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{{Short description|Danish linguist (1860–1943)}}
{{For|the Norwegian comedian|Otto Jespersen (comedian)}}
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'''Jens Otto Harry Jespersen''' ({{IPA|da|ˈʌtsʰo ˈjespɐsn̩|lang}}; 16 July 1860 – 30 April 1943) was a Danish [[linguist]] who worked in foreign-language pedagogy, historical phonetics, and other areas, but is best known for his description of the [[grammar]] of the [[English language]]. [[Steven Mithen]] describes him as "one of the greatest language scholars of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries."<ref>{{cite book |last=Mithen |first=Steven |authorlink=Steven Mithen |year=2005 |title=The Singing Neanderthals: The Origins of Music, Language, Mind, and Body |publisher=Orion |___location=London |isbn=978-1-7802-2258-5 |page=15}}</ref>
==Early life==
Otto Jespersen was born in [[Randers]] in [[Jutland]], to Jens Bloch Jespersen (1813–70) and Sophie Caroline Bentzien (1833–74).<ref name="leksikon">{{Cite web| last1=Sørensen | first1=Knud | last2=Haislund | first2=Niels | date=1 August 2014 | title=Otto Jespersen | website=Dansk Biografisk Leksikon | access-date=12 May 2025 | url=https://biografiskleksikon.lex.dk/Otto_Jespersen | language=da}}</ref> He was one of nine children.{{Sfnp|Kabell|2000|p=35}} After his father died the family moved to [[Hillerød]],{{Sfnp|Nielsen|1989b|p=13}} where his Jutland accent was ridiculed.{{Sfnp|Thomas|2011|p=152}}
As a boy, Jespersen was inspired by works of the Danish philologist [[Rasmus Christian Rask|Rasmus Rask]] and the biography of Rask by {{Ill|Niels Matthias Petersen|da||de||fr||sv}};{{sfnp|Hjelmslev|1943|p=119}} and with the help of Rask's grammars taught himself some Icelandic, Italian, and Spanish.{{sfnp|Haislund|1966}}
==Academic life and work==
Jespersen's father, grandfather and great-grandfather had been lawyers, and the same was expected of him.{{Sfnp|Christophersen|1989|p=8}}{{Sfnp|Nielsen|1989b|pp=13–14}} He entered the [[University of Copenhagen]] in 1877 when he was 17, initially studying law but not abandoning his language studies.<ref name="warwick">{{Cite web|first=Richard C. | last=Smith | url=http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/al/research/collect/elt_archive/halloffame/jespersen/life|title = Otto Jespersen's life and career | website=Applied Linguistics | publisher=University of Warwick | year=2007}}</ref> In his first year at university, he attended a lecture course by {{ill|Sophus Heegaard|da||sv|}} on the history of [[Evolutionism]] since the Greeks; this introduced him to the ideas of [[Herbert Spencer]], and later in life he looked back on the course warmly.{{Sfnp|Nielsen|1989b|p=13}} Teaching languages in a lower secondary school{{Sfnp|Kabell|2000|p=30}} and working from 1880 to 1887 as a stenographer for the [[Rigsdagen|Rigsdag]] (Danish parliament) brought an income that in 1881 allowed Jespersen to shift his focus completely to languages.<ref name="leksikon" /> Following the introduction of a new degree, ''Skoleembedseksamen'', he switched to this, choosing [[French language|French]] as the major subject and English as the second minor subject, the first compulsorily being [[Latin]] (a language that he hated from then on{{Sfnp|Nielsen|1989a|p=70}}). He was one of a large number of students who appealed for Latin to be made voluntary, but the appeal was unsuccessful.{{Sfnp|Nielsen|1989b|pp=15–16}} Thanks to his need for an income, obtaining a Master's degree (in French) took Jespersen a decade, but the delays may well have determined his "habits of wide and self-motivated study".{{Sfnp|Thomas|2011|p=152}}
Jespersen studied under the linguists [[Karl Verner]], [[Hermann Möller]] and particularly [[Vilhelm Thomsen]]; and beyond linguistics, under [[Harald Høffding]]. It was thanks to Høffding that Jespersen was further exposed to the writings and ideas of [[Charles Darwin|Darwin]], [[John Stuart Mill|Mill]] and [[Herbert Spencer|Spencer]], and to introspective psychology.{{sfnp|Hjelmslev|1943|pp=119–120}}
In 1887 Jespersen passed ''Skoleembedseksamen''. For French, he chose to be examined on [[Denis Diderot|Diderot]], from a lasting enthusiasm for the ideals of the [[French Revolution]] and the [[Age of Enlightenment|Enlightenment]]. Throughout his life Jespersen remained faithful to the ideals and methods of his early teachers. [[Positivism|Positivist]] and [[Evolutionism|evolutionary]] attitudes, physiological and psychological methods in their classical form, and finally, liberal [[humanism]] were essential to his character.{{sfnp|Hjelmslev|1943|pp=119–120}}
Jespersen's views on language owed less to theoretical considerations than to a practical and thus largely functional conception of language; as a language theorist, Jespersen could remain tethered to reality thanks to the common sense fundamental to his character. Even when making such bold proposals as that of the "progress" of a language, he could avoid extremes.{{sfnp|Hjelmslev|1943|p=121}}
In 1887, soon after passing the ''Skoleembedseksamen'', Jespersen went to [[London]], where he met the phoneticians [[Wilhelm Viëtor]], [[Alexander John Ellis|Alexander Ellis]] and [[Henry Sweet]]. In October he went on to [[Oxford]], where [[James Murray (lexicographer)|James Murray]] told him of progress towards ''[[Oxford English Dictionary|A New English Dictionary]]'', and where he heard lectures by the [[Assyriology|Assyriologist]] [[Archibald Sayce]] and others.{{Sfnp|Haislund|1966}}
Around New Year 1888 he went to Germany, first visiting [[Leipzig]], where he met the phonetician {{Ill|Friedrich Techmer|fr||it}} and the historical linguists [[Karl Brugmann]] and [[August Leskien]]. He also visited the historical linguist [[Eduard Sievers]], the phonetician Franz Beyer and the English teacher Hermann Klinghardt{{Efn|text=On Klinghardt, see {{Cite thesis | last=Siefert | first=Thomas Raymond | year=2013 | title=Translation in Foreign Language Pedagogy: The Rise and Fall of the Grammar Translation Method | degree=PhD | publisher=Harvard University | url=https://dash.harvard.edu/entities/publication/73120378-b8b2-6bd4-e053-0100007fdf3b | access-date=19 June 2025 | pages=155–156}}}}, at [[Halle (Saale)|Halle]], [[Weißenfels]] and [[Dzierżoniów|Reichenbach]] respectively. He then stayed with [[Paul Passy]] at [[Neuilly-sur-Seine]] for two months, each day going with him to Paris to see the sights, to hear lectures by the [[Romance studies|Romance]] scholar [[Gaston Paris]], the [[Oriental studies|Orientalist]] [[James Darmesteter]] or the [[Dialectology|dialectologist]] [[Jules Gilliéron]], or to audit Passy's English lessons.{{Sfnp|Haislund|1966}}
He then went to Berlin to study [[Old English|Old]] and [[Middle English]] in Berlin under the philologist [[Julius Zupitza]]. Among his fellow students were the Anglicists {{Ill|Josef Schick|de|Josef Schick (Anglist)}} and [[G. C. Moore Smith|G. C. Moore Smith]], both of whom would long remain friends.{{Sfnp|Haislund|1966}}
Following a tip from his mentor Vilhelm Thomsen that after a few years there would be a vacancy for a specialist in English, he returned to Copenhagen in August 1888 and began work on his doctoral dissertation on the English [[Grammatical case|case]] system, a dissertation that he successfully defended in 1891. His doctorate entitled Jespersen to teach in the university without pay as a ''Privatdocent''; he took this opportunity to teach classes on [[Geoffrey Chaucer|Chaucer]] and [[Old English]], thereby adding to his qualifications for the expected vacancy; he also wrote a book on Chaucer.{{Sfnp|Nielsen|1989b|pp=16–17}}
On the resignation of [[George Stephens (philologist)|George Stephens]] as ''Docent'', the newly vacant position was upgraded to that of Professorship of English language and literature. Jespersen was one of four applicants; the others were {{Ill|Adolf Hansen (literary historian)|lt=Adolf Hansen|da|Adolf Hansen (litteraturhistoriker)}} and [[Jón Stefánsson (academic)|Jón Stefánsson]] (both regarded as rather lacklustre), and [[William Craigie]] (then very young).{{Sfnp|Nielsen|1989b|pp=17–18}} This was "a no-holds-barred contest", during which Jón Stefánsson even published a book{{Efn|text={{Cite book | author=Jón Stefánsson | title=Dr. O. Jespersen på Krigsstien | trans-title=Dr. O. Jespersen on the warpath | ___location=Copenhagen | publisher=Gad | year=1893 | oclc=463247253 | language=da}}}} charging Jespersen with plagiarizing [[Georg von der Gabelentz]] (a charge that Gabelentz himself denied).{{Sfnp|McElvenny|2017|loc=p. 424 n. 36}} Up to date in English philology, familiar with English literature, and "[speaking] English perfectly", Jespersen was chosen.{{Sfnp|Nielsen|1989b|pp=17–18}}
Jespersen was a professor of English at the University of Copenhagen from 1893 to his retirement in 1925. This was not such a comfortable position: in 1911 he published an article in the newspaper ''[[Politiken]]''{{Efn|text={{Cite news | first=Otto | last=Jespersen | title=Videnskabens kår | trans-title=The state of science | newspaper=Politiken | date=13 May 1911 | language=da}}}} describing poor conditions for academic work (serious underfunding, and the lack of a compulsory retirement age for professors), and also how he had got his wife to promise to shoot him if he failed to retire at 65.{{Sfnp|Nielsen|1989b|pp=19–20}} He remained something of a radical, in a magazine article published in 1914{{Efn|text={{Cite magazine | first=Otto | last=Jespersen | title=Universitetsønsker | trans-title=University aspirations | magazine=[[Tilskueren]] | year=1914 | pages=124–133 | language=da}}}} he made further recommendations: that Denmark should have more than one university ([[Aarhus University|its second]] would only arrive in 1928), that a Faculty of [[Divinity (academic discipline)|Divinity]] did not belong in a modern university, that there should be financial incentives for students to proceed to postgraduate work, and more. However, although Jespersen succeeded in having Latin removed as a compulsory minor, it can be inferred{{Efn|text="[I]t seems easy to see Jespersen's hand" in the new status of Chaucer; this was "the Jespersen who created three sacred cows (Chaucer, Spenser and Milton) to join Shakespeare".{{Sfnp|Nielsen|1989b|p=23}}}} that he backed the compulsory inclusion of [[William Chaucer|Chaucer]], [[Edmund Spenser|Spenser]] and [[John Milton|Milton]] in the English course.{{Sfnp|Nielsen|1989b|pp=22–23}}
Jespersen was Dean of the Faculty of Arts from November 1904 to November 1906; and [[Rector_(academia)#Denmark|Rector]] (vice-chancellor, or president) of the university from November 1920 to November 1921. Among his engagements while Rector was an address at the inauguration in March 1921 of the Institute of Theoretical Physics (later renamed [[Niels Bohr Institute]]). Another was a speech{{Efn|text=Reprinted in {{Cite book | chapter= | trans-chapter= | first=Otto | last=Jespersen | title=Tanker og Studier | trans-title=Thoughts and studies | ___location=Copenhagen | publisher=Gyldendalske Boghandel | year=1932 | pages=18–26 | oclc=1508095448 | language=da}}}} welcoming new students in September 1921: "he exhorts [them] to absorb the scholarly and scientific tradition (to the extent of being critical of their professors!), the only genuine hallmark of academics".{{Sfnp|Nielsen|1989b|pp=21–22}}
===Language teaching===
At the end of the 19th century the teaching in Denmark of contemporaneous foreign languages was ossified, and very similar to that of long-dead classical languages. This was despite the belief of {{Ill|Niels Matthias Petersen|lt=N. M. Petersen|da||de||fr||sv}}, expressed decades earlier, that pupils should be encouraged to acquire a second language in the way that they had acquired their first, and indeed despite the writings of [[Jan Amos Comenius]] in the 17th century.{{Sfnp|Sørensen|1989|p=34}}
In 1886, Jespersen, {{Ill|August Western|no}} and [[Johan August Lundell]] cofounded a Scandinavian group for a revitalization of language teaching, naming the group "Quousque Tandem" after [[Wilhelm Viëtor]]'s pseudonym as author of the 1882 pamphlet ''Der Sprachunterricht muss umkehren!''.{{Efn|text=''Der Sprachunterricht muss umkehren! Ein Beitrag zur Überbürdungsfrage'' ('Language teaching must start afresh! A contribution to the question of stress and overwork in school'). The second edition (1886) – whose title page incidentally identifies "Quousque Tandem" as "Wilhelm Vietor" (without [[Diaeresis (diacritic)|diaeresis]]) – is [https://archive.org/details/dersprachunterr00vigoog/page/n5/mode/2up here] at the Internet Archive.}}{{sfnp|Hjelmslev|1943|pp=121–122}} The group opposed the use of [[Grammar–translation method|theoretical grammar and translation exercises]], advocating in its place the teaching of a language in its spoken and living form by the [[Direct method (education)|"direct" method]], informed by phonetics:{{Sfnp|Olsen|1947|p=158}}
<blockquote>The pupils should begin by recognizing words and short sentences by ear, and repeating them, and only then should they learn to read them. A correct pronunciation should be secured with the help of phonetic transcription.</blockquote>
As a campaigner, Jespersen was an extremist: [[Louis Hjelmslev|Hjelmslev]] writes that this was an area where his normal moderation and common sense were counterbalanced by a revolutionary fervour, and that he was a "[[Jacobins|Jacobin]]" among linguists.{{sfnp|Hjelmslev|1943|pp=121–122}}
Jespersen's first book (1884) was a Danish translation, ''Praktisk Tilegnelse af Fremmede Sprog'' ("Practical acquisition of foreign languages"), of ''Die praktische Spracherlernung'',{{Sfnp|Nielsen|1989b|p=15}} by Felix Franke. Both Franke (also born in 1860) and Jespersen first assumed that the other was much older than himself, but from its start in 1884 their correspondence quickly became a lively discussion (about two hundred letters and postcards survive) of such matters as [[Language education|second language education]] and phonetic scripts; it was cut short in 1886 when Franke succumbed to [[tuberculosis]].{{Sfnp|Kabell|2000}}{{Efn|text=For a short biography of Franke, see {{Cite web | first=Frank-Rutger | last=Hausmann | author-link=Frank-Rutger Hausmann | url=https://gams.uni-graz.at/o:hsa.person.1512 | title=Felix Franke | year=2022 | hdl=11471/518.10.2.1512 | hdl-access=free | editor-first=Bernhard | editor-last=Hurch | website=Hugo Schuchardt Archiv | publisher=University of Graz | lang=de}}}}
In an article published in 1886{{Efn|text={{Cite magazine | first=Otto | last=Jespersen | title=Den nye sprogundervisnings program | trans-title=The new language teaching programme | magazine=Vor ungdom | year=1886 | pages=353–381 | language=da}}}} (and elaborated in his 1901 book ''Sprogundervisning'', translated as ''How to Teach a Foreign Language'', 1904), Jespersen argued for the following principles in language teaching:
# Teaching should be based on spoken rather than written language. To this end, at early stages of language teaching, only a phonetic script should be used, and this script should be clear and precise.
