Wayles Browne
Encyclopedia
Eppes Wayles Browne is a linguist, Slavist, translator and editor of Slavic journals in several countries. He is an Associate Professor of Linguistics at Cornell University
, with research interests in Slavic
and general linguistics, notably the study and analysis of Serbo-Croatian
, where he is one of the leading Western scholars.
(A.B., 1963, in Linguistics and Slavic Languages), and continued with graduate work at Massachusetts Institute of Technology
and the University of Novi Sad
(then in SFR Yugoslavia), culminating in a Ph.D. degree from the University of Zagreb
in 1980. He studied with some of the finest linguists and Slavicists of the 20th century, including Roman Jakobson
, Horace G. Lunt, Morris Halle
, and Pavle Ivić
. His dissertation, directed by Rudolf Filipović, was entitled Relativna rečenica u hrvatskom ili srpskom jeziku u poređenju s engleskom situacijom ("Relative Clauses in the Croatian or Serbian Language in Comparison with the English Situation") and is one of the first serious attempts to analyze Serbo-Croatian syntax within a generative grammar
framework. It was later published in revised form, in 1986, as Relative Clauses in Serbo-Croatian, as part of the Zagreb
English-Serbo-Croatian Contrastive Project, by the Institute of Linguistics of University of Zagreb
.
Besides his present position at Cornell, where he has taught since 1974, Professor Browne has taught at Brown University
and Yale University
. He has also held research positions at MIT and at the University of Zagreb.
and other South Slavic languages
(with particular attention to relative clauses, clitic placement rules, and complement clauses) and in the contributions data from these languages can make to theoretical work in general linguistics. He has also published works on the topic of the Balkan language area, Slavic historical grammar, comparative and contrastive grammar, and pedagogical grammar.
He served as the co-editor of Annual Workshop on Formal Approaches to Slavic Linguistics: the Cornell Meeting, 1995 (Michigan Slavic Publications, 1997), and has authored more than 65 articles and 20 reviews, covering topics not just in Serbo-Croatian and South Slavic linguistics but also in Slavic linguistics more generally (including work on Russian
and on Czech
) and in linguistic theory.
As part of a team of scholars, described by Slavic and Balkan languages professor Christina Kramer
as "each recognized internationally in his language area", he wrote the widely-cited definitive sketch of Serbo-Croatian grammar: "Serbo-Croat" (pp. 306–387 in The Slavonic Languages, B. Comrie and G. Corbett, eds., Routledge Publishers, 1993). Several reviewers commented favourably on Browne's contribution: Roland Sussex
considered it superior to an independent monograph on the same language, while Edna Andrews wrote in her review of the book's 2002 second edition, "Wayles Browne does an outstanding job ... and his contribution continues to be one of the best in the field." Browne has also served as linguistics editor for The Slavic and East European Journal.
In the Introduction of the recently published book A Linguist's Linguist: Studies in South Slavic Linguistics in Honor of E. Wayles Browne that "brings together a leading cohort of specialists in South Slavic linguistics to celebrate Wayles Browne's body of works in this area," the editors Steven Franks
, Vrinda Chidambaram, and Brian Joseph described Wayles Browne's as "a unique and almost irreplaceable intellectual resource for specialists in Slavic linguistics, working on a myriad of topics in a variety of languages and from a range of theoretical perspectives. He has been a subtle yet persistent force in bringing Slavic puzzles to the attention of the larger world of linguists and in defining the larger significance of these puzzles."
In general linguistics, Browne has done research in syntax
, morphology
, and phonology
as well as in relative clauses and other subordinate clauses, interrogatives, clitic rules, word order, reflexive verbs, and accent rules, publishing numerous pieces in such major journals as Balkanistica, Folia Slavica, and Linguistic Inquiry
.
varieties (Bosnian
, Croatian
, Serbian
). He has been the principal English translator and editor for the Bosnian poet Sasha Skenderija
since 1993, and he has also translated the works of Mak Dizdar
, Izet Sarajlić
, and others. Browne has also translated Croatian scholarly works, and translates from or teaches other South Slavic languages
, in addition to Polish
, Czech
, Russian
, Belarusian
, Rusyn language
and Old Church Slavonic
.
, who arrived in the United States as part of a scheme organised by the Fellowship of Reconciliation
. He later criticised the 1999 NATO bombing of Yugoslavia
for its effect on civilians, while acknowledging, "if somebody is going to intervene militarily, Slobodan Milošević
is a very good person to intervene against."
