Holger Pedersen (linguist) - Education and Academic Career

Education and Academic Career

(Principal source: Koerner 1983)

Pedersen studied at the University of Copenhagen with Karl Verner, Vilhelm Thomsen, and Hermann Möller. He subsequently studied at the University of Leipzig with Karl Brugmann, Eduard Sievers, Ernst Windisch, and August Leskien.

In the fall of 1893, Pedersen enrolled at the University of Berlin, where he studied with Johannes Schmidt. The following year he studied Celtic languages and Sanskrit with Heinrich Zimmer at the University of Greifswald.

In 1895 he spent several months in the Aran Islands in Ireland to study the conservative form of Gaelic spoken there.

Pedersen submitted his doctoral dissertation to the University of Copenhagen in 1896. It dealt with aspiration in Irish. It was accepted and published in 1897. The dissertation committee included Vilhelm Thomsen and Otto Jespersen.

Also in 1897, Pedersen took a position as a lecturer on Celtic languages at the University of Copenhagen. In 1900 he became a reader in comparative grammar there. In 1902 he was offered a professorship at the University of Basel, which he declined, but was able at the same time to persuade the University of Copenhagen to establish an extraordinary professorship for him (Koerner 1983:xii). Pedersen also turned down the offer in 1908 of a professorship at the University of Strassburg (ib.). Following the retirement of Vilhelm Thomsen in 1912, Pedersen acceded to Thomsen's chair at the University of Copenhagen. He remained at the University of Copenhagen for the rest of his life.