Paul Ariste


Paul Ariste was an Estonian linguist renowned for his studies of the Finno-Ugric languages, Yiddish and Baltic Romani language.
He was born as Paul Berg, in Torma Parish, Governorate of Livonia, Russian Empire, but in 1927 Estonized his name to Ariste. He graduated from the University of Tartu and subsequently worked with it. Ariste wrote his M.A. thesis on Swedish - viz. Estonian Swedish dialect - loanwords in Estonian, his doctoral thesis treated the Hiiumaa dialect of Estonian language. From 1945 to 1946, Ariste was imprisoned by the Soviet authorities
Since 1927 Paul Ariste eagerly participated in activities of Estonian Folklore Archives, where he established collections of Jewish, Swedish and Romani folklore, and contributed a lot to collections of Finno-Baltic minorities and Old-Believers of Peipsi region.
He was the head of the Finno-Ugrian Department at the University of Tartu and one of the two most instrumental personalities in reviving Soviet Finno-Ugrian studies. Ariste founded the journal Sovetskoye finnougrovedeniye.
He was also a notable Esperantist, and a member of the Academy of Esperanto between 1967-76. He was also listed in a year 2000 issue of the Esperanto magazine La Ondo among the 100 most eminent Esperantists.
He died in Tartu, aged 84.

Yiddish studies