deceased--- SEA linguist: Jorgen Rischel

[Yuphaphann Hoonchamlong]

Forwarded message from: Brian_Migliazza at sil.org 

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16 May 2007 
FYI, our good friend and colleague in southeast Asian studies, Jørgen Rischel, died last week on May 10th (1934-2007). We had seen him many times over the past 20-plus years as he came through Asia attending conferences, researching the Mlabri in Thailand, and helping many of us with our linguistic work. We offer our heartfelt condolences to his family and colleagues in Denmark. 

Brian Migliazza 
Asia Area Linguistics 
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Deceased--
Jørgen Rischel 
1934-2007 

Jørgen Rischel (August 10, 1934 - May 10, 2007), professor of linguistics in Copenhagen, Denmark passed away last week on Friday May 10th, 2007. Jørgen  was a Danish linguist who worked extensively in a variety of linguistic areas -- especially phonetics and phonology, lexicography and documentation of endangered languages. He is best known internationally for his descriptive work on Greenlandic, his grammar of Minor Mlabri of Thailand and his analyses of Danish phonology and morphology. He also contributed a considerable body of work on historical linguistics, the history of linguistics, linguistic fieldwork, phonology and links between linguistics and culture. 

He held a doctorate in linguistics. 
He was a professor of linguistics at the University of Copenhagen and later became professor Emeritus. 
He was a specialist in the Greenlandic language of which he has published the most comprehensive phonological study (1974) to date. 
He published extensively on topics in Danish, Faroese and Greenlandic -- particularly in phonetics and phonology. 
Recently he focused on Mon-Khmer languages and did extensive fieldwork in Thailand on an endangered and previously undescribed dialect of the Khmuic language Mlabri. 
In 1991 he was knighted into the Order of the Dannebrog by Queen Margrethe II of Denmark. 
He was a member of the Royal Danish Academy of the Sciences. 
And he also served as a co-editor of the linguistic journal International Journal of American Linguistics.

In retirement, he became professor emeritus in general linguistics and phonetics, University of Copenhagen, and was then also a guest researcher at Mahidol University. Since 1982 he had been doing fieldwork in Thailand and Laos. Jørgen's major southeast Asia publication was on Minor Mlabri printed in 1995 by Museum Tusculanum Press -- entitled "Minor Mlabri. A Hunter-Gatherer Language of Northern Indochina". This monograph describes the language spoken by a small tribe of hunter-gatherers in Northern Indochina - the Mlabri. It contains a description of the linguistic scenario, a presentation of Mlabri phonology, morphology and syntax, and a lexicon with illustrative examples. 

Selected publications -- 
1974. Topics in West Greenlandic Phonology. Copenhagen: Akademisk Forlag. 
1972. Consonant Reduction in Faroese Noncompound Wordforms. In Firchow, E. S., Grimstad, K. Hasselmo, N. & W. A. O’Neil (eds.), Studies for Einar Haugen presented by Friends and Colleagues. 482-497. 
1995. Minor Mlabri. A Hunter-Gatherer Language of Northern Indochina. Museum Tusculanum Press. ISBN 87-7289-294-3. 
2000. The Dialect of Bernatzik’s (1938) “Yumbri” refound?. Mon-Khmer Studies Journal 30:115-122. 
2004. Pan-dialectal databases: Mlabri, an oral Mon-Khmer language. Lexicography Conference, Payap University, Chiangmai.