F.B.J. Kuiper, 1907-2003

I learnt from a post by Prof. Witzel on another list about the sad
news of passing away of F.B.J. Kuiper on Nov. 14, 2003.

F.B.J. Kuiper, 1907-2003

Friends,

The passing away of FBJ Kuiper is a great loss indeed to the world
of language studies. I have not had the privilege of being his
student, but it is impossible not to consider him one's own virtual
Guru as one reads through his works which throw a floodlight of new
perspectives on an issue. His work on Nahali following upon S.
Bhattacharya's lexical work is a masterpiece, his works on Aryans in
the Rigveda and Munda are of unsurpassed brilliance which will lead
to new contributions to the dialectical continuum in proto-bharatiya
languages. I have been deeply influenced by his approaches to
analysing the Sindhu-Sarasvati language problem and in unraveling
some intimations of mleccha, the code of Sarasvati hieroglyphs in my
7-volume work on Sarasvati (2003). F.B.J.Kuiper, `Aryans in the
Rigveda', Leiden, 1991 Kuiper, F.B.J. 1948. Proto-Munda words in
Sanskrit. Amsterdam: Noord-Hollandsche Maatchappij; Kuiper, F.B.J.
1948. "Munda and Indonesian." Orientalia Neerlandica, Leiden: A.W.
Sijthoff's Uitgerverschmaatschappij.

May his splendid contributions continue to inspire us into pursuing
researches on the rich language heritage of Bharat and an expansive
Indian Ocean region with over 60,000 miles of coastline.

Dr. S. Kalyanaraman