Cornell University
Cornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...
, with research interests in Slavic
Slavic languages
The Slavic languages , a group of closely related languages of the Slavic peoples and a subgroup of Indo-European languages, have speakers in most of Eastern Europe, in much of the Balkans, in parts of Central Europe, and in the northern part of Asia.-Branches:Scholars traditionally divide Slavic...
and general linguistics, notably the study and analysis of Serbo-Croatian
Serbo-Croatian language
Serbo-Croatian or Serbo-Croat, less commonly Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian , is a South Slavic language with multiple standards and the primary language of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro...
, where he is one of the leading Western scholars.
Biography
His Slavic studies began with his undergraduate career at Harvard UniversityHarvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
(A.B., 1963, in Linguistics and Slavic Languages), and continued with graduate work at Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological education and research.Founded in 1861 in...
and the University of Novi Sad
University of Novi Sad
The University of Novi Sad is a university located in Novi Sad, the capital of Serbian province of Vojvodina and the second largest city in Serbia....
(then in SFR Yugoslavia), culminating in a Ph.D. degree from the University of Zagreb
University of Zagreb
The University of Zagreb is the biggest Croatian university and the oldest continuously operating university in the area covering Central Europe south of Vienna and all of Southeastern Europe...
in 1980. He studied with some of the finest linguists and Slavicists of the 20th century, including Roman Jakobson
Roman Jakobson
Roman Osipovich Jakobson was a Russian linguist and literary theorist.As a pioneer of the structural analysis of language, which became the dominant trend of twentieth-century linguistics, Jakobson was among the most influential linguists of the century...
, Horace G. Lunt, Morris Halle
Morris Halle
Morris Halle , is a Latvian-American Jewish linguist and an Institute Professor and professor emeritus of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology...
, and Pavle Ivić
Pavle Ivic
-Biography:Professor Pavle Ivić was a leading South Slavic and general dialectologist and phonologist. Both his field work and his synthesizing studies were extensive and authoritative...
. His dissertation, directed by Rudolf Filipović, was entitled Relativna rečenica u hrvatskom ili srpskom jeziku u poređenju s engleskom situacijom ("Relative Clauses in the Croatian or Serbian Language in Comparison with the English Situation") and is one of the first serious attempts to analyze Serbo-Croatian syntax within a generative grammar
Generative grammar
In theoretical linguistics, generative grammar refers to a particular approach to the study of syntax. A generative grammar of a language attempts to give a set of rules that will correctly predict which combinations of words will form grammatical sentences...
framework. It was later published in revised form, in 1986, as Relative Clauses in Serbo-Croatian, as part of the Zagreb
Zagreb
Zagreb is the capital and the largest city of the Republic of Croatia. It is in the northwest of the country, along the Sava river, at the southern slopes of the Medvednica mountain. Zagreb lies at an elevation of approximately above sea level. According to the last official census, Zagreb's city...
English-Serbo-Croatian Contrastive Project, by the Institute of Linguistics of University of Zagreb
University of Zagreb
The University of Zagreb is the biggest Croatian university and the oldest continuously operating university in the area covering Central Europe south of Vienna and all of Southeastern Europe...
.
Besides his present position at Cornell, where he has taught since 1974, Professor Browne has taught at Brown University
Brown University
Brown University is a private, Ivy League university located in Providence, Rhode Island, United States. Founded in 1764 prior to American independence from the British Empire as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations early in the reign of King George III ,...
and Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
. He has also held research positions at MIT and at the University of Zagreb.
Linguistics
Browne's main interests lie in the syntax of Serbo-CroatianSerbo-Croatian language
Serbo-Croatian or Serbo-Croat, less commonly Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian , is a South Slavic language with multiple standards and the primary language of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro...
and other South Slavic languages
South Slavic languages
The South Slavic languages comprise one of three branches of the Slavic languages. There are approximately 30 million speakers, mainly in the Balkans. These are separated geographically from speakers of the other two Slavic branches by a belt of German, Hungarian and Romanian speakers...
(with particular attention to relative clauses, clitic placement rules, and complement clauses) and in the contributions data from these languages can make to theoretical work in general linguistics. He has also published works on the topic of the Balkan language area, Slavic historical grammar, comparative and contrastive grammar, and pedagogical grammar.
