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Eric Pratt Hamp is an American linguist widely respected as a leading authority on Indo-European linguistics, with particular interests in Celtic languages and Albanian. Unlike many Indo-Europeanists, who work entirely on the basis of written materials, he has conducted extensive fieldwork on lesser-known Indo-European languages and dialects, such as Albanian, Arbëresh and Arvanitika; Breton; Welsh; Irish; and Scots Gaelic.
His wide-ranging interests have also included American Indian languages. He served for many years as editor of the International Journal of American Linguistics and did field work on Quileute and Ojibwa. He also studied linguistic aspects of braille.
Hamp's scholarship is characterized by the densely argued, narrowly focused note, essay and review, generally consisting of a few pages. He has written more than 3,500 articles and reviews, and nearly every important aspect of historical linguistics has been dealt with, often multiple times, in Hamp's writings.
He is the Robert Maynard Hutchins Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus at the University of Chicago and in spite of his advanced age, he continues to write, edit, speak and travel at select meetings and conferences, and remains an Associate Editor of the journal Anthropological Linguistics.
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