-40”, Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area 2, 1975, 81-91 (http://sealang.net/sala/archives/pdf8/benedict1975where.pdf) contains some personal memories, but not much information about this elusive figure.

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