He served as the co-editor of Annual Workshop on Formal Approaches to Slavic Linguistics: the Cornell Meeting, 1995 (Michigan Slavic Publications, 1997), and has authored more than 65 articles and 20 reviews, covering topics not just in Serbo-Croatian and South Slavic linguistics but also in Slavic linguistics more generally (including work on Russian
Russian language
Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
and on Czech
Czech language
Czech is a West Slavic language with about 12 million native speakers; it is the majority language in the Czech Republic and spoken by Czechs worldwide. The language was known as Bohemian in English until the late 19th century...
) and in linguistic theory.
As part of a team of scholars, described by Slavic and Balkan languages professor Christina Kramer
Christina Kramer
Christina Elizabeth Kramer is Professor of Slavic and Balkan languages and linguistics at the University of Toronto and Chair of the university's Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures which is part of the Faculty of Arts and Science....
as "each recognized internationally in his language area", he wrote the widely-cited definitive sketch of Serbo-Croatian grammar: "Serbo-Croat" (pp. 306–387 in The Slavonic Languages, B. Comrie and G. Corbett, eds., Routledge Publishers, 1993). Several reviewers commented favourably on Browne's contribution: Roland Sussex
Roland Sussex
Roland Sussex is an emeritus professor of Applied Language Studies at the School of Languages and Comparative Cultural Studies of The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia...
considered it superior to an independent monograph on the same language, while Edna Andrews wrote in her review of the book's 2002 second edition, "Wayles Browne does an outstanding job ... and his contribution continues to be one of the best in the field." Browne has also served as linguistics editor for The Slavic and East European Journal.
In the Introduction of the recently published book A Linguist's Linguist: Studies in South Slavic Linguistics in Honor of E. Wayles Browne that "brings together a leading cohort of specialists in South Slavic linguistics to celebrate Wayles Browne's body of works in this area," the editors Steven Franks
Steven Franks
Steven Franks is a British born American linguist and researcher in the fields of syntax and slavics. Franks has written numerous books that have significantly contributed to Slavic linguistics...
, Vrinda Chidambaram, and Brian Joseph described Wayles Browne's as "a unique and almost irreplaceable intellectual resource for specialists in Slavic linguistics, working on a myriad of topics in a variety of languages and from a range of theoretical perspectives. He has been a subtle yet persistent force in bringing Slavic puzzles to the attention of the larger world of linguists and in defining the larger significance of these puzzles."
In general linguistics, Browne has done research in syntax
Syntax
In linguistics, syntax is the study of the principles and rules for constructing phrases and sentences in natural languages....
, morphology
Morphology (linguistics)
In linguistics, morphology is the identification, analysis and description, in a language, of the structure of morphemes and other linguistic units, such as words, affixes, parts of speech, intonation/stress, or implied context...
, and phonology
Phonology
Phonology is, broadly speaking, the subdiscipline of linguistics concerned with the sounds of language. That is, it is the systematic use of sound to encode meaning in any spoken human language, or the field of linguistics studying this use...
as well as in relative clauses and other subordinate clauses, interrogatives, clitic rules, word order, reflexive verbs, and accent rules, publishing numerous pieces in such major journals as Balkanistica, Folia Slavica, and Linguistic Inquiry
Linguistic Inquiry
Linguistic Inquiry is a peer-reviewed academic journal in generative linguistics published by the MIT Press since 1970. Ever since its foundation, it has been edited by Samuel Jay Keyser. Many seminal linguistic articles first appeared on its pages. The volumes since 1998 are available online via...
.
Translations
Browne's literary translations are mostly from Serbo-CroatianSerbo-Croatian language
Serbo-Croatian or Serbo-Croat, less commonly Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian , is a South Slavic language with multiple standards and the primary language of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro...
varieties (Bosnian
Bosnian language
Bosnian is a South Slavic language, spoken by Bosniaks. As a standardized form of the Shtokavian dialect, it is one of the three official languages of Bosnia and Herzegovina....
, Croatian
Croatian language
Croatian is the collective name for the standard language and dialects spoken by Croats, principally in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Serbian province of Vojvodina and other neighbouring countries...
, Serbian
Serbian language
Serbian is a form of Serbo-Croatian, a South Slavic language, spoken by Serbs in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia and neighbouring countries....
