Conferences

Sunday, 22^nd April, at 11:00, at the National Theatre's Black Box, Acad. Marius Sala will hold a conference on the theme How I became a linguist. Ticket prices: 23 and 10 lei.

About Acad. Marius Sala

He was born in Vaşcău, Bihor County. He graduated from the ‘Samuil Vulcan' High School from Beiuş (1943 - 1951) and the Faculty of Philology, Bucharest University (1951 - 1955).

From 1953 he works at the Romanian Academy's Institute of Linguistics from Bucharest, at present the ‘Iorgu Iordan - Al. Rosetti' Institute of Linguistics: researcher (1955 - 1962), principal researcher (1962 - 1967), principal researcher I (from 1981), chief of the Romance languages department (1967 - 1995), scientific secretary (1968 - 1990), deputy president (1990 - 1994), president (from 1994).

He received his PhD. in Philology in 1967 with the thesis The Phonetics and Phonology of Judeo-Spanish in Bucharest, coordinator acad. Iorgu Iordan.   

Titular member of the Romanian Academy (2001), corresponding member of the Real Academia Española (1978), of the Instituto Mexicano de Cultura (1981), of the Romanian Academy (1993), of the Academia Nacional de Letras from Uruguay (1994), and of the Academia Peruana de la Lengua (2004). 

He is Doctor Honoris Causa of the universities from Arad (‘Aurel Vlaicu'), Craiova, Oradea and Timişoara.

University professor at the Christian University ‘Dimitrie Cantemir' from Bucharest, he holds classes and seminars at the University from Bucharest (1963-65, 1967-68, 1970, 1972-73, 1995-96), master degree classes at the West University and at the ‘Tibiscus' Institute from Timişoara (1992 - 2004).

He was a guest professor at the universities from Heidelberg (1971), Mexico (1981), Cologne (1984), Frankfurt (1992-93), Oviedo (1994), Málaga (1968, 1970, 1978, 1979), Madrid (1978, 1981), Udine (2002).  

Editor-in-chief of the Romanian Language Dictionary (= the Academy's dictionary), The Romanian Language Etymology Dictionary, The History of the Romanian Language, the Small Dictionary of the Academy 4 vol. Scientific consultant, the initiator and the coordinator of the series Etymologica and The Romanian Language at the Encyclopedic Universe Publishing House from Bucharest.    

President of the Romanian Academy's Committee for Cultivating the Romanian Language.

President of the Latin Union's Bureau from Romania (from 1990).

Member in the Project of the Mediterranean Linguistic Atlas (1960), the International Council of Onomastic Sciences (1969), Junta Directiva of the International Hispanic Association (1974 - 1980), The Romance Linguistics Association's Bureau (1974-1980, 1989-2001), Permanent International Committee of Linguists (1987 - 1992), the ALFAL Committee (1985), member of honor in The Romance Linguistics Association's Bureau (2004).

Member in the editorial boards of the magazines Linguistic Studies and Researches (secretary of the editorial office (1957 - 1971), adjunct editor-in-chief (from 1971), at present editor-in-chief), Revue roumaine de linguistique (1957-1971 secretary of the editorial office, from 2005 editor-in-chief), The Romanian Language (from 1971, at present editor-in-chief), Bulletin de la Société roumaine de linguistique romane (1971, editor-in-chief).

Member in the editorial board of the international magazines Revue de linguistique romane (1974-1980, 1989-2001), Iberoromanica (Tübingen, 1980), Anuario de lingüística hispánica (Valladolid, 1985), Beiträge zur romanischen Philologie (Berlin, 1988), Lexis (Peru, 2002), of the series Patronymica Románica (Trier).

Secretary of the executive committee of the 12^th International Congress of Linguists (Bucharest, 1967) and of the 12^th  International Congress of Linguists and Romance Philology (Bucharest, 1968).

PhD. coordinator from 1969 (including foreign post-graduate students).