# Material for reading should not consist of unrelated sentences. It should instead constitute coherent texts, preferably designed so that the meanings of unfamiliar words can be inferred from their contexts.
# At early stages the teaching of grammar should be minimized, and the pupils encouraged to infer grammatical patterns for themselves. Grammar may be examined and practised later, but time should not be spent on grammatical curios, and form and function should not be separated.
# Exercises in translating the second language into the first should not be emphasized; exercises in translating the first into the second are of very little utility.{{Sfnp|Sørensen|1989|pp=35–38}}
Jespersen followed his 1884 translation of Franke with ''Kortfattet engelsk Grammatik for Tale- og Skriftsproget'' (1885), ''Fransk Læsebog efter Lydskriftsmetoden'' (1889), and (with {{Ill|Christian Sarauw|da|Christian Sarauw (sprogforsker)|sv|Christian Sarauw (språkforskare)}}) ''Engelsk Begynderbog'' (1895), whose use of phonetic script and nursery rhymes made it most unusual.{{Sfnp|Christophersen|1989|pp=1, 2}} After a heated contest, these books, together with books written by others that similarly used the "[[Direct method (education)|direct method]]", soon took over from the "[[Grammar–translation method|grammar–translation]]" material against which Jespersen and Quousque Tandem had rebelled,{{Sfnp|Sørensen|1989|p=38}} as recognized by the Secondary Schools Act of 1903.{{Sfnp|Olsen|1947|p=159}}
===Phonetics===
[[File:Jespersen's analphabetic representation (1889) of (š).jpg|thumb|Jespersen's "analphabetic" representation (1889) of [[Phone (phonetics)|phones]] elsewhere transcribed as {{bracket|š}}]] Jespersen's interest in phonetics was prompted by [[Henry Sweet]]'s ''Handbook of Phonetics'' (1877), and the lectures of [[Vilhelm Thomsen]].{{Sfnp|Rischel|1989|p=46}} In the 1880s, inspired by [[Alexander Melville Bell|Melville Bell]] and other British phoneticians, Jespersen developed what he first called an "analphabetic" system{{Efn|text=Published in ''The Articulations of Speech Sounds Represented by Means of Analphabetic Symbols'' (Marburg: N.G. Elwert, 1889).}} – which, in order "to avoid ridicule", he later termed an "antalphabetic" system – that used a series of three variables for any [[Phone (phonetics)|phone]]: lowercase Roman for the passive [[Articulatory phonetics#Articulators|articulator]], lowercase Greek for the active articulator, and numerals and more for "the degree and shape of the aperture at a place of constriction". [[Jørgen Rischel]] points out that a given "anatomical feature" can be labelled according to its use: thus rather than simply "uvular", the role of the [[uvula]] can be described as "a passive articulator in [[uvular consonant]]s but an active articulator in [[Nasalization|nasalized]] sounds".{{Sfnp|Rischel|1989|pp=48–49}}
{{Clear}}
[[File:Brynildsen, Engelsk–Dansk–Norsk Ordbog sample.jpg|thumb|{{Ill|John Brynildsen|no}}, ''A Dictionary of the English and Dano-Norwegian Languages'' (vol. 2, 1907); with phonetic script by Jespersen]] In June 1886, he became a member of the Phonetic Teachers' Association, later renamed the [[International Phonetic Association]] (IPA). The idea of creating a phonetic alphabet that could be used by every language was first put forward by Jespersen in a letter he sent to [[Paul Passy]].<ref name="principles">{{Cite journal|title=The Principles of the International Phonetic Association: 1949| journal=Journal of the International Phonetic Association | orig-date=1949 | year=2010 | volume=40 | issue=3 | pages=299–358 | jstor=44526579}} In a supplement on the cover, "A short history of the Association Phonétique Internationale".</ref> Jespersen's transcription system for English, used in {{Ill|John Brynildsen|no}}'s ''A Dictionary of the English and Dano-Norwegian Languages'' (1902–1907),{{Efn|text={{Ill|John Brynildsen|lt=J(ohn) Brynildsen|no}}, ''Engelsk–Dansk–Norsk Ordbog'' = ''A Dictionary of the English and Dano-Norwegian Languages'' (Copenhagen: Gyldendalske–Nordiske, 1902 [vol. 1], 1907 [vol. 2]). The author is named as "John Brynildsen" and "J. Brynildsen" on the English and the Dano-Norwegian title page respectively. Also on the title page: "Danisms supervised by Johannes Magnussen. English pronunciation by Otto Jespersen."}} is very close to that of [[Daniel Jones (phonetician)|Daniel Jones]], which it preceded by some years.{{sfnp|Basbøll|2021|pp=539–540}} Language-specific systems were not unusual at the time ([[Johan August Lundell|Johan A. Lundell]] published a [[Swedish Dialect Alphabet|Swedish dialect alphabet]] in 1879, [[Johan Storm]] devised [[Norvegia transcription|Norvegia]] for [[Norwegian language|Norwegian]] in 1884);{{Sfnp|Rischel|1989|p=45}} and Jespersen devised a system, [[Dania transcription|Dania]], for the phonetic transcription of Danish (1890), which has remained in use for philological, dialectological and lexicographic work in Danish.{{sfnp|Basbøll|2021|p=538}} Jespersen was sceptical of a single phonetic transcription system for universal application, and did not use the IPA's [[International Phonetic Alphabet]].{{sfnp|Hjelmslev|1943|p=125}}
With continued encouragement by Thomsen and a new friendship with [[Paul Passy]], whom he met in Paris, Jespersen was well informed on phonetics. His own major work on this was ''Fonetik'', published in 1897–1899. In it, Jespersen bases his descriptions on his observations of his own production of sounds in a variety of languages, where this production satisfies native speakers. Jespersen was keen to supplant metaphorical and impressionistic terms with those that described the vocal tract, and had considerable success. [[Jørgen Rischel]] calls ''Fonetik'' "a landmark in Danish phonetics because of its terminology", much of which has lasted.{{Sfnp|Rischel|1989|pp=45–46}}
The Danish-specific material within ''Fonetik'' was republished in 1906 within the booklet ''Modersmålets Fonetik'' ("Phonetics of the mother tongue"). This treated not only the sounds of Danish but also its [[Prosody (linguistics)|prosody]], an area in which Jespersen was a pioneer. Repeatedly reprinted, the booklet was long used as a standard textbook.{{Sfnp|Rischel|1989|p=51}}
Two books, ''Phonetische Grundfragen'' ("Phonetics essentials") and ''Lehrbuch der Phonetik'' ("Textbook of phonetics"), presented portions of ''Fonetik'' – stripped of content specific to Danish, but updated – to readers of German in 1904. Jespersen hoped for an English translation, and plans were made first for a translation by [[Hans Jørgen Uldall]] and later for a revision by him; however, no English translation ever appeared.{{Sfnp|Rischel|1989|p=56}}
Rischel writes that: "It is Jespersen's amazing breadth in [his studies of phonetics], paired with his never failing linguistic intuition as a safeguard against errors or downright nonsense, which impresses the reader today."{{Sfnp|Rischel|1989|p=56}} In [[Eli Fischer-Jørgensen]]'s estimate (1979), Jespersen was not a great innovator, but was unusually adept at pronunciation and the description of [[articulatory phonetics]], and also aware of the importance of contrast.{{sfnp|Basbøll|2021|pp=540–541}}
<blockquote>[Jespersen's] theory of the [[syllable]] is an original contribution for which he has not always been given sufficient recognition. Here he maintains that speech sounds have an inherent force called sonority, that sounds can be [[Sonority hierarchy|ranked according to sonority]], and that syllables correlate with peaks of sonority. . . . [H]e emphasized the ability of sounds to distinguish meanings. In this respect Jespersen can be considered a forerunner of [[Phoneme|phonemic]] theory.{{Sfnp|Hovdhaugen|Karlsson|Henriksen|Sigurd|2000|p=224}}</blockquote>
Although not a phonologist himself, Jespersen was the first to propose a conceptual distinction between ''phonetics'' and ''phonology'' that is commonly observed today.{{Efn|text="It would, perhaps, be advisable to restrict the word 'phonetics' to universal or general phonetics and to use the word ''phonology'' of the phenomena peculiar to a particular language (e.g. 'English Phonology'). . . ."<ref>{{Cite book | first=Otto | last=Jespersen | title=The Philosophy of Grammar | ___location=London | publisher=George Allen & Unwin | year=1924 | oclc=308037 | url=https://archive.org/details/dli.bengal.10689.9325/page/n5/mode/2up| via=Internet Archive | page=35}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book | title=Phonology in the Twentieth Century | edition=2nd | first=Stephen R. | last=Anderson | authorlink=Stephen R. Anderson | ___location=Berlin | publisher=Language Science Press | year=2021 | page=3 | isbn=978-3-96110-327-0 | doi=10.5281/zenodo.5509618 | url=https://langsci-press.org/catalog/book/327}} Also {{ISBN|978-3-98554-023-5}}.</ref> However, Jespersen's suggestion continues: "this question of terminology is not very important".}}
Early [[Dialectology|dialectological]] and other fieldwork on East Slesvig and [[Jutlandic|North Jutland]] dialects, [[Faroese language|Faroese]], and [[West Greenlandic]] work was indebted to Jespersen's methodology (although for the last, the researcher [[William Thalbitzer]] "did not live up to Jespersen's standards at all").{{Sfnp|Rischel|1989|pp=52–53}}
''[[Stød]]'', "a particular kind of laryngealisation (creaky voice) characterizing some Danish syllables", had been studied since the mid-18th century (by [[Jens Høysgaard]]), but Jespersen's synchronic study of ''stød'' and of its morphology and also his study of the relationship between the Danish ''stød'' and "the Norwegian and Swedish [[Pitch-accent language#Norwegian and Swedish|tonal ('musical') accents]]" were major advances from the work done by [[Rasmus Rask]], [[Karl Verner]], and [[Henry Sweet]].{{sfnp|Basbøll|2021|pp=545–546, 549–550}}
[[Hans Basbøll]] evaluates Jespersen as "a true pioneer in his analysis of stress" saying that:
<blockquote>he developed a whole system of types of stress and described it in detail: both syntactic principles of stress reduction (unitary stress, or unit accentuation), of compound stress, of value stress (different types of emphatic stress), and so on.{{sfnp|Basbøll|2021|p=548}}</blockquote>
Jespersen's early work focused primarily on language teaching reform and on phonetics, but he would soon branch out:
<blockquote>There was hardly any field of linguistics that Jespersen did not touch upon or develop. He was a [[Historical linguistics|diachronic linguist]], an excellent [[Phonetics|phonetician]], an equally good descriptive [[Syntax|syntactician]], both in theory and practice, and one of the founders of [[sociolinguistics]], although he never referred to it as such.{{Sfnp|Hovdhaugen|Karlsson|Henriksen|Sigurd|2000|p=214}}</blockquote>
===Concentration on English===
While still regarding himself as less of a scholar of English than a scholar of French, Jespersen published ''Kortfattet engelsk Grammatik for Tale- og Skriftsproget'' ("A concise English grammar for the spoken and written language") in 1885. Most unusually for a grammar book, this employed phonetic script. Inge Kabell comments: "All other grammars of English published in Denmark were for many, many years to come modelled on it and all middle-aged Danes have been taught English according to the principles found in it."{{Sfnp|Kabell|2000|p=33}}
[[Henry Sweet]]'s views on phonetics, grammar, and historical linguistics, and his concentration on English, had a great influence on Jespersen, whose choice of the [[Grammatical case|case]] system of English as the subject of his doctoral dissertation was probably also prompted by advice from [[Vilhelm Thomsen]] to prepare for a chair in English at the [[University of Copenhagen]] that would soon be vacant upon the retirement of [[George Stephens (philologist)|George Stephens]]. He successfully defended his dissertation in 1891. Once installed as chair, Jespersen devoted most of his energy to the study and teaching of English, but he retained his broader interests. His prolific output was of great importance for the linguistic study of all aspects of English, for linguistics in general, and to a lesser degree for Nordic philology. Jespersen was the first great linguist to hold the chair of English at the Copenhagen, while his friend {{Ill|Kristoffer Nyrop|ca||de||fr||it||ro||ru|Нюроп, Кристофер|sv}} had much the same role for the university's chair of French.{{sfnp|Hjelmslev|1943|p=122}}
Jespersen continued as chair of English until he retired in 1925, following his resolve not to continue after reaching 65, in order to help make way for younger scholars.{{sfnp|Hjelmslev|1943|p=123}}
===General syntax===
Jespersen advanced the concepts of ''rank'' in two papers: "Sprogets logik" (1913) and "De to hovedarter af grammatiske forbindelser" (1921); and in the latter, ''[[Nexus grammar|nexus]]'' as well.{{sfnp|Hjelmslev|1943|p=125}} In this theory of ranks, Jespersen removes the [[Part of speech|parts of speech]] from the syntax, and differentiates among what he names ''primaries'', ''secondaries'', and ''tertiaries''; for example, in ''well honed phrase'', the primary is ''phrase'', this being defined by a secondary, ''honed'', which itself is defined by a tertiary, ''well''.
