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LITUANUS
LITHUANIAN QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF ARTS AND SCIENCES
Volume 19, No.1 - Spring 1973
Editors of this issue: Antanas Klimas, Thomas Remeikis Copyright © 1973 LITUANUS Foundation, Inc.
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IN MEMORIAM — ANTHONY SALYS
(1902-1972)
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PROF. ANTANAS (ANTHONY) SALYS |
Anthony Salys was born in the village of Rekete, Lithuania, on July 21, 1902. He studied comparative linguistics and Lithuanian at the University of Lithuania in Kaunas. He did his advanced work in Baltic, Slavic, and comparative linguistics at the University of Leipzig in Germany under Trautmann, and received the doctorate in 1929. His dissertation, Die Þemaitischen Mundarten: Geschichte des Þemaitischen Sprachgebiets, is still a valuable source for researchers. From 1930 to World War II, he taught at the University of Vytautas the Great and Vilnius.
After World War II, Professor Salys came to the United States, and from 1947 taught at the University of Pennsylvania. From 1956, he was Professor of Slavic and Baltic languages.
Professor Salys' outstanding scholarly accomplishment was his co-authorship with Dr. Alfred Senn of the monumental five - volume Wörterbuch der litauischen Schriftsprache (Dictionary of Standard Lithuanian), begun before World War II and completed in 1968. Professor Salys' other publications on Lithuanian and Baltic are and will remain standard references. At his death, he was working on an etymological dictionary of Lithuanian. In 1969, he visited Soviet Lithuania under an ACLS grant to gather material for this project.
Professor Salys was a thorough, demanding teacher. His high standards stimulated able students and called forth the very best in them. The leading American-trained specialists on Baltic languages were his students here at Pennsylvania.
Anthony Salys was totally devoted to his teaching and research, and to his department and university. Although in severe pain during the last weeks of his life, he was dictating letters concerning professional matters to his daughter at the University Hospital until 48 hours before his death on July 31, 1972.
His memory will remain always as an inspiration to his students and colleagues.
Morton Benson,
for the Department of Slavic
Languages, University of Pennsylvania
September 19, 1972 *
* These minutes were adopted by the College Faculty with a standing vote, and it was moved that they be incorporated in the Annals of the College Faculty of the University of Pennsylvania. (Ed.)