Alo Raun

Alo Raun (8 May 1905 – 14 June 2004) was an Estonian linguist whose work focused on Finno-Ugric languages, Turkic languages, and the Estonian language. After teaching at the University of Tartu and the Baltic University in postwar Germany, he spent most of his later academic career at Indiana University Bloomington, where he was professor of linguistics from 1952 to 1975.^[1][2]

Raun was born in Tartu on 8 May 1905.^[1][3] He completed the Hugo Treffner Gymnasium cum laude in 1924 and entered the University of Tartu the same year.^[3] At Tartu he studied linguistics, later concentrating especially on Uralic studies; he received his master's degree in 1931 and undertook further study in Hungary from 1931 to 1933.^[1][4] He earned a doctorate from the University of Tartu in 1942 with a dissertation on comparison in the Finno-Ugric languages, defended during the German occupation of Estonia.^[2][3]

Raun taught at the University of Tartu in 1935–1937 and 1939–1944, and from 1937 to 1939 he served as scientific secretary of the Learned Estonian Society.^[1] During the 1930s he was also active in the wider Finno-Ugric movement; Fenno-Ugria's yearbook Eesti Hõim was edited by him from 1937 to 1939.^[5]

He left Estonia in 1944 and from 1946 to 1949 taught at the Baltic University in Pinneberg, near Hamburg.^[1][3] In 1948–1949 he served as the Estonian rector of the Baltic University, one of the institution's three national rectors.^[6]

After moving to the United States in 1949, Raun came to Indiana University Bloomington in 1951 on a Guggenheim Fellowship and joined the faculty in 1952.^[2] He remained at Indiana until 1975 and later held emeritus status.^[2][7] In 1960–1961 he held a Fulbright research grant at the University of Helsinki.^[8]

Raun published in Finno-Ugric and Turkic linguistics as well as general linguistics.^[1][4] His books included The Mordva (1955), Introduction to Estonian Linguistics (1965, with Andrus Saareste), Basic Course in Uzbek (1969), Essays in Finno-Ugric and Finnic Linguistics (1971; 2nd ed. 2004), and Eesti keele etümoloogiline teatmik (1982; 2nd ed. 2000).^[1]

Introduction to Estonian Linguistics remained an important English-language overview of the field. In a 2007 survey of Estonian, Mati Erelt and his co-authors described it as the best and most recent general survey then available for international readers.^[9] Raun's Eesti keele etümoloogiline teatmik has also been noted as an early concise etymological reference work on Estonian; Sven-Erik Soosaar wrote that it gave, in highly compressed form, the origin of a word together with a few cognates.^[10]

Paul Alvre's obituary for Raun credited him with helping to make Bloomington an acknowledged center for teaching and research in Finno-Ugric languages.^[3]

Raun was elected an honorary member of the Societas Uralo-Altaica in 1976.^[11] In 2001 he received the Order of the White Star, 2nd Class, from the President of Estonia.^[12]

His standing within the field was also reflected in the publication of the festschrift Studies in Finno-Ugric Linguistics: In Honor of Alo Raun in 1977 and the bibliographic volume Alo Raun: Bibliography in 1980.^[13][14] Indiana University later established the Alo Raun Prize for student excellence in Estonian and/or Finnish studies.^[2]

Raun's better-known publications include the following:^[1]

• The Mordva (1955)
• Introduction to Estonian Linguistics (with Andrus Saareste, 1965)
• Basic Course in Uzbek (1969)
• Essays in Finno-Ugric and Finnic Linguistics (1971; 2nd ed. 2004)
• Eesti keele etümoloogiline teatmik (1982; 2nd ed. 2000)