The term ''nexus'' is applied to sentences, structures similar to sentences, and sentences in formation (in which two concepts are expressed in one unit; e.g., ''it rained, he ran indoors''). This term is qualified by a further concept called a ''junction'' which represents one idea, expressed by means of two or more elements, whereas a nexus combines two ideas. ''Junction'' and ''nexus'' have had a mixed reception. Hjelmslev finds the distinction between them confused, and Jespersen's theory of them in need of revision: a contrast to his refinement in "Tid og tempus" (1914){{Efn|text={{Cite journal | first=Otto | last=Jespersen | url=http://publ.royalacademy.dk/books/336/1939?lang=en | title=Tid og tempus. Fortsatte logisk-grammatiske studier | journal=Oversigt over Det Kongelige Danske Videnskabernes Selskabs Forhandlinger | year=1914 | number=5–6 | pages=367–420 | via=Royal Danish Academy of Arts and Letters | lang=da}}}} of Sweet's distinction between ''[[Grammatical tense|tense]]'' (Danish ''tempus'') and ''time'' (Danish ''tid'').{{sfnp|Hjelmslev|1943|pp=125–126}}
Jespersen's work helped point the way towards linguists' current understanding of a grammatical ''[[Head (linguistics)|head]]''.<ref>{{Cite book | first=Evelien | last=Keizer | title=The English Noun Phrase: The Nature of Linguistic Categorization | ___location=Cambridge | publisher=Cambridge University Press | year=2007 | isbn=978-0-521-84961-6 | page=53}}</ref>
In Hjelmslev's opinion, ''Negation in English and Other Languages'' (1917) offers a great number of observations and considerable food for thought, but fails to constitute a general examination of negation, for which purpose it would have to be based on more solid materials, from a greater variety of languages{{sfnp|Hjelmslev|1943|p=126}} (the overwhelming majority of the examples examined are from the [[Indo-European languages]] of west Europe). Jespersen coined the terms ''[[paratactic negation]]''{{Sfnp|Van der Wouden|1997|p=196}} and ''resumptive negation'' (negation with an element added to the end of the sentence to strengthen the already negative meaning of the sentence);{{Sfnp|Van der Wouden|1997|p=248}} he also advanced understanding of ''[[negative concord]]''.<ref>{{Cite book | first=Anastasia | last=Giannakidou | author-link=Anastasia Giannakidou | chapter=''N''-words and negative concord | volume=3 | page=328 | editor-first1=Martin | editor-last1=Everaert | editor-first2=Henk | editor-last2=van Riemsdijk | editor-link2=Henk van Riemsdijk | title=The Blackwell Companion to Syntax | ___location=Malden, Massachusetts | publisher=Blackwell | year=2006 |isbn=978-1-4051-1485-1}}</ref>
In ''The Philosophy of Grammar'' (1924) Jespersen challenges the accepted views of common concepts in grammar and proposes corrections to the basic definitions of [[grammatical case|case]], [[pronoun]], [[object (grammar)|object]], [[voice (grammar)|voice]] etc., and further develops his notions of ''Rank'' and ''Nexus''. In the 21st century this book is still used as one of the basic texts in modern [[structural linguistics]].{{Citation needed|date=May 2025}}
With ''The Philosophy of Grammar'' particularly in mind, [[Noam Chomsky]] remarked in 1975: "I think it is fair to say that the work of recent years tends generally to support the basic ideas that Jespersen outlined 50 years ago, and extends and advances the program that he outlined."<ref>{{Cite book | first=Noam | last=Chomsky | author-link=Noam Chomsky | chapter=Questions of form and interpretation | title=Essays on Form and Interpretation | ___location=New York | publisher=North-Holland | year=1977 | isbn=0-7204-8615-7 | orig-date=1975}} Also {{ISBN|0-444-00229-4}}.</ref>
Late in his life Jespersen published ''Analytic Syntax'' (1937), in which he presents his views on syntactic structure using an idiosyncratic shorthand notation.
Jespersen's main interest was not that of seeking patterns and explanations of the [[Langue and parole|''langue'' behind ''parole'']], but rather its opposite, the major concern of the phonetics and semantics of his youth: "the psychophysiological fact of ''parole''".{{efn|text="[La grande réalité] du fait psychophysiologique de la parole"}}{{sfnp|Hjelmslev|1943|p=129}}
===Evolution and progress of languages===
From the time of his doctoral thesis of 1891 (primarily about the disappearance over time of the [[Grammatical case|case]] system of [[Old English]]), Jespersen maintained that language did not merely [[Evolutionary linguistics|evolve]] over time but ''progressed'', a notion originally inspired by [[Herbert Spencer|Spencer]]'s ideas on the progress of language.{{sfnp|Hjelmslev|1943|p=127}} For the publication of the thesis in English translation (1894), Jespersen moved its subtitle to its main title, for ''Progress in Language: With Special Reference to English''. Within it, he wrote "That language ranks highest which goes farthest in the art of accomplishing much with little means, or, in other words, which is able to express the greatest amount of meaning with the simplest mechanism."<ref>{{Harvtxt|Jespersen|1894|p=13}}; {{Harvtxt|Jespersen|1922|p=324}}.</ref> Jespersen considered the efficiency of a language's [[phonology]], [[lexicon]] and grammar, his view of efficiency in grammar being a reaction to contrasting estimates of "[[Synthetic language|synthetic]]" and "[[Analytic language|analytic]]" inflectional languages held by the brothers [[August Wilhelm Schlegel]] and [[Friedrich Schlegel]], and [[Wilhelm von Humboldt]].{{Sfnp|McElvenny|2017|pp=419–420}}
[[August Schleicher]] was a conspicuous proponent of the idea that older languages such as [[Latin]] had attained a synthetic optimum, and languages that derived from these tended to degrade via the analytic towards an "[[Isolating language|isolating]]" extreme, the degree of degradation of a language increasing with "the richness and eventfulness of its speakers' history".{{Sfnp|McElvenny|2017|p=421}} Jespersen proposed the reverse, criticizing the needless [[Language complexity|complexities]] of synthetic grammar, ascribing Schleicher's evaluations to "a grammar-school admiration, a Renaissance love of [Latin and Ancient Greek] and their literatures", and commenting that "The so-called full and rich forms of the ancient languages are not a beauty but a deformity".<ref>{{Harvtxt|Jespersen|1894|pp=9–10, 14}} Quoted in {{Harvtxt|McElvenny|2018|p=70}}.</ref>
Whereas Schleicher conceived language as a biological phenomenon, and thus subject to processes such as maturation, ageing and death, linguists of the mid 19th century such as [[Georg Curtius]], [[Johan Nikolai Madvig]] and [[William Dwight Whitney]] emphasized language as a human-developed tool for communication. By the end of the century this became the received conception of language.{{Sfnp|McElvenny|2017|p=422}}
Jespersen thought of the uses of language as needing a balance between two factors: the ''ease'' of the speaker's expression of ideas, and the ''distinctness'' of that expression (and thus the ease of comprehension for the listener).<ref>''Efficiency in Linguistic Change'', pp. 391–392; quoted in {{Sfnlink|McElvenny|2017|p=422}}.</ref> The proximate sources of the pair were [[Georg von der Gabelentz]]'s ''Bequemlichkeitstrieb'' ('drive to comfort') and ''Deutlichkeitstrieb'' ('drive to distinctness', although by ''Deutlichkeit'' Gabelentz meant something broader than Jespersen's early formulations of ''distinctness'').{{Sfnp|McElvenny|2017|p=423}} Although Jespersen later recognized that distinctness should include playfulness, vividness and other factors, the ability to communicate remained foremost.{{Sfnp|McElvenny|2017|p=424}}
As for the mechanism of grammatical change, a major interest of Jespersen's was the diachronic loss from [[Old English]] of both [[Grammatical case|case]] [[inflection]]s and freedom of [[word order]]. He showed that fixed word order did not arrive to make up for the loss of case inflections: word order became fixed before rather than after this loss. Rather, the degree of [[Syncretism (linguistics)|syncretism]] in inflection had meant that inflection had lost much of its earlier helpfulness. A later change Jespersen discussed was the disappearance of the exclusively singular [[Grammatical person|second-person]] (''[[Thou|thou, thee, thy, thine]]''), which, he wrote, had merely maintained a "useless distinction" between polite and familiar terms of address or reference.{{Sfnp|Nielsen|1989a|pp=65–66}}
Following a description of Chinese largely deriving from Gabelentz, Jespersen's ''Progress in Language'' summarized its counter-argument to Schleicher in a pithy fashion:<ref>{{Harvtxt|Jespersen|1894|p=127}} (reproduced almost verbatim in {{Harvtxt|Jespersen|1922|p=429}}).</ref>
<blockquote>The evolution of language shows a progressive tendency from inseparable irregular conglomerations to freely and regularly combinable short elements.<br /><br />
Schleicher's system [i.e. Schleicher's hypothesis/opinion, the reverse of the above] is to be likened to an enormous pyramid; only it is a pity that he should make its base the small, square, strong Chinese root-word, and suspend above it the inconvenient flexion-encumbered Indo-Germanic sentence-word. Structures of this sort may with some adroitness be made to stand; but their equilibrium is unstable, and sooner or later they will inevitably tumble over.</blockquote>
The message was well received by Chinese intellectuals such as the writer [[Lin Yutang]], the lexicographer T. F. Chu, and the philologist [[Fu Ssu-nien]] (Fu Sinian).{{Efn|text=Lin, ''The Little Critic: Essays, Satires and Sketches on China: Second Series, 1933–1935'' (1935); and Chu, "This easy Chinese language", ''The China Critic'' 6.35 (1933), p. 856: see {{Cite book | title=Chinese Whispers: Toward a Transpacific Poetics | first=Yunte | last=Huang | ___location=Chicago | publisher=University of Chicago Press | year=2022 | isbn=978-0-226-82264-8 | doi=10.7208/chicago/9780226822662.001.0001 | pages=37–38}} (Also {{ISBN|978-0-226-82265-5}}, {{ISBN|978-0-226-82266-2}}.) Fu: see {{Cite book | first=Carine | last=Defoort | chapter=Fu Sinian's views on philosophy, ancient Chinese masters, and Chinese philosophy | title=Learning to Emulate the Wise: The Genesis of Chinese Philosophy as an Academic Discipline in Twentieth-Century China | editor-first=John | editor-last=Makeham | ___location=Hong Kong | publisher=Hong Kong University Press | year=2012 | isbn=978-962-996-478-8 | page=297}}}} As for the book ''Progress in Language'', in 1909 [[Karl Brugmann]] listed it among six "indispensable books for a first approach to [linguistics]".<ref>{{Cite book | first=Anna | last=Morpurgo Davies | author-link=Anna Morpurgo Davies | editor-first=Giulio | editor-last=Lepschy | editor-link=Giulio Lepschy | title=History of Linguistics. Volume IV: Nineteenth-Century Linguistics | ___location=London | publisher=Longman | year=1998 | page=228 | isbn=0-582-29478-9}} (Also {{ISBN|0-582-29477-0}}.) Citing {{Cite journal | last=Brugmann | first=Karl | author-link=Karl Brugmann | year=1909 | title=Ein Worterbuch der sprachwissenschaftlichen Terminologie | journal=Germanisch-romanische Monatsschrift | volume=1 | page=222}}</ref>{{Efn|text=The other five: [[Berthold Delbrück]] (1889) ''Einleitung in das Sprachstudium. Ein Beitrag zur Geschiehte und Methodik der vergleichenden Sprachforschung''; {{Ill|Hanns Oertel|de}} (1901) ''Lectures on the Study of Language''; [[Hermann Paul]] (1880) ''Principien der Sprachgeschichte'' (later editions spell the title ''Prinzipien . . .''); [[William Dwight Whitney]] (1867) ''Language and the Study of Language: Twelve Lectures on the Principles of Linguistic Science''; [[Wilhelm Wundt]] (1900) ''Völkerpsychologie. Eine Untersuchung der Entwicklungsgesetze von Sprache, Mythus und Sitte. I. Die Sprache''.}}