He held conferences about linguistics at the universities from Aachen, Berlin, Bochum, Bonn, Erlangen, Freiburg, Giessen, Halle, Heidelberg, Jena, Kiel, Köln, Konstanz, Leipzig, Mainz, Marburg, Munich, Münster, Regensburg, Siegen, Stuttgart, Tübingen (Germany); Alcalá de Henares, Barcelona, Cáceres, Granada, Léon, Madrid, Málaga, Oviedo, Salamanca, Santiago de Compostela, Seville, Valencia, Valladolid, Zaragoza (Spain); Strasbourg, Nancy (France); Zürich (Switzerland); Anvers, Gand, Louvain (Belgium); Lund, Uppsala (Sweden); Helsinki, Turku (Finland); Vienna (Austria); Edinburgh, Manchester, St. Andrews (England); Ann Arbor, Austin, Bloomington, Boston, Chicago, Houston, Ithaca, Madison, New Orleans, New York, Philadelphia, Providence, Urbana (USA); Ottawa, Québec, Toronto (Canada); Mexico; Caracas, Maracaibo, Mérida (Venezuela); Bogotá (Columbia); Quito (Ecuador), Arequipa, Cuzco, Lima, Trujillo (Peru); Montevideo (Uruguay); Havana (Cuba); Jerusalem (Israel); Luxemburg; Braga, Coimbra, Lisboan, Porto (Portugal), Athens, Thessaloniki (Greece), Vršec (Serbia-Montenegro), Roma, Lecce, Cagliari, Napoli, Pisa, L'Aquila, Padua, Venice, Masserata, Florence, Milano.  

The Romanian Academy's Prize (1971, 1981, 1989), The Prize of the Mexican Academy's Centennial (1975).

Organizer of the Romanian Academy's bimonthly conferences The Romanian Language and its Relations with the History and Culture of the Romanians, from 1995 two cycles per year.

Communications at several international linguistic congresses: Amsterdam, Montevideo, Nijmegen, Mexico, Bucharest, La Valetta, Santiago de Compostella, Strasbourg, Zürich, Trier, Neuchâtel, Rio de Janeiro, Palermo, Anvers, Jerusalem, Namur, Nancy, Athens, Thessaloniki, Salamanca.  

Plenum reporter at: I International Congress of American Spanish, San Juan, Puerto Rico (1983); the AEPE Congress - Cambridge (1984); the International Congress of Hispanic Studies, Birmingham (1995).

Romanian's coordinator for the PATROM Project.

President of the Romanian Pavilion at the EXPO '92 from Seville; general commissar of the Romanian Pavilion at EXPO '98 Lisbon.

Books: Contributions to the historic phonetics of the Romanian language, Bucharest, 1970; Estudios sobre el judeo-español de Bucarest, Mexico, 1970; Phonétique et phonologie du judéo-espagnol de Bucarest, Haga, 1971; Contributions à la phonétique historique du roumain, Paris 1976; Le judéo-espagnol, Haga, 1976; El léxico indígena del español de América. Apreciaciones sobre su vitalidad* , Mexico 1977; A small compendium of the world's languages*, Bucharest 1981; El Español de América. I. Léxico*, Bogotá, 1982; Les langues du monde. Petite encyclopédie*, Paris, 1984; Etymology and the Romanian language*, Bucharest 1987; Representative Vocabulary of the Romance Languages*, Bucharest, 1988; El problema de las lenguas en contacto, Mexico, 1988; The encyclopedia of Romance languages, Bucharest, 1989; L'unité des langues romanes, Bucharest, 1996; Languages in contact, Bucharest, 1997; Lenguas en contacto, Madrid, 1998 ; From Latin to Romanian, Bucharest, 1998 ; Introduction in the etymology of the Romanian language, Bucharest, 1999; Du latin au roumain, Bucharest-Paris, 1999; May we introduce the Romanian Language to you ?*, Bucharest 2000; Ratengo kara rumaniago he-rumania goshi, Osaka, 2001; Europe's languages*, Bucharest, 2001; Să facem cunoştinţă cu limba română*, Cluj, 2001; Connaissez-vous le roumain?*, Bucharest, 2001; The encyclopedia of the Romanian language*, Bucharest, 2001; Del latín al rumano, Paris- Bucharest, 2002; Dal latino al romeno, Torino, 2004, From Latin to Romanian, Mississippi, 2005.

He published over 400 articles on linguistics in the country and abroad. He collaborated at the Encyclopaedia Britannica and Micropaedia (Britannica) - 27 articles.   

Translated by: Izabella Feher

MTTLC, Bucharest University.