Scienceחיים רוזן

Haiim B. Rosén

Haiim B. Rosén was an Israeli linguist and professor at the Hebrew University, known for his research on Israeli Hebrew and Indo-European languages.

1922 to 1999Research on Israeli HebrewIndo-European linguisticsScholarly edition of HerodotusFounding Hebrew University linguistics department

Born: 4 March 1922, Vienna
Died: 2 October 1999, Paris
Occupation: lecturer, linguist, university teacher, philologist
Education: Hebrew University of Jerusalem, École pratique des hautes études

Haiim B. Rosén was born in 1922 in Vienna

Rosén was born in Vienna in 1922 as Heinz Rosenrauch. He moved to the Land of Israel in 1938, on the eve of World War II, and changed his name to a Hebrew one in 1949.

He studied classics at the Hebrew University and earned his doctorate in 1948. His main influence was his teacher Yohanan Levy. In 1951 and 1952 he did postdoctoral work in France.

With Jacob Polotsky he founded the linguistics department at the Hebrew University, where he taught general and Indo-European linguistics. His 1955 book on Israeli Hebrew treated the modern language as a stable system worth study, a view that first drew sharp criticism and later became mainstream. In 1987 he published a scholarly edition of Herodotus.

He received the Israel Prize for linguistics in 1978 and the Humboldt Prize in 1992, and joined the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities in 1981. His wife, Hannah Rosén, was also a linguist and professor at the Hebrew University. He died in 1999.