Unlike Gabelentz, Jespersen was interested in extending the concepts of analyticity and efficiency to international auxiliary languages.{{Sfnp|McElvenny|2017|p=425}} Within negotiations among the [[Delegation for the Adoption of an International Auxiliary Language]] aimed at deciding which constructed language should receive the international backing of scholars, the greatest supporter of Jespersen's principles was the chemist [[Wilhelm Ostwald]], who had his own theory of ''Energetik'' ('energetics'), and for whom "Language was . . . a ___domain of culture calling out to be optimized through deliberate intervention".{{Sfnp|McElvenny|2017|p=427}} Thus for Jespersen, progress towards communicative efficiency is anyway inevitable,<ref>{{Cite book | first=Otto | last=Jespersen | date=1933 | chapter=Energetik der Sprache | title=Linguistica: Selected Papers in English, French and German | ___location=Copenhagen | publisher=Levin & Munskgaard | orig-date=1914 | pages=98–108 | oclc=459619574 | url=https://archive.org/details/dli.ministry.16424/page/n5/mode/2up | via=Internet Archive | language=de}}</ref> but can also be assisted by [[language planning|language engineering]].{{Sfnp|McElvenny|2017|p=428}}
Hjelmslev criticizes the ambiguity of "efficiency" and "effort"; and adds that even if these are understood only loosely, there have been counter-examples.{{Efn|For the description of counter-examples, Hjelmslev particularly credits {{Cite book | first=Björn | last=Collinder | author-link=Björn Collinder | title=Introduktion i Språkvetenskapen | trans-title=Introduction to linguistics | ___location=Stockholm | publisher=Hugo Geber | year=1941 | oclc=769852250 | language=sv}}}} He concludes that, as propounded by Jespersen, the thesis is far from convincing, but that it is put forward vividly and has aroused considerable interest.{{sfnp|Hjelmslev|1943|p=127}}
Jespersen's conception of evolution soon came to differ from Spencer's. Whereas Spencer believed that increased heterogeneity – synonymy, and the generation of new word classes, dialects and even languages – indicated progress, Jespersen found progress in simplicity and uniformity{{Sfnp|McElvenny|2017|p=429}} and:
<blockquote>Jespersen praised the "{{Thinspace}}'noiseless' machinery" of English,{{Efn|text={{Cite book | first=Otto | last=Jespersen | title=A Modern English Grammar on Historical Principles, Part VI: Morphology | ___location=Copenhagen | publisher=Ejnar Munksgaard | date=1942 | oclc=220412299 | page=85 | url=https://archive.org/details/modernenglishgra0000otto_u2o2/page/84/mode/2up | via=Internet Archive}} (McElvenny cites the 1954 edition; its pagination is the same.) Jespersen writes this in the context of "the formal identity of a great many words belonging to different word-classes" (largely thanks to [[Conversion (word formation)|conversion]]).}} the modern European language furthest down the analytic path, and the language most despised by Schleicher precisely for what he regarded as this analytic degeneracy.{{Sfnp|McElvenny|2017|p=429}}</blockquote>
In a review of ''Efficiency in Linguistic Change'', [[Bernard Bloch (linguist)|Bernard Bloch]] was forthright in saying that while linguists, like anyone else, were entitled to their private opinions on the relative merits of languages, judging the utility or attractiveness of a language was not part of their job.{{Sfnp|McElvenny|2017|p=430}} But although Bloch was an American structuralist, largely following [[Leonard Bloomfield]], his reaction was much more extreme than that of Bloomfield, who thought that tackling questions such as relative efficiency was not improper, but instead better postponed until the factors involved were better understood.{{Sfnp|McElvenny|2017|pp=430–431}}
A very different kind of opposition to Jespersen's conception came from [[Charles Bally]], whose [[stylistics]] concerns led him to concentrate on the affective dimension of language, for which processes such as polysemy and [[Clipping (morphology)|clipping]] are important, and thus to reject efficiency as an ideal.{{Sfnp|McElvenny|2017|pp=433–434}} Bally's objections to received opinions on language evolution extended beyond this: for example, he claimed that the change from "synthetic" to "analytic" was at times reversed{{Sfnp|McElvenny|2017|p=438}} (as [[Hermann Möller]] had pointed out to Jespersen as early as 1891{{Sfnp|Nielsen|1989a|p=71}}).
[[Hans Frede Nielsen]] has criticized Jespersen's lack of consistency in, for example, approving the development of new, [[Periphrasis|periphrastic]] (and, thanks to ''{{Nbh}}ing'', inflectional) tenses for allowing new distinctions and nuances that enriched English, while also approving the loss in English of the [[subjunctive]] and thus the distinctions and nuances that it had enabled.{{Sfnp|Nielsen|1989a|pp=73–74}}
From the 18th down to the mid 19th century, the origins of language had been an unusually contentious subject, based on little more than speculation – to the point where in 1866 the [[Société de Linguistique de Paris]] banned communications about the subject.{{Sfnp|Żywiczyński|Wacewicz|2019|pp=51–53}} The ban, which lasted a decade, had an influence far beyond the Société but seems to have done little to deter Jespersen.{{Sfnp|Mufwene|2013|p=30}}
Jespersen argued that none among the "several types of glottogenetic hypotheses" in the 1866 typology of [[Max Müller]]{{Sfnp|Żywiczyński|Wacewicz|2019|p=48}} – the "[[Bow-wow theory|bow-wow]]" theory (that protolanguage imitated sounds in nature), the "pooh-pooh" theory (derivation from interjections), and the "yo-he-yo" theory (from [[field holler]]s and similar) – should be dismissed because of its inability to explain the distant origin of this or that "part" of language. Rather, each of the three may explain certain parts, "and not even the most important parts – the main body of language seems hardly to be touched by any of them".<ref>{{Harvtxt|Mufwene|2013|p=30}}, citing {{Harvtxt|Jespersen|1922|p=416}}.</ref>
Jespersen's version of the bow-wow theory in particular may seem farfetched:
<blockquote>[[Wilhelm von Humboldt|Humboldt]] held the view . . . that the origin of language lies in the natural urge to produce art. . . . [The idea, which] originated most probably with [[Giambattista Vico|Vico]] . . . lived on till the beginning of the 20th century. Jespersen . . . emphatically denies, against all evidence, the romanticist background of this theory, [yet] still defends the thesis that language originated in song, in love play and otherwise. . . . Nowadays [this view] is entirely forgotten.<ref>{{Cite book | first=Pieter A. M. | last=Seuren | author-link=Pieter Seuren | title=Western Linguistics: An Historical Introduction | ___location=Malden, Massachusetts | publisher=Blackwell | year=1998 | page=77 | isbn=978-0-631-20891-4}} Seuren cites {{Harvtxt|Jespersen|1894}}, and {{Harvtxt|Jespersen|1922|pp=431–437}}.</ref></blockquote>
However, [[Salikoko Mufwene]] suggests that such speculations by Jespersen are less important than his belief that study of early, prelinguistic communication by infants – "cooing, [[babbling]], and gestures" – may illuminate the origins of language.{{Sfnp|Mufwene|2013|p=30}}
Mufwene points out that Jespersen's conception of the long-term evolution of language is opposed to that published decades later by [[Derek Bickerton]], for whom the [[Proto-language|protolanguage]] was very simple and "had minimal syntax, if any":<ref>{{Harvtxt|Mufwene|2013|p=31}}; Mufwene cites {{cite book | last=Bickerton | first=Derek | author-link=Derek Bickerton | year=1990 | title=Language and Species | ___location=Chicago | publisher=University of Chicago Press}}</ref>
<blockquote>While Bickerton sees in [[pidgin]]s fossils of that protolanguage and in [[Creole language|creoles]] the earliest forms of complex grammar that could putatively evolve from them, Jespersen would perhaps see in them the ultimate stage of the evolution of language to date. Many of us today find it difficult to side with one or the other position.</blockquote>
Jespersen's writing on these matters can be unpalatable:<ref>{{Harvtxt|Mufwene|2013|p=31}}; Mufwene cites {{Harvtxt|Jespersen|1922|pp=419–421, 432}}</ref>
<blockquote>Rather outrageous is Jespersen's claim that languages of "savages" in Africa and the Americas could inform us about the origins of language, not only because they have longer words (with complex morphology), but also because they use difficult sounds such as [[Click consonant|clicks]] and rely on [[Tone (linguistics)|tones]], which, according to him, suggests that their speakers are "passionate". "Primitive languages" were accordingly sung, poetic, and figurative.</blockquote>
Richard C. Smith considers ''Language: Its Nature, Development and Origin'' to be Jespersen's "masterpiece".<ref name="warwick"/>
Jespersen advanced the study of the [[Great Vowel Shift]], and was the first to present it in diagram form; he also coined its name.{{Efn|text=More precisely, Jespersen writes "the great vowel-shift": with a hyphen, and not capitalized. {{Cite book | first=Otto | last=Jespersen | title=A Modern English Grammar on Historical Principles. Part I: Sounds and Spellings | ___location=London | publisher=George Allen & Unwin | url= | via= | year=1961 | orig-date=1909 | pages=231–47}}}}<ref>{{Cite journal | title=The rise and fall of the Great Vowel Shift? The changing ideological intersections of philology, historical linguistics, and literary history | first=Matthew | last=Giancarlo | journal=Representations | volume=76 | number=1 | date=Fall 2001 | jstor=10.1525/rep.2001.76.1.27 | page=38| doi=10.1525/rep.2001.76.1.27 }}</ref>
===Child language===
The work of Jespersen's that addresses [[child language]] most extensively is ''Nutidssprog hos Børn og Voxne'' ("Today's language in children and adults", 1916), and its second edition, ''Børnesprog: En Bog for Foraldre'' ("Children's language: A book for parents", 1923).{{Sfnp|Vejleskov|1989|p=123}} Their content, and that of ''Sproget: Barnet, Kvinden, Slægten'' (1941), is summarized within ''Language: Its Nature, Development, and Origin'' (1922).{{sfnp|Hjelmslev|1943|p=127}} Jespersen distinguishes himself, as a linguist, from psychologists and educationalists such as [[Wilhelm Wundt]], [[William Stern (psychologist)|William Stern]], and {{Ill|Vilhelm Rasmussen|sv}}, criticizing them for faults such as the ambiguity of estimates of vocabulary when what are counted are ill-defined,{{Efn|text=It is often unclear whether for example ''I'' and ''me'' have been counted as two different words or as a single word having differing inflectional forms; also, whether an expression such as ''eggcup'' (a [[Compound (linguistics)|compound]] in adult language) has been taken as a compound or merely a concatenation of its constituents.{{Sfnp|Vejleskov|1989|pp=124–125}}}} and criticizing Wundt in particular for his belief that children participate only passively in what is largely an environmental generation of language.{{Sfnp|Vejleskov|1989|pp=124–125}}
Jespersen writes of three major stages in [[first language acquisition]]: screaming (perceived as language-like by the addressee, if not by the producer), [[babbling]], and talking; and of talking as itself having two stages: own language and common language.{{Sfnp|Vejleskov|1989|p=125}} He observes that production of speech comes later than understanding (although it can be hard to gauge understanding when not accompanied by production).{{Sfnp|Vejleskov|1989|p=126}} He deals with issues of [[lexical semantics]], and "a child's acquisition of his mother tongue is, ''in general'', a complex process of guessing, supposing and inventing, not only in the field of language but also in the fields of reality and conception".<ref>{{Harvtxt|Vejleskov|1989|p=128}}. (The emphasis is Vejleskov's.)</ref> Children's inventiveness encompasses [[Conversion (word formation)|conversion]] and [[Blend word|blending]].{{Sfnp|Vejleskov|1989|p=129}} Taking the use of [[Adposition|prepositions]] to illustrate the acquisition of syntactic structure, Jespersen points out that what linguists now regard as [[preposition phrase]]s first appear as [[Formulaic language|formulas]] (thus ''to'' might first appear in "go ''to bed''") and only later in novel combinations.{{Sfnp|Vejleskov|1989|p=131}}
Jespersen emphasizes the role of young children's linguistic awareness: although they lack the ability to talk about language, awareness can be observed from their reactions to errors by others, from their hesitations, and from their playful alterations of language.{{Sfnp|Vejleskov|1989|pp=134–135}}
Jespersen also considers the relationship between meanings of words in child language and the concepts held by those children; he suggests that the influence can work in either direction.{{Sfnp|Vejleskov|1989|p=138}}
===International auxiliary languages===
Jespersen applied both his theories on grammar and his ideas of efficiency of expression into the quest for an [[international auxiliary language]].
