Thomas Olander
Born 19 April 1974 in Copenhagen, Denmark
I am a historical linguist dealing with Indo-European languages. My research has a primary focus on Slavic, but I have a general interest in all ancient and some modern Indo-European languages, and in the reconstruction of the Indo-European proto-language. I am also working with the relationship between Slavic and Baltic and with the phylogenetics of the Indo-European language family in general. Another interest of mine is Danish and general phonology and morphology.
In my 2009 book
Balto-Slavic accentual mobility
(based on my PhD thesis)
I compared the so-called mobile accent paradigms of Baltic and Slavic (e.g. Russian nominative singular
golová
, accusative
gólovu
, genitive
golový
etc.), arguing that they have arisen as the result of an accent loss in final syllables with a certain structure. The main conclusion of the book may be expressed with the formula μ[+H] > [-H] / _C₀#.
My 2015 book
Proto-Slavic inflectional morphology: A comparative handbook
(based on my habilitation thesis) contains a reconstruction of the inflectional endings of Proto-Slavic and an analysis of their historical relationship with the corresponding endings of Baltic and the remaining Indo-European languages.
Currently I am the leader of the research project
Connecting the Dots: Reconfiguring the Indo-European family tree
(2019–2022), financed by the Independent Research Fund Denmark. The purpose of the project is to examine the relationship between the Indo-European language branches, in particular the ramification after the separation of Anatolian and Tocharian. The project also examines to what extent the linguistic family tree can be correlated with the archaeological evidence.
I am also a core member of the project
Languages and Myths of Prehistory (LAMP): Unravelling the speech and beliefs of the unwritten past
(2020–2025), financed by the Swedish Riksbankens Jubileumsfond. The LAMP project aims to combine our linguistic knowledge of prehistoric stages of the Indo-European language family with archaeology and mythology.
11/2015
Doctor of Philosophy (Danish
dr.phil.
) in Indo-European Studies at the Department of Nordic Studies and Linguistics, University of Copenhagen, with the habilitation thesis
Proto-Slavic inflectional morphology: A comparative handbook
05/2006
PhD in Slavic and Baltic historical linguistics at the Department of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies, University of Copenhagen, with the dissertation
Accentual mobility: the prehistory of the Balto-Slavic mobile accent paradigms
10/2002
MA (Danish
Magister, mag.art.
) in Indo-European Studies, University of Copenhagen
Subjects
: Greek and Italic, Indo-Iranian, Germanic, Albanian, Balto-Slavic, Armenian, Paper 1 (“Den mobile accent i baltoslavisk” [“The mobile accent in Balto-Slavic”]), Paper 2 (“Om den slaviske neoakut og Dybos og Stangs love” [“On the Slavic neoacute and the laws of Dybo and Stang”])
06/1999
BA in Indo-European Studies and Bulgarian, University of Copenhagen
Subjects
: Introduction to Indo-European Linguistics, Introduction to Linguistics, Introduction to Phonetics, Gothic, Proto-Indo-European Morphology, General and Danish Phonology, Sanskrit, Laryngeal Theory, Historical Linguistics, Indo-European Ablaut, Latin, Greek, Vedic, Language Typology and Language Classification; Bulgarian phonetics, Written Translation Bulgarian-Danish, Bulgarian Grammar; Polish Propaedeutics, Polish Phonetics
6/1994
Graduated from Østre Borgerdydskole (passing the
Studentereksamen
), Copenhagen, with Greek, Latin, and German as advanced-level subjects
09/2019 –
Associate professor of Indo-European Studies, Department of Nordic Studies and Linguistics, University of Copenhagen
02/2019 – 08/2019
External lecturer in Indo-European Studies, Department of Nordic Studies and Linguistics, University of Copenhagen
01/2019
Academic officer, Department of Nordic Studies and Linguistics, University of Copenhagen
09/2015 – 12/2018
