Robert Herzog sitting third from right]]

Robert Hetzron, born Herzog (31 December 1938, Budapest

Budapest

Budapest is the capital of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary, it is the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation centre. In 2011, Budapest had 1,733,685 inhabitants, down from its 1989 peak of 2,113,645 due to suburbanization. The Budapest Commuter...

 – 12 August 1997, Santa Barbara, California

Santa Barbara, California

Santa Barbara is the county seat of Santa Barbara County, California, United States. Situated on an east-west trending section of coastline, the longest such section on the West Coast of the United States, the city lies between the steeply-rising Santa Ynez Mountains and the Pacific Ocean...

), was a Hungarian-born linguist

Linguistics

Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....

 known for his work on the comparative study of Afro-Asiatic languages

Afro-Asiatic languages

The Afroasiatic languages , also known as Hamito-Semitic, constitute one of the world's largest language families, with about 375 living languages...

, as well as for his study of Cushitic

Cushitic languages

The Cushitic languages are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family spoken in the Horn of Africa, Tanzania, Kenya, Sudan and Egypt. They are named after the Biblical character Cush, who was identified as an ancestor of the speakers of these specific languages as early as AD 947...

 and Ethiopian Semitic languages

Ethiopian Semitic languages

Ethiopian Semitic is a language group, which together with Old South Arabian forms the Western branch of the South Semitic languages. The languages are spoken in both Ethiopia and Eritrea...

.

Biography

Born in Hungary, Hetzron studied at the University of Budapest

University of Budapest

The Eötvös Loránd University or ELTE, founded in 1635, is the largest university in Hungary, located in Budapest.-History:The university was founded in 1635 in Nagyszombat by the archbishop and theologian Péter Pázmány. Leadership was given over to the Jesuits...

. After the 1956 Uprising in Hungary, he moved to Vienna and then to Paris, where he studied with André Martinet

André Martinet

André Martinet was a French linguist, influential by his work on structural linguistics....

 and Joseph Tubiana. He received his M.A. degree at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Hebrew University of Jerusalem

The Hebrew University of Jerusalem ; ; abbreviated HUJI) is Israel's second-oldest university, after the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. The Hebrew University has three campuses in Jerusalem and one in Rehovot. The world's largest Jewish studies library is located on its Edmond J...

 under the supervision of Hans Jakob Polotsky

Hans Jakob Polotsky

Hans Jakob Polotsky was an Israeli orientalist, linguist, and professor for Semitic languages and Egyptology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.- Biography :...

, and his Ph.D. at the University of California, Los Angeles

University of California, Los Angeles

The University of California, Los Angeles is a public research university located in the Westwood neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, USA. It was founded in 1919 as the "Southern Branch" of the University of California and is the second oldest of the ten campuses...

 under the supervision of Wolf Leslau

Wolf Leslau

Wolf Leslau ]] November 18, 2006) was a scholar of Semitic languages and one of the foremost authorities on Semitic languages of Ethiopia.-Youth and Education:Leslau was born in Krzepice, a small town near Częstochowa, Poland...

. From 1969 and until his death he was professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara

University of California, Santa Barbara

The University of California, Santa Barbara, commonly known as UCSB or UC Santa Barbara, is a public research university and one of the 10 general campuses of the University of California system. The main campus is located on a site in Goleta, California, from Santa Barbara and northwest of Los...

.

Commemoration

The 35th annual meeting of the North American Conference on Afroasiatic Linguistics

North American Conference on Afroasiatic Linguistics

North American Conference on Afroasiatic Linguistics is a yearly academic conference addressing the Afroasiatic languages. The conference has been held since 1973. Prominent participants have included Lionel Bender, Wolf Leslau, and Alan S. Kaye....

(NACAL 35, San Antonio, 2007), which was initiated by Robert Hetzron at Santa Barbara in 1972, is dedicated to his memory.

External links

• NACAL - The North American Conference on Afroasiatic Linguistics
• An obituary by Grover Hudson.