<blockquote>It is true that towards the end of his life Jespersen expressed some qualms about the time and energy he had invested in [[[Constructed language|artificial languages]]; but his] interest in the matter covered practically his whole life, from his rejection of [[Volapük]] in his student days to suggested reforms in his own creation [[Novial]] a few years before his death.{{Sfnp|Larsen|1989|p=101}}</blockquote>
====The Delegation for the Adoption of an International Auxiliary Language, and Ido====
In 1907 [[Louis Couturat]] called a meeting of the [[Delegation for the Adoption of an International Auxiliary Language]] to decide on a single language for recommendation for international use.{{Sfnp|Larsen|1989|p=102}} As an Anglicist, Jespersen might have been expected to back English for this role, but he rejected such a notion on the grounds that:{{Sfnp|Larsen|1989|p=103}}
<blockquote>
* a deliberate choice of any one [national] language for such a purpose would meet with unsurmountable difficulties on account of international jealousies{{Sfnp|Jespersen|1928|pp=17–18}}
* each of them is several times more difficult than a constructed language need be{{Sfnp|Jespersen|1928|p=21}}
</blockquote>
As for constructed languages, these were thought of has having either of two goals. There were languages primarily designed to encourage clarity of thought, and those primarily based on (but simplifying) existing, widely spoken languages—although examples of the former type had a tendency to develop towards the latter type.{{Sfnp|McElvenny|2018|p=68}} [[Volapük]], which had approached the former (and whose words were built on unrecognizable [[Root (linguistics)|roots]]), had recently suffered a rapid decrease in speaker population, eclipsed by [[Esperanto]]. Thus the favourites for endorsement by the Delegation were Esperanto (which had regular [[Morphology (linguistics)|morphology]] and was largely based on [[Romance language]]s), and [[Idiom Neutral]] (which had less stress on regularity and was based on what was already shared by the most prominent languages of Europe).{{Sfnp|Larsen|1989|p=104}} Of the two, Idiom Neutral was more to Jespersen's liking.{{Sfnp|Larsen|1989|pp=107–108}}
A [[Ido#History|complex and shady process]] involved the sudden nomination by somebody using the pseudonym "Ido" of a newly conceived revision of Esperanto. Despite learning of the deception made by or for the pseudonymous reviser, and despite his anger over this deception, Jespersen believed candidate languages should be judged purely on their merits, and that this revision (which itself came to be called [[Ido]]) was a significant improvement over Esperanto in its state at the time. However, [[L. L. Zamenhof|L. L. Zamenhof]], Esperanto's creator, was opposed to it, as was the Esperantists' [[Akademio de Esperanto|Lingva Komitato]], and Ido became a rival of Esperanto.{{Sfnp|Larsen|1989|pp=108–109}} Jespersen collaborated with [[Louis Couturat]] and others on ''International Language and Science'' (1910), a book advocating its adoption;{{Efn|{{Cite book | first=Otto | last=Jespersen | chapter=Linguistic principles necessary for the construction of an international auxiliary language, with an appendix on the criticism of Esperanto | pages=27–41 | editor-first1=L[ouis] | editor-last1=Couturat | editor-first2=O[tto] | editor-last2=Jespersen | editor-link3=Richard Lorenz (chemist) | editor-first3=R[ichard] | editor-last3=Lorenz | editor-link4=Wilhelm Ostwald | editor-first4=W[ilhelm] | editor-last4=Ostwald | editor-link5=Leopold Pfaundler | editor-first5=L[eopold] | editor-last5=Pfaundler | url=https://archive.org/details/internationallan00pfaurich | title=International Language and Science: Considerations on the Introduction of an International Language into Science | ___location=London | publisher=Constable | year=1910 | via=Internet Archive | oclc=561980523}}}}{{sfnp|Hjelmslev|1943|p=127}} and became president of an Ido academy. But although a significant increase in its number of speakers would have required Ido to mobilize its speakers and evangelize, such a project did not attract Jespersen, who wanted "a language for the brain, not for the heart".{{sfnm|1a1=Jespersen|1y=1928|1p=27|2a1=Larsen|2y=1989|2p=110}}
====The International Auxiliary Language Association====
In 1925 Jespersen met [[Alice Vanderbilt Morris|Alice Morris]], a wealthy cofounder (and lasting financial supporter) of the [[International Auxiliary Language Association]] (IALA). "[U]nlike its counterparts in the international auxiliary language movement in Europe, there was in IALA little of the fanaticism, the eccentricity, and even the mysticism that accompanied the promotion of languages such as Esperanto."{{Sfnp|Falk|1995|p=244}} Through Morris and the IALA, Jespersen also met [[Edgar de Wahl]], creator of the language [[Interlingue|Occidental]] and others with whom he could discuss the possibilities for constructed languages.{{Sfnp|Larsen|1989|p=110}}
Jespersen's active participation in the IALA included chairing an IALA-funded conference, the Meeting of Linguistic Research, held in Geneva in spring 1930;{{Sfnp|Falk|1995|p=250}} but perhaps more important to IALA was the prestige he brought. Before the involvement in IALA, and later the formal association with it, of American scholars such as [[Edward Sapir]], Earle Babcock, [[Henry Alfred Todd|Henry A. Todd]], and John L. Gerig, and the Europeans [[William Edward Collinson|W. E. Collinson]] and Jespersen, many in academia thought international auxiliary languages pointless and a waste of time; but now "the organization and the movement could – and did – claim scholarly legitimacy for its linguistic research".{{Sfnp|Falk|1995|p=249}}
Morris viewed the issues involved in constructing a language to be mainly those of the lexicon. She and Jespersen (writing in a 1929 article, "Nature and art in language"{{Efn|text={{Cite journal | first=Otto | last=Jespersen | title=Nature and art in language | journal=[[American Speech]] | year=1929 | volume=5 | pages=89–103}}}}) were not unusual:
<blockquote>The proponents, the creators, and the analysts of artificial languages all concentrated on lexicon and derivational morphology. Syntax warranted no special attention. Being 'natural', it would take care of itself, or so it seemed to many of the enthusiasts most responsible for actually constructing auxiliary languages.{{Sfnp|Falk|1995|p=245}}</blockquote>
====Novial====
{{Main|Novial}}
Jespersen believed that constructed languages, [[Ido]] included, were still more complex than needed, and still differed more than necessary from widely spoken national languages. He therefore set out to create an improved language, [[Novial]]{{Sfnp|Larsen|1989|pp=110–112}} (''Nov'' 'new' + ''IAL'' 'International Auxiliary Language'{{Sfnp|Falk|1995|p=244}}). His significant publications here include ''An International Language'';{{Sfnp|Jespersen|1928}} ''Novial Lexike'' (a dictionary);{{Efn|text={{Cite book | first=Otto | last=Jespersen | title=Novial Lexike: International Dictionary {{=}} Dictionnaire international {{=}} Internationales Wörterbuch | ___location=Heidelberg | publisher=Carl Winter | year=1930 | oclc=39992226}}}} and "A new science: Interlinguistics"{{Efn|text={{Cite journal | first=Otto | last=Jespersen | title=A new science: Interlinguistics | journal=Psyche | volume=11 | year=1931 | pages=57–67}} Also in {{Cite book | editor-first1=Herbert N. | editor-last1=Shenton | editor-link1=Herbert N. Shenton | editor-first2=Edward | editor-last2=Sapir | editor-link2=Edward Sapir | editor-first3=Otto | editor-last3=Jespersen | first=Otto | last=Jespersen | chapter=Interlinguistics | title=International Communication: A Symposium on the Language Problem | series=Psyche Miniatures 37 | ___location=London | publisher=Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner | year=1931 | oclc=2805609}} Also in ''[[#selected_writings|Selected Writings]].'' 1960. Pp. 771–782. ''Selected Writings.'' 2010. Pp. 422–429.}} (all published 1928–1931).{{sfnp|Hjelmslev|1943|p=127}} Novial had a mixed reception (the Esperantist [[Gaston Waringhien]] found it particularly unsatisfactory), and Jespersen was hobbled by the mutual incompatibility of regularity and perceived naturalness as goals. Oddly, Novial also lacked some of the features that Jespersen had praised in English, such as consonant-ending monosyllabic words, and [[Conversion (word formation)|conversion]] without a need for [[inflection]].{{Sfnp|Larsen|1989|pp=114–117}}
Larsen urges his readers:{{Sfnp|Larsen|1989|p=120}}
<blockquote>But rather than judge [projects such as Novial] by their actual or potential contribution to international communication, we are better advised . . . to see [Jespersen's] life-long preoccupation with auxiliary languages and his creation of Novial not as a heroic failure but as a revealing application of his linguistic thought.</blockquote>
===English===
Terms related to English that were introduced by Jespersen and are still widely used today include ''[[cleft sentence]]'',<ref>{{Cite book | first=Peter C. | last=Collins | title=Cleft and Pseudo-cleft Constructions in English | ___location=London | publisher=Routledge | year=1991 | isbn=0-415-06328-0 | page=3}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book | first=Marcel | last=den Dikken | chapter=Specificational copular sentences and pseudoclefts | volume=4 | page=306 | editor-first1=Martin | editor-last1=Everaert | editor-first2=Henk | editor-last2=van Riemsdijk | editor-link2=Henk van Riemsdijk | title=The Blackwell Companion to Syntax | ___location=Malden, Massachusetts | publisher=Blackwell | year=2006 |isbn=978-1-4051-1485-1 }}</ref> ''[[content clause]]'',{{Sfnp|Aarts|Chalker|Weiner|2014|p=96}} ''[[light verb]]'',<ref>{{Cite book | first=Tara | last=Mohanan | author-link=Tara Mohanan | chapter=Grammatical verbs (with special reference to light verbs) | volume=2 | pages=461–462 | editor-first1=Martin | editor-last1=Everaert | editor-first2=Henk | editor-last2=van Riemsdijk | editor-link2=Henk van Riemsdijk | title=The Blackwell Companion to Syntax | ___location=Malden, Massachusetts | publisher=Blackwell | year=2006 |isbn=978-1-4051-1485-1}}</ref> ''[[mass noun]]'',{{Sfnp|Aarts|Chalker|Weiner|2014|pp=244–245}} ''quantifier'',{{Sfnp|Francis|1989|p=79}}<!-- As of May '25, en:Wikipedia has no article on quantifiers in linguistics, as opposed to logic. --> and ''[[Yes–no question|yes-or-no question]]''.{{Sfnp|Aarts|Chalker|Weiner|2014|p=222}} Jespersen's writings have also influenced today's conceptions of ''[[existential sentence]]''.<ref>{{Cite book | first=Andrea | last=Moro | author-link=Andrea Moro | chapter=Expletive sentences and expletive ''there'' | volume=2 | pages=210–211 | editor-first1=Martin | editor-last1=Everaert | editor-first2=Henk | editor-last2=van Riemsdijk | editor-link2=Henk van Riemsdijk | title=The Blackwell Companion to Syntax | ___location=Malden, Massachusetts | publisher=Blackwell | year=2006 |isbn=978-1-4051-1485-1}}</ref>
In his own work ''[[The Syntactic Phenomena of English]]'' (1988), [[James D. McCawley]] attributes various of his analyses, or the insights pointing towards them, to Jespersen: [[Raising (syntax)|raising]];{{Sfnp|McCawley|1988|loc=vol. 1, pp. 122, 149}} "worthwhile criticism of traditional systems of [[part of speech|parts of speech]]"{{Sfnp|McCawley|1988|loc=vol. 1, p. 204}} and classification of what are traditionally termed "[[subordinating conjunction]]s" (as in "You must look at this ''<u>before</u> you leave''") as [[preposition]]s with sentential [[Object (grammar)|objects]];{{Sfnp|McCawley|1988|loc=vol. 1, p. 191}} and more specifically, classification of ''that'' in [[relative clause]]s (as in "The necktie ''<u>that</u> he bought'' was polyester") not as a [[relative pronoun]] but as a [[complementizer]].{{Sfnp|McCawley|1988|loc=vol. 2, p. 461}} Asked how the 20th-century Dutch grammarians of English [[Hendrik Poutsma]], [[Etsko Kruisinga]] and [[R. W. Zandvoort|R. W. Zandvoort]] compared with Jespersen, McCawley replied: "Of course, Jespersen is in a class by himself. He was a fantastically original, broad, and deep thinker."<ref>{{Cite journal | title=An interview with professor James D. McCawley | first=F.G.A.M. |last=Aarts | journal=Forum der Letteren | year=1977 | url=https://www.dbnl.org/tekst/_for004197701_01/_for004197701_01_0020.php | via=DBNL | page=232}}</ref>
