SKÖLD, Hannes (Johannes Evelinus). Västerlövsta, Västmanland 20.9.1886 — Höör, Skåne 14.9.1930. Swedish Indologist and Linguist. Son of the missionary Johan S. (in China 1885-1922) and Eva Charlotta Eriksdotter, spent himself the age 4 to 11 in China. Matriculated in 1905 from Norrköping, studied at Göteborg (fil.kand. 1907). Worked as journalist, travelled in Eastern Europe, Hungary and Balkan, during the revolution period. Worked for the Stockholm Tidning, then in Swedish Consulate in Moscow until 1918. At the same time he continued his studies at Lund: fil.lic 1916, Ph.D. 1920 Lund. From 1920 Docent of Slavonic Languages at Lund, from 1926 Docent of Comparative IE Linguistics at Lund. In 1927 he was the only qualified applicant for the Sanskrit chair at Lund, but was rejected, apparently on political grounds, which started a polemics lasting until his early death. In 1928 in Pamir studying local Iranian languages. Married 1918 Nancy Nilsson, at least one son.
Sköld was a skilled linguist, who never got a fair chance because of politics. He was pacifist (in the early 1910s in prison because of antimilitary propaganda) and active member of the labour movement. He was also known as a poet.
Publications: Diss. on Serbo-Croatian dialects 1920; two collections of poetry. 1911, 1912; political works. 1913, 1916, & 1927; translations, i.a. Marx and Lenin.
– Linguistic Gleanings. 84 p. L.U.Å. N.F. 19:15. Lund & Lp. 1923.
– “Were the Asuras Assyrians?”, JRAS 1924, 265-267 (answer: “certainly not!”).
– Die ossetischen Lehnwörter im Hungarischen. 114 p. L.U.Å. N.F. 20:4. Lund 1925.
– Nirukta. Its place in Old Indian Literature, its Etymologies. 14+375 p. Acta Reg. Soc. Humaniorum Litterarum Lundensis 8. Lund & L. 1926.
– Papers on Pāṇini and Indian Grammar in General. 50 p. L.U.Å. N.F. 21:8. Lund 1926; Untersuchungen zur Genesis der altindischen etymologischen Literatur. 1-2. 104+28 p. L.U.Å. N.F. 24:6 & 26:7. Lund 1928-31.
– “Indo-Uralisch”, FUF 18, 1927, 216-231.
– Beiträge zur allgemeinen und vergleichenden Sprachwissenschaft. 1. Sprachgeographie und Indogermanistik. 79 p. Lund 1931.
– Materialien zu den iranischen Pamirsprachen. 319 p. Skr. Hum. Vet.samf. Lund 21. 1936.
– Articles, also wrote on Slavic and Hungarian.
Sources: Sven Swensson, Svenska män och kvinnor 7, 1954, 99f. with photo; Wikipedia with photo (more in Swedish version); detailed account in https://sok.riksarkivet.se/Sbl/Presentation.aspx?id=6046.
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