The Passing Of Prof. Mark R.v. Southern

[docoflove1974]

The world of Indo-European linguistics lost a friend last week.

 

Prof. Mark R.V. Southern was a Visiting Professor at Middlebury College (Vermont), but was at the University of Texas for years. The man was a genius in Indo-European linguistics...a regular encyclopedia of knowledge about several different IE families, including Romance. He taught courses on PIE and Hittite.

 

But he's most remembered for his absolute passion--in research, in teaching, in being a human being. When the Germanic Studies dept. at Texas decided not to give him tenure, based solely on the fact that he did not purely do 'Germanic linguistics', there were letters written, petitions signed, and demands made by professors and grad students in 10 different departments on our campus alone. But he found a temporary home in Middlebury, where his talents would be appreciated.

 

He would teach anything to anyone...would go out of his way to make sure you understood the given topic, and would bend over backwards to give you references on topics far and wide. If you needed a resource for a topic, he'd give you 20-30 in a matter of an afternoon, all of which he would have read, critiqued, and memorized. He introduced me to a couple of theories of language change which were on the periphery, but which will be included in my dissertation...if not for him, I might not have known about them, let alone had anyone to discuss them with.

 

He had a wickedly dry sense of humor (good Englishman that he was), and absolutely got great joy from teaching.

 

But he got greater joy from his family. Just bring up the topic of his girls, and he lit up brighter than the North Star.

 

He was one of my mentors.

 

He was a colleague.

 

He was my friend.

 

Thanks, Mark...see ya on the other side, buddy.

_____________________________________________________________________________________

MARK RODERICK VENDRELL SOUTHERN

 

MIDDLEBURY, Vt. - Mark Southern, 45, Visiting Assistant Professor of

German and Linguistics at Middlebury College, died Wednesday, March 15,

2006, at his home in Middlebury.

 

Mark was known to friends and professional colleagues as a brilliant

linguist and scholar whose far-ranging mastery of languages included

Greek, Latin, Sanskrit, Hittite, Old Persian, Classical Armenian,

Yiddish, Hebrew, Norse, Old English, Frisian, Old Saxon, Old Irish,

Breton, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and Russian and

whose research and teaching interests spanned the fields of Linguistics,

Classics, Literature, Near Eastern Studies, and Religion. Mark

specialized in historical and Indo-European linguistics, language

contact and sociolinguistics, Greek and Latin linguistics, the

pre-Islamic Middle East, and Sanskrit.

 

Mark seemed to have a hidden underground connection to a deep and

natural wellspring of joy and intelligence, and his natural state was to

be brimming over with ebullience and high spirits. This in combination

with tremendous natural generosity, vast and living knowledge, and a

keen sense of humor and sense of the ridiculous made him an almost

physical source of light for those around him.

 

Born in Cambridge, England in 1961, to Eric and Elda (Moore) Southern,

Mark attended Eton as a prestigious King's Scholar and graduated from

Balliol College, Oxford, with an Honors B.A. in Classics in 1983. From

1986 to 1989, he attended Harvard University as an Exchange Scholar in

Linguistics. He earned his doctorate in Germanic Languages and

Literatures from Princeton in 1997, with a dissertation on "The

Wandering S: The Problem of the s-Mobile in Germanic and Indo-European."

 

Before coming to Middlebury College in 2003, Mark served as an Assistant

Professor in the Department of Germanic Studies at the University of

Texas, Austin; as Assistant Professor of German and Linguistics in the

Department of Modern Languages at Carthage College in Kenosha,

Wisconsin; as a Teaching Assistant in the Department of Germanic

Languages and Literatures at Princeton University; and as a Teaching

Fellow in Arts and Literature at Harvard University. While at the

University of Texas, he held concurrent appointments at UT's Center for

Middle Eastern Studies and Center for Asian Studies and held concurrent

memberships in the Foreign Language Education Program, the Department of

Asian Studies, and the Department of Middle Eastern Languages and

Cultures.

 

His passionate teaching style and intellectual dynamism brought him a

devoted following among his students. At UT, he won the Jean Holloway

Award for Excellence in Teaching, was selected as Fellow to the

Wakonse-South Conference on College Teaching, nominated to the Friar

Centennial Teaching Fellowship, awarded the President's Associates

Teaching Excellence Award, and selected for inclusion in Who's Who Among

America's Teachers, 6th ed.

 

Mark's Contagious Couplings: Yiddish shm- and the Contact Driven

Transmission of Expressives appeared in 2005 (Greenwood Heinemann). His

Sub-grammatical Survival: Indo-European Movable s and Its Regeneration

in Germanic (Institute for the Study of Man) appeared in 1999. His

History of the German Language is under consideration at Cambridge

University Press. Mark published widely in scholarly journals and gave

papers at numerous conferences.

 

Mark is survived by his wife, Lauri London, and daughters Maya and Zara,

ages 9 and 7; his father, Eric Southern of Cambridge, England; his

sister, Jane Southern, of Bedford, England; and nieces Eleanor, Matilda,

and Julia.

 

Our world will be a little darker without him.

[Nephele]

It's nearly the first anniversary of your friend and mentor's passing, DoL, and I just want to comment on this beautiful and moving tribute to him that you posted here.

 

I have a dear friend who happens to be a distinguished and inspiring teacher of Latin and, should my friend precede me in death, I can only hope that I might be able to do my friend the honor that you have done for yours.

 

-- Nephele

[docoflove1974]

Yeah, he was just on my mind...I was revising the section of my dissertation which deals with the theory he introduced me to...and now that I'm nearing the end of my doctoral road, I wish he was in the room for my defense in May. Oh well...he'll be there in spirit.

[Gaius Paulinus Maximus]

Mark was known to friends and professional colleagues as a brilliant

linguist and scholar whose far-ranging mastery of languages included

Greek, Latin, Sanskrit, Hittite, Old Persian, Classical Armenian,

Yiddish, Hebrew, Norse, Old English, Frisian, Old Saxon, Old Irish,

Breton, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and Russian and

whose research and teaching interests spanned the fields of Linguistics,

Classics, Literature, Near Eastern Studies, and Religion. Mark

specialized in historical and Indo-European linguistics, language

contact and sociolinguistics, Greek and Latin linguistics, the

pre-Islamic Middle East, and Sanskrit.

 

Wow, now that's impressive, he sounded like a great guy.

[Divi Filius]

Amazing.

 

A mind like that will truly be missed..

[docoflove1974]

And he is. Thanks for the comments, guys!

 

A mutual friend said he honors Mark's memory by just following his own passion, whatever that may be. Seems like a good rule to live by, anyway.

[caseysutcliffe]

Today is my father's birthday, and also my Doktorvater's birthday--that was Mark Southern. The coincidence of birthdays meant that I never forgot Mark's--I used to always send him birthday greetings. This is the first one that he's not around for. Thanks for your postings about Mark. It provides a forum for the scattered community of those who were close to him in his wide-ranging life to share their grief and honor his memory in whatever ways they can. He was at my doctoral defense in November, 2000, and it was a joy to work with him. He made me a believer in the ideas and ambitions that I had, and I think that honoring his memory, like your friend who follows his passion, means keeping that belief alive. Happy birthday, Mark. I miss you.

 

Casey Sutcliffe