Robert I. Binnick calls Jespersen "one of the greatest students of the English language . . . , at once the last of the traditional grammarians and the first modern linguist–grammarian".<ref>{{Cite book | first=Robert I. | last=Binnick | title=Time and the Verb: A Guide to Tense and Aspect |___location=New York | publisher=Oxford University Press | year=1991 | isbn=0-19-506206-X | pages=53–54}}</ref>
==== ''A Modern English Grammar on Historical Principles'' ====
{{Main|A Modern English Grammar on Historical Principles}}
Jespersen's specialism for the longest period was the English language. His most celebrated work, and easily his most expansive, was ''[[A Modern English Grammar on Historical Principles]]'', published in six "parts" (volumes) during his lifetime, from 1909 to 1942, and a seventh, posthumous part in 1949. The first part is devoted to phonetics (much of it historical), the sixth to morphology (both derivational and inflectional). The other five are devoted to syntax, which Jespersen particularly enjoyed.{{Efn|text="When I took up work again after a rest necessitated by over-strain during a nine months' stay in America, I wanted something pleasurable to do and thought Syntax more attractive than Morphology. . . ." {{Cite book| first=Otto | last=Jespersen | ___location=London | publisher=George Allen & Unwin | title=A Modern English Grammar on Historical Principles. Part II: Syntax (first volume) | orig-date=1914 | year=1954 | page=v | url=https://archive.org/details/jespersen-1954-a-modern-english-grammar-on-historical-principles-part-ii-syntax-first-volume | via=Internet Archive}}}}
Writing in Jespersen's obituary, Helmslev calls ''A Modern English Grammar'' a "monumental work", one that "will maintain its immense value for an incalculable future thanks to the rich documentation of facts it provides".{{Efn|text="[Un] œuvre monumentale. . . . Ce grand ouvrage . . . conservera pour un avenir incalculable une très haute valeur par la riche documentation de faits qu'il apporte."}}{{sfnp|Hjelmslev|1943|p=128}}
==== Other works on English ====
''Growth and Structure of the English Language'' (1905, and reprinted at numerous times thereafter) is a broad history of the English language. It won Jespersen the [[Prix Volney]].{{sfnp|Hjelmslev|1943|p=129}} In 1989, [[Hans Frede Nielsen]] wrote that:
<blockquote>[It] can be read as the homage paid by an Anglophile to the English language which is praised for its business-like, virile qualities, its conciseness, logic and sobriety — to say nothing of its noble, rich, pliant and expressive character. . . . No wonder that [the book] became so popular in the English-speaking world and among Anglophiles elsewhere.<ref>{{Harvtxt|Nielsen|1989a|pp=70–71}}. Within this, Nielsen cites in particular ''Growth and Structure of the English Language'' (9th edition, 1938), pp. 2–16, 234.</ref></blockquote>
He described it as "probably the most widely read introduction to the history of the English language ever written".{{Sfnp|Nielsen|1989a|p=61}}
''Essentials of English Grammar'' (1933), primarily intended for university teaching, is for the most part synchronic.{{sfnp|Hjelmslev|1943|pp=129–130}} [[W. Nelson Francis]] described it as "arguably [Jespersen's] most familiar and popular book".{{Sfnp|Francis|1989|p=97}}
===Women's language===
Jespersen has been cited as "a pioneer in the study of women's language [and] often quoted for his views on what he believed to be the biologically determined nature of women's usage" – although "[a] product of his own day and age".<ref>{{Harvtxt|Hovdhaugen|Karlsson|Henriksen|Sigurd|2000|p=214}}. Hovdhaugen et al. point to an early magazine article ({{harvtxt|Jespersen|1907}}) and a late book ({{harvtxt|Jespersen|1941}}).</ref>
Linguists since Jespersen have been less patient with the content of "The woman", chapter 13 within his book ''Language: Its Nature, Development and Origin'' (1922):{{Efn|text=The chapter is largely a reproduction of a 1907 magazine article, {{harvtxt|Jespersen|1907}}. As described in {{harvtxt|Thomas|2013|p=390}}.}} "he manages to include every stereotype about women that was current at the time";<ref>{{Cite book | first=Ronald | last=Macaulay | title=The Social Art: Language and Its Uses | edition=2nd | ___location=New York | publisher=Oxford University Press | year=2006 | page=93 | isbn=978-0-19-518796-0}}</ref> "[the chapter offers] a compendium – and a grim one for that matter, filled with prejudices and misogyny – of long-standing commonplaces on women's contribution to the development of language."<ref>{{Cite book | chapter=Women in the history of linguistics: Distant and neglected voices | first1=Wendy | last1=Ayres-Bennett | author-link1=Wendy Ayres-Bennett | first2=Helena | last2=Sanson | editor-first1=Wendy | editor-last1=Ayres-Bennett | editor-first2=Helena | editor-last2=Sanson | pages=9–10 | title=Women in the History of Linguistics | ___location=Oxford | publisher=Oxford University Press | year=2020 | isbn=978-0-19-875495-4}}</ref>
Margaret Thomas writes:{{Sfnp|Thomas|2013|p=378}}
<blockquote>Jespersen's Chapter 13 is now read as the prime early example of conventional stereotypes and preconceptions about women's language that consider it inherently defective relative to men's language. As such, Jespersen's text is introduced into accounts of the history of language and gender studies in tones that range from detached amusement to derision.</blockquote>
Thomas continues by summarizing how [[Deborah Cameron (linguist)|Deborah Cameron]] reprints what she calls "Jespersen's notorious chapter" ''in toto'',<ref>{{Cite book | author-link=Deborah Cameron (linguist) | first=Deborah | last=Cameron | year=1990 | page=22 | title=The Feminist Critique of Language: A Reader | ___location=London | publisher=Routledge | isbn=978-0-415-04259-8}}</ref> [[Kira Hall]] describes it as "infamous",<ref>{{Cite book | first=Kira | last=Hall | author-link=Kira Hall | year=2003 | page=358 | chapter=Exceptional speakers: Contested and problematized gender identities | editor-link1=Janet Holmes (linguist) | editor-last1=Holmes | editor-first1=Janet | editor-first2=Miriam | editor-last2=Meyerhoff | editor-link2=Miriam Meyerhoff | title=The Handbook of Language and Gender | ___location=Malden, Massachusetts | publisher=Blackwell | isbn=978-0-631-22502-7}}</ref> Patrick Mahony demonstrates how it exhibits "androcentric ideology" and "chauvinism",<ref>{{Cite journal | last=Mahony | first=Patrick | year=1983 | page=446 | title=Women's discourse and literature: The question of nature and culture | journal=Contemporary Psychoanalysis | volume=19 | doi=10.1080/00107530.1983.10746617}}</ref> and Jennifer Coates makes multiple references to ''Language, Its Nature, Development and Origin'' as a whole.<ref>{{Cite book | first=Jennifer | last=Coates | year=1986 | title=Women, Men and Language: A Sociolinguistic Account of Sex Differences in Language | ___location=London | publisher=Longman | pages=15–34 | isbn=978-0-582-29133-1}} Similarly in the second (1993) and third (2004) editions of this book.</ref>
Chapter 13, "The woman", is one of five chapters making up "Book III" of ''Language: Its Nature, Development and Origin'', a Book<!-- Leave this capitalized --> in which "Jespersen describes and speculates about the influence of what he considers three other major factors in language change": multilingualism and language contact, pidgins and creoles, and women.{{Sfnp|Thomas|2013|p=380}} While claiming that the differences between women's and men's language contribute to such change, his descriptions of these differences tend to make limited concessions to claims made by others, downplaying their scope or significance{{Sfnp|Thomas|2013|pp=380–382}} Thomas summarizes Jespersen's judgments as made in a tone "not so much distasteful, much less scornful, toward women and women's language as it is indulgent and condescending";{{Sfnp|Thomas|2013|p=382}} "Jespersen's assessment of women's language overall cannot be represented as disparaging";{{Sfnp|Thomas|2013|pp=382–383}} he "does not seem to present women's language as a deformed version of men's language".{{Sfnp|Thomas|2013|p=384}}
On its first publication (1922), numerous, mostly favourable reviews were published of ''Language: Its Nature, Development and Origin''.{{Sfnp|Thomas|2013|pp=380–382}} But its chapter 13 "received scant attention from contemporary readers". Thomas finds only one review that comments substantively on the chapter: that in ''[[The Modern Language Review]]'' by [[William Edward Collinson|W. E. Collinson]].{{Efn|text={{Cite journal | last=Collinson | first=W. E. | author-link=William Edward Collinson | date=1923 | title= ''Language: Its Nature, Development and Origin.'' By Otto Jespersen | type=Review | journal=The Modern Language Review | volume=18 | pages=91–96 | doi=10.2307/3714188 | jstor=3714188}}}} This did not criticize Jespersen's methodology (quite inadequate from today's perspective, normal in its time); nevertheless, "Collinson alone took Jespersen's claims seriously, but downplayed them as inaccurate and overblown."{{Sfnp|Thomas|2013|p=388}}
Thomas sees Jespersen's "The woman" (taken together with the Danish-language versions: the 1907 article and the 1941 book<ref>{{Harvtxt|Jespersen|1907}}, {{Harvtxt|Jespersen|1941}}.</ref>) as "an essentially singular, isolated, text that had little precedent ''or''<!-- Yes, "or" is italicized --> following for another fifty years".{{Sfnp|Thomas|2013|p=392}} But the rediscovery of (societal) gender differences in language as a subject for study, led in the mid-1970s by [[Robin Lakoff]] and [[Cheris Kramer]],<ref>{{Cite journal | last=Lakoff | first=Robin | author-link=Robin Lakoff | date=April 1973 | title=Language and woman's place | journal=Language in Society | volume=2 | number=1 | pages=45–80 | jstor=4166707}} {{Cite magazine | last=Kramer | first=Cheris | author-link=Cheris Kramer | title=Folk linguistics: Wishy-washy mommy talk | magazine=Psychology Today | volume=8 | number=1 | date=June 1974 | pages=82–85}}</ref> brought considerable commentary in feminist linguistics, based on descriptions of the chapter ranging from accurate, to simplifying, to distorting.{{Sfnp|Thomas|2013|p=394–396}} Thomas approvingly quotes [[Deborah Cameron (linguist)|Deborah Cameron]]:{{Efn|text="[[Deborah Cameron (linguist)|Deborah Cameron]], who, like [[Kira Hall]], is an unusually close reader of Jespersen. . . ."{{Sfnp|Thomas|2013|p=399}}}} "If you read the whole chapter in which Jespersen expounds on the subject of 'The Woman', it becomes clear that he is adopting a view of languages as ideally balanced between 'masculine' and 'feminine' elements".<ref>{{Cite book | first=Deborah | last=Cameron | author-link=Deborah Cameron (linguist) | year=2003 | page=449 | chapter=Gender and language ideologies | editor-link1=Janet Holmes (linguist) | editor-last1=Holmes | editor-first1=Janet | editor-first2=Miriam | editor-last2=Meyerhoff | editor-link2=Miriam Meyerhoff | title=The Handbook of Language and Gender | ___location=Malden, Massachusetts | publisher=Blackwell | isbn=978-0-631-22502-7}}</ref>
===Scholarly influences and allegiances===
Niels Haislund comments:{{Sfnp|Haislund|1966}}
<blockquote>The three Danish scholars [[Vilhelm Thomsen]], [[Karl Verner]] and [[Hermann Möller]], [[Johan Storm]] the Norwegian (''Englische Philologie''), and [[Henry Sweet|Sweet]] probably are those teachers to whom Otto Jespersen owes most, no doubt he was Sweet's dearest pupil.</blockquote>
During the decades of his activity, Jespersen followed what other, younger linguists were doing but refrained from unreservedly welcoming any advance, let alone from aligning himself with any new approach. He remained individualistic, but "there was a conservative streak in his radicalism"{{efn|text="[I]l y avait dans son radicalisme un trait conservateur"}} as he seemed to take seriously only the standpoints that had influenced him in his youth and to interpret newer work as mere repetition of this or that older theory.{{sfnp|Hjelmslev|1943|p=129}}