Associate professor of Indo-European Studies, Department of Nordic Studies and Linguistics, University of Copenhagen
02/2014 – 08/2015
External lecturer in Indo-European Studies, Department of Nordic Studies and Linguistics, University of Copenhagen
10/2012 – 12/2013
Associate professor of Indo-European Studies at
Roots of Europe
, Department of Nordic Studies and Linguistics, University of Copenhagen ·
project homepage
10/2008 – 10/2012
Postdoc at
Roots of Europe
, Department of Nordic Studies and Linguistics, University of Copenhagen (parental leaves: 7–20 November 2008 and 4 July to 25 September 2009; 6–19 April 2010 and 1 January to 22 March 2011)
10/2006 – 09/2008
Danish lecturer at Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski” · various courses on Danish language, see
teaching section
09/2002 – 01/2003
Teaching assistant at the Department of General and Applied Linguistics, University of Copenhagen
11/2016
Guest researcher at Gothenburg University, Sweden
10/2006 – 09/2008
Danish lecturer at Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski” (passed test in “Bulgarian as a Foreign Language” at level C1)
04/2005 – 06/2005
Research at Humboldt University, Berlin
09/2000 – 07/2001
Studies in Russian, History of the Polish Language, and History of the Czech Language at Saint Petersburg State University, Russia (passed test in “Russian as a Foreign Language” at level 3 (out of 4) in the testing system of the Russian Ministery of Education)
08/1998
Summer course in Slovak for Foreigners (“Studia Academica Slovaca”), elementary level, at the University of Bratislava, Slovakia
08/1997
Summer course in Polish for Foreigners (“Polonicum”), intermediate level, at the University of Warsaw, Poland
02/1997 – 07/1997
Studies in Modern Bulgarian and Old Bulgarian at Sofia University “Kliment Ohridski”, Bulgaria
09/1991 – 06/1992
Italian 3rd grade at the “Liceo Scientifico Statale ‘Piero Gobetti’”, Florence, Italy
08/1990 – 06/1991
German 10th grade at the “Hildegard-Wegscheider Oberschule” in Wilmersdorf, West Berlin, West Germany
Organisation of scientific meetings
Sept. 2017
Co-organiser, The Split: Reconstructing Early Indo-European Language and Culture (international conference), University of Copenhagen
Feb. 2017
Organiser, The Indo-European Family Tree (international workshop), University of Copenhagen
July–Aug. 2016
Co-organiser, Roots of Europe Summer School 2016, University of Copenhagen (main organiser: Benedicte Nielsen Whitehead)
July–Aug. 2015
Co-organiser, Roots of Europe Summer School 2015, University of Copenhagen (main organiser: Benedicte Nielsen Whitehead)
2008 – 2015
Co-organiser of lectures and block seminars at the Roots of Europe project, University of Copenhagen
Oct. 2013
Co-organiser, Indo-European Rules (international seminar), University of Copenhagen
Dec. 2012
Co-organiser, Tracing the Indo-Europeans (international conference), University of Copenhagen
Oct. 2012
Co-organiser, Indo-European Words That Matter (international seminar), University of Copenhagen
Nov. 2011
Co-organiser, Indo-European Matters Even More (international seminar), University of Copenhagen
April 2011
Co-organiser, Anatolian Spring (international seminar), University of Copenhagen
Oct. 2010
Co-organiser, Indo-European Still Matters (international seminar), University of Copenhagen
Oct. 2009
Co-organiser, Indo-European Matters (international seminar), University of Copenhagen
2016–present
Editor,
Scando-Slavica
2016–present
Editor,
Mål & Mæle
2006–2019
Assistant editor,
Tocharian and Indo-European Studies
2014–present
Series editor,
Copenhagen Studies in Indo-European
2015–present
Chairman, Danish Association of Slavists
2009–2015
Vice chairman, Danish Association of Slavists
2012–present
Member, Indogermanische Gesellschaft
2008/2009 & 2009/2010
Winner of Danish championship in outdoor field hockey with Copenhagen Hockey Club
2006/2007 & 2007/2008
Winner of Bulgarian championship in outdoor field hockey with Nacionalna Sportna Akademija