ALMKVIST, Herman Napoleon (born Almqvist). Stockholm 28.4.1839 — Uppsala 30.9.1904. Swedish Oriental Scholar. Professor in Uppsala. Son of city cashier Per Johan A. and Fredrika Vilhelmina Holmström, educated in Stockholm. Studies at Uppsala from 1856: M.A. 1864, Ph.D. 1866. PD in Arabic in the same year. Further studies in 1867 in Paris and in 1869-70 in Leipzig (Arabic under Fleischer, but also Sanskrit under Brockhaus). In 1875-78 he travelled in Constantinople, Syria, Egypt and Sudan. Although mainly a Semitist (also teaching Persian and Turkish), he was nominated in 1878 eo. Professor i jämförande språkforskning at Uppsala, where he apparently taught Sanskrit, too. From 1892 he was full Professor of Semitic Languages, and now entirely concentrated on them. Married 1881 Emeli Sofia Axelson, two sons and one daughter. His interests comprised also Hamitic languages and he was criticized of being too many-sided and therefore not very productive.
Publications: Wrote much on Semitic and Hamitic languages, on Turkish, and even on Swedish (about the need of a reform of orthography).
– “Om det sanskritiska ahám”, Upsala Univ. årsskrift 187, 18 p9.
Sources: Nordisk Familjebok 1; Svensk Upplagsbok 1 (photo); Zetterstéen, Sv. Orientsällsk. Årsbok 1924, 11-22 and Sv. biogr. lex. 1, 1918, 439 (with photo); Swedish Wikipedia (with poor photo).
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