[[Hans Basbøll]] sees many followers of Jespersen in Denmark.{{sfnp|Basbøll|2021|p=555}} He has coined the term "New Jespersen School" (''Ny-Jespersenianerne'') for "the main editors of [''Den store danske Udtaleordbog'' (a major pronunciation dictionary for Danish){{Efn|text={{Cite book | last1=Brink | first1=Lars | first2=Jørn | last2=Lund | first3=Steffen | last3=Heger | first4=Jens Normann |last4=Jørgensen | year=1991 | title=Den store danske Udtaleordbog | trans-title=The great Danish pronunciation dictionary | ___location=Copenhagen | publisher=Munksgaard | isbn=9788716066497 | language=da}}}}], namely, {{Ill|Lars Brink (linguist)|lt=Lars Brink|da|Lars Brink}}, [[Jørn Lund (linguist)|Jørn Lund]] and Steffen Heger, and their collaborators and pupils"; their major achievement aside from ''SDU'' has been Brink and Lund's two-volume historical phonetics work ''Dansk Rigsmål'' (1975).{{Sfnp|Rischel|1989|p=59}}{{Efn|text={{Cite book | last1=Brink | first1=Lars | first2=Jørn | last2=Lund | year=1975 | title=Dansk rigsmål. Lydudviklingen siden 1840 med særligt henblik på sociolekterne i København | trans-title=Spoken standard Danish. The phonetic evolution since 1840 with particular reference to the sociolects in Copenhagen | ___location=Copenhagen | publisher=Gyldendal | isbn=9788701416818 | language=da}}}}{{sfnp|Basbøll|2021|p=554}}
Rather than naming Jespersen's adherents in each of the various other areas of linguistics of interest to Jespersen, Basbøll chooses to describe only a single line of succession, in the study of Danish grammar. In the preface to his 1901 book ''Synspunkter for Dansk Sproglære'', [[H. G. Wiwel|H. G. Wiwel]] expresses his gratitude to Jespersen,{{Efn|text=Immediately after thanking the [[Carlsberg Foundation]]: "Næsten endnu mere skylder jeg professor O. Jespersen, som på flere måder har vist en interesse for mit arbejde, uden hvilken dette vist endnu længe var forblevet inter penetralia Vestæ." ("I almost owe even more to Professor O. Jespersen, who in several ways has shown an interest in my work, without which it would probably have long remained ''inter penetralia Vestae'' ['among the chambers of [[Vesta (mythology)|Vesta]]' (more commonly ''intra penetralia Vestae'', i.e. 'within' them)].") {{Cite book | first=H[ylling] G[eorg] | last=Wiwel | title=Synspunkter for Dansk Sproglære | trans-title=Viewpoints for Danish grammar | ___location=Copenhagen | publisher=E. Bojesen | oclc=16307257 | url=https://archive.org/details/synspunkterford00wiwegoog/page/n11/mode/2up | via=Internet Archive | language=da}}}} who in turn praised Wiwel's book, if guardedly.<ref>{{Cite book | first=Otto | last=Jespersen | date=1933 | chapter=L'Étude de la langue maternelle en Danemark | title=Linguistica: Selected Papers in English, French and German | ___location=Copenhagen | publisher=Levin & Munskgaard | orig-date=1928 | pages=24–39 | oclc=459619574 | url=https://archive.org/details/dli.ministry.16424/page/n5/mode/2up | via=Internet Archive | language=fr}}</ref> The book harshly criticized the work of {{Ill|Kristian Mikkelsen|da|Kr. Mikkelsen|sv|Kristian Mikkelsen}}: unjustly so, in the opinion of [[Paul Diderichsen]]. According to Basbøll, in a "large scientific grammar of Danish" of 2011 by [[Erik Hansen (linguist)|Erik Hansen]] and {{Ill|Lars Heltoft|da}},{{Efn|text={{Cite book | first1=Erik | last1=Hansen | authorlink1=Erik Hansen (linguist) | first2=Lars | last2=Heltoft | year=2011 | title=Grammatik over det Danske Sprog | trans-title=Grammar of the Danish language | series=Det Danske Sprog- og Litteraturselskab | ___location=Copenhagen | publisher=Syddansk Universitetsforlag | isbn=978-87-7533-008-9 | language=da}}}} Wiwel is among the earlier grammarians who "play a significant role", and so Jespersen "still has a heavy share of <!-- sic --> today's tradition of Danish grammar".{{sfnp|Basbøll|2021|pp=555–557}}
More broadly, Olli O. Silvennoinen sees Jespersen's compatibility with, or encouragement for, late 20th-century [[Functional linguistics|functionalism]], and "communicative pressures on language structure" (thanks to his "[[Darwinism|Darwinist]] and [[Teleology|teleological]] approach to language change"); mainstream [[generative grammar]] (thanks to his "emphasis on universal principles underlying superficial variation across languages"); non-mainstream generative grammar (thanks to his "empirical richness and theoretical depth"); and [[corpus linguistics]] (thanks to copious provision of attested examples).<ref>{{Cite book | title=Negation in English and Other Languages | last=Jespersen | first=Otto | editor-first1=Brett | editor-last1=Reynolds | editor-first2=Peter | editor-last2=Evans | contributor-first=Olli O. | contributor-last=Silvennoinen | contribution=An introduction to Otto Jespersen's ''Negation in English and Other Languages'' (1917) | ___location=Berlin | publisher=Language Science Press | year=2025 | pages=vii–xxiv | series=Classics in Linguistics | doi=10.5281/zenodo.14843487}}</ref>
==Travels and honours==
Jespersen visited the United States twice: he lectured at the Congress of Arts and Sciences in St. Louis in 1904,{{Efn|text=The Congress was related to the [[Louisiana Purchase Exposition|St. Louis World's Fair]]: "the International Congress of Arts and Science to be held in St. Louis from the nineteenth to the twenty-fifth of September, 1904, in connection with and on the invitation of the World's Fair". {{Cite web | first=Hugo | last=Münsterberg | author-link=Hugo Münsterberg | title=The International Congress of Arts and Sciences | orig-date=1905 | date=2010 | url=https://brocku.ca/MeadProject/Munsterberg/Munsterberg_1905.html | website=The Mead Project | via=Brock University}}}} and in 1909–1910 at the [[University of California at Berkeley]], [[Columbia University]] (New York),<ref>{{Harvtxt|Falk|1992|p=466}}, {{Harvtxt|Thomas|2011|p=152}}.</ref> the [[University of Chicago]], [[Harvard University]], and [[Wellesley College]] (Wellesley, Massachusetts).<ref>{{Cite magazine | title=A centennial chronicle 1911–2011 | magazine=Scandinavian Review | date=Spring 2011 | page=53 | url=https://www.amscan.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/SR.Winter11_CentennialChronicle-Part-1.pdf | publisher=The American–Scandinavian Foundation}}</ref>
After his retirement in 1925, Jespersen remained active in the international linguistic community. As well as continuing to write, he convened and chaired the first International Meeting on Linguistic Research in Geneva in 1930, co-chaired the first International Congress of Linguists in The Hague in 1928,{{Sfnp|Hovdhaugen|Karlsson|Henriksen|Sigurd|2000|p=194}} and presided over the fourth in Copenhagen in 1936.{{Sfnp|Falk|1992|p=466}}
Jespersen received honorary degrees from [[Columbia University]] (1910), the [[University of St Andrews]] in Scotland (1925), and the [[University of Paris|Sorbonne]] in Paris (1927).{{sfnp|Haislund|1966}} He was one of the first six international scholars to be elected as honorary members of the [[Linguistic Society of America]].{{Sfnp|Falk|1992|p=466}} He was elected a foreign member of the [[Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences]] in 1931.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.dwc.knaw.nl/biografie/pmknaw/?pagetype=authorDetail&aId=PE00001114 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201016130515/https://www.dwc.knaw.nl/biografie/pmknaw/?pagetype=authorDetail&aId=PE00001114 |title=J.O.H. Jespersen (1860–1943) |publisher=Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences |archive-date=16 October 2020}}</ref>
==Books by Jespersen==
[[Even Hovdhaugen]] et al. describe Jespersen's output:{{Sfnp|Hovdhaugen|Karlsson|Henriksen|Sigurd|2000|p=204}}
<blockquote>[Jespersen's] textbooks and numerous other books gave readers balanced, although not uncritical, information on what was going on in the field of linguistics. Jespersen had a broad theoretical orientation, was interested in all subsystems of language, and invoked examples from many different languages in a way that made him a precursor of [[Linguistic typology|language typology]].</blockquote>
* ''Praktisk Tilegnelse af fremmede Sprog'' ("Practical acquisition of foreign languages"). [A translation of Felix Franke, ''Die praktische Spracherlernung auf Grund der Psychologie und Physiologie der Sprache dargestellt von Felix Franke''.] Copenhagen: Carl Larsen, 1884. {{OCLC|466303017}}.
* ''Kortfattet engelsk Grammatik for Tale- og Skriftsproget'' ("A concise English grammar for the spoken and written language"). Copenhagen: Carl Larsen, 1885. {{OCLC|477786006}}. (Also later editions.)
* ''Fransk Læsebog efter Lydskriftsmethode'' ("A French reader using the phonetic method"). Copenhagen, 1889.
* ''The Articulations of Speech Sounds Represented by Means of Analphabetic Symbols''.<!-- NB not "antalphabetic", a word that Jespersen adopted only later. --> Marburg: N.G. Elwert, 1889. {{OCLC|903926262}}. [https://archive.org/details/articulationsofs00jespuoft/page/n3/mode/2up At the Internet Archive]; [https://archive.org/details/cu31924026451736/page/n3/mode/2up Again at the Internet Archive].
* ''Studier over engelske Kasus. Med en Indledning om Fremskridt i Sproget'' ("Studies on [[Grammatical case|case]] in English: With an introduction on progress in language"). [Jespersen's doctoral dissertation.] Copenhagen: Kleins Vorlag, 1891. {{OCLC|457568603}}.
** ''Progress in Language: With Special Reference to English.'' London: Swan Sonnenschein, 1894. {{OCLC|607098829}}. [https://archive.org/details/cu31924026448203 At the Internet Archive]. New York: [[Macmillan & Co]]. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 1993; with an introduction by [[James D. McCawley]]. {{ISBN|9789027219923}}, {{ISBN|9781556193149}}. Abingdon, Oxfordshire: Routledge, 2006. {{ISBN|978-0-415-40258-3}}. Abingdon, Oxfordshire: Routledge, 2013. {{ISBN|978-0-415-86027-7}}. [Jespersen's adaptation of his doctoral dissertation.]
** ''Chapters on English.'' London: George Allen & Unwin, 1918. {{OCLC|8977427}}. [Excerpted from ''Progress in Language.''] ''[[#selected_writings|Selected Writings]].'' 1960. Pp. 153–346. ''Selected Writings.'' 2010. Pp. 81–165.
* ''Chaucers Liv og Digtning'' ("Chaucer's life and poetry"). Studier fra Sprog- og Oldtidsforskning. Copenhagen: Klein, 1893. {{OCLC|246601722}}.
* With {{Ill|Christian Sarauw|lt=Chr[istian] Sarauw|da|Christian Sarauw (sprogforsker)|sv|Christian Sarauw (språkforskare)}}. ''Engelsk Begynderbog'' ("English primer"). 1895. {{OCLC|476427495}}. (Later often reprinted.){{Sfnp|Nielsen|1989b|pp=18, 38}}
* ''Fonetik: En systematisk Fremstilling af Læren om Sproglyd'' ("Phonetics: A systematic presentation of the study of the sounds of language"). Copenhagen: Schubotheske Forlag, 1899. {{OCLC|185591363}}.
** ''Phonetische Grundfragen'' ("Phonetics essentials"). Leipzig: B.G. Teubner, 1904. {{OCLC|1020799}}. [German translation by N. Andersen and Hermann Davidsen of portions of ''Fonetik''; with additions written by Jespersen.]
** ''Lehrbuch der Phonetik'' ("Textbook of phonetics"). Leipzig: B.G. Teubner, 1904. {{OCLC|1159076996}}. (Also later editions.) [German translation by Hermann Davidsen of portions of ''Fonetik''.]
* ''Sprogundervisning'' ("Language teaching"). Copenhagen: Det Schubotheske forlag, 1901. {{OCLC|16159085}}. 2nd ed. ("revised, less polemical"{{Sfnp|Sørensen|1989|p=41}}). Copenhagen: Gyldendalske Boghandel, 1935. {{OCLC|29990346}}.
**''How to Teach a Foreign Language''. Translation by Sophia Yhlen-Olsen Bertelsen of ''Sprogundervisning.'' London: George Allen & Unwin, 1904. {{OCLC|1017209528}}. London: S. Sonnenschein, 1904. [https://dn790006.ca.archive.org/0/items/cu31924026503387/cu31924026503387.pdf 1904 printing] and [https://openlibrary.org/books/OL7053273M/How_to_teach_a_foreign_language 1928 printing] at the Internet Archive. Abingdon, Oxfordshire: Routledge, 2007. {{ISBN|978-0-415-40245-3}}. Abingdon, Oxfordshire: Routledge, 2010. {{ISBN|978-0-415-61130-5}}.