). He has been the principal English translator and editor for the Bosnian poet Sasha Skenderija
Sasha Skenderija
Sasha Skenderija is a Bosnian-American poet currently residing in New York City and Ithaca, New York. He began publishing poetry, prose and criticism in Bosnian in the late 1980s, graduating from the University of Sarajevo in 1991...
since 1993, and he has also translated the works of Mak Dizdar
Mak Dizdar
Mehmedalija "Mak" Dizdar was one of the greatest Bosnian and Yugoslav poets of the second half of the 20th century.-Biography:...
, Izet Sarajlić
Izet Sarajlic
Izet Sarajlić was a Bosnian historian of philosophy, essayist, translator and poet. Sarajlić was Bosnia and Herzegovina's best-known poet after World War II, and the former Yugoslavia's most widely translated poet....
, and others. Browne has also translated Croatian scholarly works, and translates from or teaches other South Slavic languages
South Slavic languages
The South Slavic languages comprise one of three branches of the Slavic languages. There are approximately 30 million speakers, mainly in the Balkans. These are separated geographically from speakers of the other two Slavic branches by a belt of German, Hungarian and Romanian speakers...
, in addition to Polish
Polish language
Polish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries...
, Czech
Czech language
Czech is a West Slavic language with about 12 million native speakers; it is the majority language in the Czech Republic and spoken by Czechs worldwide. The language was known as Bohemian in English until the late 19th century...
, Russian
Russian language
Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
, Belarusian
Belarusian language
The Belarusian language , sometimes referred to as White Russian or White Ruthenian, is the language of the Belarusian people...
, Rusyn language
Rusyn language
Rusyn , also known in English as Ruthenian, is an East Slavic language variety spoken by the Rusyns of Central Europe. Some linguists treat it as a distinct language and it has its own ISO 639-3 code; others treat it as a dialect of Ukrainian...
and Old Church Slavonic
Old Church Slavonic
Old Church Slavonic or Old Church Slavic was the first literary Slavic language, first developed by the 9th century Byzantine Greek missionaries Saints Cyril and Methodius who were credited with standardizing the language and using it for translating the Bible and other Ancient Greek...
.
Personal life and views
In 1994, Browne and his wife provided accommodation at their home for a student refugee from the Bosnian WarBosnian War
The Bosnian War or the War in Bosnia and Herzegovina was an international armed conflict that took place in Bosnia and Herzegovina between April 1992 and December 1995. The war involved several sides...
, who arrived in the United States as part of a scheme organised by the Fellowship of Reconciliation
Fellowship of Reconciliation
The Fellowship of Reconciliation is the name used by a number of religious nonviolent organizations, particularly in English-speaking countries...
. He later criticised the 1999 NATO bombing of Yugoslavia
1999 NATO bombing of Yugoslavia
The NATO bombing of Yugoslavia was NATO's military operation against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia during the Kosovo War. The strikes lasted from March 24, 1999 to June 10, 1999...
for its effect on civilians, while acknowledging, "if somebody is going to intervene militarily, Slobodan Milošević
Slobodan Milošević
Slobodan Milošević was President of Serbia and Yugoslavia. He served as the President of Socialist Republic of Serbia and Republic of Serbia from 1989 until 1997 in three terms and as President of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia from 1997 to 2000...
is a very good person to intervene against."
Major work in linguistics
- Browne, W. (1975). Numerous articles. In R. Filipovic (Ed.), Contrastive analysis of English and Serbo-Croatian I. Zagreb.
- Browne, W. (1986). Relative Clauses in Serbo-Croatian in Comaparison with English. Zagreb.
- Browne, W. (1990). Turkisms in the Balkans: True and false friends. Languages in Contact. Zagreb.
- Browne, W. (1993). Serbo-Croat. In B. Comrie and G. Corbett (Eds.), The Slavonic Languages. London.
Selected literary translations
- "Why the Dwarf Had to be Shot (selection)," with Sasha Skenderija and Aaron Tate, in Absinthe: New European Writing (Issue 5, March 2006)
- DARK BLUE RIVER by Mak Dizdar (2007), Spirit of Bosnia, Vol. 2, No. 3
- On the One-Way Street, with a Dog, Picture Postcard, Common Places, Wintertime Scene, 2008), Spirit of Bosnia, Vol. 3, No. 2
- Why the Dwarf Had to be Shot: Poems by Sasha Skenderija, with Aaron Tate and Francis Jones, Black Buzzard Press (2008)
External links
- Wayles Browne, Cornell Linguistics Department
- Wayles Browne, The LINGUIST List
- Papers by Wayles Browne, Scientific Commons