FAIRBANKS, Gordon Hubert. Calgary, Alberta 1913 — 13.7.1985. Canadian Linguist in the U.S.A., NIA, IE, Russian and Armenian Scholar. Citizen of the U.S.A. Professor in Ithaca, Manoa and Urbana. Educated at Mount Royal College in Calgary, studies at at University of Alberta (B.A. 1937, M.A. 1938). In 1938-39 and in 1940-41 Assistant of German at University of Wisconsin in Madison. In 1941-45 Assistant Professor at Southwestern University. In 1948 Ph.D. University of Wisconsin, in comparative IE philology. From 1945 at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y.: 1945-47 Instructor, 1947-50 Assistant Professor, 1950-57 Associate Professor, 1957-70 Professor of Linguistics. Visiting Professor at Deccan College in Poona in 1955-56 and 1958-59, in Delhi in 1963-64. From 1970 to 1978 or 1980 Professor of Linguistics at University of Hawaii in Manoa. From 1979 Hermann Collitz Professor of IE in Urbana, Illinois. Married 1941 Anna Elisabeth Tempel, two daughters.
At Cornell Fairbanks had a number of South Asian students. He was also interested in Dravidian. His main work, however, was the Historical Phonology of Russian.
Publications: Diss. Phonology and morphology of modern spoken West Armenian. 12+103 p. 1948.
– With others: Hindi Exercises and Reading. 7+109 p. Ithaca 1955; Hindi me kaarak. 1960.
– With P. B. Pandit: Hindi, a Spoken Approach. 8+84 p. Poona 1965.
– With Bal Govind Misra: Spoken and written Hindi. 35+468 p. Ithaca 1966, 6th ed. Ithaca 1984.
– With J. W. Gair & M. W. S. De Silva: Colloquial Sinhalese. 1-2. 390+251 p. 34 cassettes. N.Y. 1968, 2nd ed. 1981-84.
– A Russian Area Reader. 5+204 p. N.Y. 1951; Russian Readings in Popular Science. 154 p. N.Y. 1963 (with A. L. Jaryc & R. L. Leed); Basic Conversational Russian. 11+350+36 p. N.Y. 1964 (with R. L. Leeds); Historical Phonology of Russian. 112 p. Deccan Coll. Building Cent. Ser. 16. Poona 1965; a few further works on Russia.
– With E. W. Stewick: Spoken East Armenian. 403 p. N.Y. 1958.
– Articles on linguistics.
Sources: Dir. Am. Sch. 6th ed. 3, 1974 & 8th ed. 3, 1982; D. P. Pattanayak, IL 46, 1985.
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