Danish linguist and philologist whose 1818 prize essay on the origin of the Old Norse or Icelandic language identified regular consonant correspondences between Germanic and other Indo-European languages, comparing Germanic chiefly with Greek. Jacob Grimm formalized the same pattern four years later as what became known as Grimm's Law. Rask's 1811 grammar of Icelandic and later grammars of Anglo-Saxon, Frisian and Spanish made him, alongside Franz Bopp, one of the founders of comparative linguistics.
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RoleLinguist and Philologist, Founder of Comparative Grammar 1 Role
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Source Wikipedia: Rasmus Rask
Influenced
Rask's 1818 consonant correspondences preceded and underlay Jacob Grimm's 1822 formal statement of what became known as Grimm's Law.
Source Wikipedia: Rasmus Rask
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1. Wikipedia: Rasmus Rask
Wikimedia FoundationLead and Career sections
a principal founder of the science of comparative linguistics
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was a Danish linguist
Article text
In 1814, while still living in Iceland, he finished his prize essay, "Investigation of the Origin of the Old Norse or Icelandic Language" (1818), in which he argued that Old Norse was related to the Germanic languages, including Gothic, to the Baltic and Slavic languages, and even to Classical Latin and Greek, which he grouped together under the label Thracian. He further hinted that Persian and Indo-Aryan languages might also be related.
- Influenced: Jacob Grimm
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