* ''The England and America Reader.'' Copenhagen, 1904.
** ''A British Reader: Nybearb. af "The England and America Reader".'' 1931. {{OCLC|467735339}}. Edited by {{Ill|Carl Adolf Bodelsen|lt=C.A. Bodelsen|da|C.A. Bodelsen|sv|Carl Adolf Bodelsen}} and H. Helweg-Møller.
* ''Growth and Structure of the English Language.'' Leipzig: B.G. Teubner; New York: G.E. Stechert, 1905. {{OCLC|4287175}}. New York: Free Press, 1968. {{OCLC|1035146783}}. [https://archive.org/details/growthstructur00jesp/page/n3/mode/2up Free Press edition]. Chicago: University of Chicago Press; Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1982; with a foreword by [[Randolph Quirk]]. {{ISBN|9780226398778}}, {{ISBN|9780631129868}}, {{ISBN|9780631129875}}.
* ''Modersmålets Fonetik'' ("Phonetics of the mother tongue"). Copenhagen: Schubotheske, 1906. {{OCLC|29995287}}. (Revised and augmented in later editions.{{Sfnp|Rischel|1989|p=55}})
* ''John Hart's Pronunciation of English (1569 and 1570).'' Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 1907. Anglistische Forschungen, Heft 22. {{OCLC|1907819}}. [https://archive.org/details/johnhartspronunc00jespuoft/page/n3/mode/2up At the Internet Archive]. [About the content of [[John Hart (spelling reformer)|John Hart]]'s ''An Orthographie'' (1569) and ''A Methode or Comfortable Beginning for All Vnlearned, Whereby They May Bee Taught to Read English'' (1570).]
* ''[[A Modern English Grammar on Historical Principles]].'' Seven "parts" (volumes), 1909–1949. Earliest parts first published by Carl Winter (Heidelberg), later parts by Ejnar Munksgaard (Copenhagen) and George Allen & Unwin (London). Parts 5–7, issued without series title, have imprint: Copenhagen, E. Munksgaard, 1940–49; Imprint varies: Parts 5–6: London: George Allen & Unwin; part 7: Copenhagen: Munksgaard, London: George Allen & Unwin. (See also "[[A_Modern_English_Grammar_on_Historical_Principles#Publishing_details|Publishing details]]".)
* ''Engelsk Fonetik.'' Copenhagen: Nordisk, 1912. Edited by H. Helwig-Møller. {{OCLC|961067561}}.
** ''English Phonetics: A Handbook for Scandinavian Students.'' Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 1950. {{OCLC|465861807}}. Revised and translated by Bengt Jürgensen.
* ''Sprogets Logik'' ("The logic of language"). Copenhagen: J. H. Schultz, 1913. {{OCLC|952935015}}.
* ''Nutidssprog hos Børn og Voxne'' ("Today's language in children and adults"). Copenhagen: Nordisk forlag, 1916. {{OCLC|8661242}}.
** ''Børnesprog: En Bog for Foraldre'' ("Children's language: A book for parents"). Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 1923. {{OCLC|492461187}}. A revision of ''Nutidssprog''.
* ''Negation in English and Other Languages.'' Det Kongelige Danske Videnskabernes Selskab: Historisk-filologiske Meddelelser I, 5. Copenhagen: Andr. Fred. Høst og søn, 1917. {{OCLC|457568567}}. [https://archive.org/details/cu31924026632947 At the Internet Archive]; [http://publ.royalacademy.dk/books/260/1560?lang=en at the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters]. Edited by Brett Reynolds and Peter Evans; with an introduction by Olli O. Silvennoinen. Berlin: Language Science Press, 2025. Classics in Linguistics. {{doi|10.5281/zenodo.14843487}}. {{ISBN|978-3-96110-500-7}}. [https://langsci-press.org/catalog/book/501 At Language Science Press]. ''[[#selected_writings|Selected Writings]].'' 1960. Pp. 1–152. ''Selected Writings.'' 2010. Pp. 2–80.
* ''Rasmus Rask i Hundredåret efter hans Hovedværk'' ("[[Rasmus Rask]] a hundred years after his major work"). Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 1918. {{OCLC|561462317}}. [https://slaegtsbibliotek.dk/909250.pdf At Danskernes Historie Online].
* ''De to Hovedarter av grammattiske Forbindelser'' ("The two main types of grammatical relations"). Det Kongelige Danske Videnskabernes Selskab: Historisk-filologiske Meddelelser IV, 3. Copenhagen: Andr. Fred. Høst og søn, 1921. {{OCLC|16310596}}. [http://publ.royalacademy.dk/books/229/1407?lang=en At the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters].
* ''Language: Its Nature, Development, and Origin.'' London: George Allen & Unwin, 1922. {{OCLC|1523115677}}. [https://archive.org/details/languageitsnatur00jespiala/page/n5/mode/2up At the Internet Archive]. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1968. {{ISBN|0-04-400007-3}}. Abingdon, Oxfordshire: Routledge, 2007. {{ISBN|978-0-415-40247-7}}. Abingdon, Oxfordshire: Routledge, 2013. {{ISBN|978-0-415-84556-4}}.
* ''The Philosophy of Grammar.'' London: George Allen & Unwin, 1924. {{OCLC|308037}}. [https://archive.org/details/dli.bengal.10689.9325/page/n5/mode/2up At the Internet Archive]. New York: Henry Holt, 1924. {{OCLC|19939152}}. New York: W. W. Norton, 1965. {{OCLC|1120578615}}. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992; with an introduction by [[James D. McCawley]]. {{ISBN|0-226-39881-1}}. Abingdon, Oxfordshire: Routledge, 2006. {{ISBN|978-0-415-40257-6}}. Abingdon, Oxfordshire: Routledge, 2010. {{ISBN|978-0-415-86027-7}}.
* ''Mankind, Nation and Individual: From a Linguistic Point of View.'' Instituttet for Sammenlignende Kulturforskning. [Publikationer] ser. A.: Forelesninger 4. Oslo: H. Aschehoug; Leipzig: Otto Harrassowitz; Paris: Honoré Champion; London: Williams & Norgate; Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1925. {{OCLC|1445547}}. [https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.105200/page/n3/mode/2up At the Internet Archive]. Abingdon, Oxfordshire: Routledge, 2006. {{ISBN|978-0-415-40248-4}}. Abingdon, Oxfordshire: Routledge, 2013. {{ISBN|978-0-415-86461-9}}.
* ''Sprogets Udvikling og Opstaaen'' ("The development and origin of language"). Copenhagen: V. Pio, 1926. {{OCLC|466067329}}.
* ''Et Verdenssprog: Et Forsøg på Spørsmålets Løsning'' ("A world language: An attempt to solve the question"). Copenhagen: V. Pios, 1928. {{OCLC|925814712}}.
* ''An International Language.'' London: George Allen & Unwin, 1928. {{OCLC|251023739}}. [https://viewer.onb.ac.at/10B876CB At Österreichische Nationalbibliothek]. Abingdon, Oxfordshire: Routledge, 2006. {{ISBN|978-0-415-40246-0}}. Abingdon, Oxfordshire: Routledge, 2013. {{ISBN|978-0-415-84526-7}}. [Paris]: Feedbooks, n.d. [https://web.archive.org/web/20180821115704/http://www.feedbooks.com/userbook/14934 Archived] by the Wayback Machine on 21 August 2018. [The introduction of the [[Novial language]].]
* ''Novial Lexike: International Dictionary = Dictionnaire international = Internationales Wörterbuch.'' Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 1930. {{OCLC|39992226}}. Abingdon, Oxfordshire: Routledge, 2006. {{ISBN|978-0-415-40256-9}}. Abingdon, Oxfordshire: Routledge, 2013. {{ISBN|978-0-415-86464-0}}. [http://www.blahedo.org/novial/nl.html Text file edition], blahedo.org (Don Blaheta). [Novial to English, French and German dictionary.]
* ''Tanker og Studier'' ("Thoughts and studies"). Copenhagen: Gyldendalske Boghandel, 1932. {{OCLC|1508095448}}. [Collection of papers in Danish.]
* ''Linguistica: Selected Papers in English, French and German.'' London: George Allen & Unwin; Copenhagen: Levin & Munksgaard, 1933. {{OCLC|459619574}}. [https://archive.org/details/dli.ministry.16424/page/n5/mode/2up At Internet Archive]. College Park, Maryland: McGrath, 1970. {{OCLC|1000569708}}. Abingdon, Oxfordshire: Routledge, 2015. {{ISBN|9781317439363}}, {{ISBN|9781315694368}}, {{ISBN|9781317439349}}, {{ISBN|9781317439356}}, {{ISBN|9781138908284}}, {{ISBN|9781138908529}}. <!-- Why all the ISBNs? I [Hoary] don't know. But they're all provided in OCLC 914472354 -->
* ''Essentials of English Grammar.'' London: George Allen & Unwin, 1933. (And later impressions.) {{OCLC|1593202}}. Tokyo: Kaitakusha ({{Nihongo2|開拓社}}), 1943. 2nd ed. 1944. {{NCID|BA12049306}}. University of Alabama Press, 1965. {{OCLC|561462021}}. Abingdon, Oxfordshire: Routledge, 2006. {{ISBN|978-0-415-40244-6}}. Abingdon, Oxfordshire: Routledge, 2013. {{ISBN|978-0-415-84746-9}}. [Greatly condensed derivative of ''A Modern English Grammar''.]
* ''Specimens of Syntactic Formulas: A Preliminary Account Dedicated to the Fourth International Congress of Linguistics.'' Copenhagen: Levin & Munksgaard, 1936. {{OCLC|1457229874}}. [Booklet; a preliminary version of ''Analytic Syntax'' (1937).]
* ''Analytic Syntax: A System of Expressing Grammatical Formulae by Symbols.'' London: George Allen & Unwin, [1937]. {{OCLC|5154890}}. Copenhagen: Levin & Munksgaard, 1937. {{OCLC|1469370}}. New York: Rinehart & Winston, 1969. {{OCLC|463148117}}. Tokyo: Senjo, 1971. {{OCLC|21741533}}. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984; with an introduction by James D. McCawley. {{ISBN|0-226-39880-3}}.
* {{Anchor|autobio}}''En Sprogmands Levned'' ("A linguist's life"). Copenhagen, 1938. {{OCLC|7136679}}. [Jespersen's autobiography.]
**''A Linguist's Life: An English Translation of Otto Jespersen's Autobiography with Notes, Photos and a Bibliography.'' Translated by David Stoner, edited by Arne Juul, [[Hans Frede Nielsen]] and [[Jørgen Erik Nielsen]], foreword by Paul Christophersen. Odense: Odense University Press, 1995. ({{ISBN|87-7838-132-0}})
* ''Sproget: Barnet, Kvinden, Slægten'' ("Language: Child, woman, family"). Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 1941. {{OCLC|247794469}}.
* ''Efficiency in Linguistic Change''. Det Kongelige Danske Videnskabernes Selskab. Historisk-filosofiske Meddelelser 27, 4, 1941. 2nd ed. Copenhagen: Ejnar Munksgaard, 1949. 3rd ed. Copenhagen: Ejnar Munksgaard, 1969. [http://publ.royalacademy.dk/books/253/1534?lang=en At the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters]. ''[[#selected_writings|Selected Writings]].'' 1960. Pp. 381–466. ''Selected Writings.'' 2010. Pp. 190–231.
* {{Anchor|selected_writings}}''Selected Writings.'' London: George Allen & Unwin; Tokyo: Senjo, 1960. {{OCLC|213821474}}. [https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.282785/mode/2up At the Internet Archive]. London: Routledge, 2010. {{ISBN|978-0-415-57137-1}}, {{ISBN|978-0-203-85719-9}}.
==Political and other views==
Jespersen was "an idealist and a pacifist";{{Sfnp|Christophersen|1989|p=4}} and "It is no surprise that Jespersen, with his communicative view of language, his work in foreign language teaching, ''and'' his pacifism, should have been attracted to the idea of an international language." {{Sfnp|Larsen|1989|p=101}}
He was "a rationalist and a radical".{{Sfnp|Sørensen|1989|p=39}} And "typical of his approach"{{Sfnp|Christophersen|1989|p=4}} was Jespersen's application of:
<blockquote>the formula I put forward in 1908, and which since then has been very often quoted by [[Ido|Idists]]: ''That international language is best which in every point offers the greatest facility to the greatest number'' (modelled, of course, on [[Francis Hutcheson (philosopher)|Hutcheson]]'s and [[Jeremy Bentham|Bentham]]'s famous dictum: That action is best, which accomplishes the greatest happiness for the greatest numbers).<ref>As presented, the dictum is a direct quotation (with minor typographic changes) from Hutcheson. {{Cite book | first=Francis | last=Hutcheson | author-link=Francis Hutcheson (philosopher) | title=An Inquiry into the Original of our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue; in Two Treatises . . . | year=1725 | ___location=London <!-- No "publisher=", as the title page shows that this predates "publishers" --> | oclc=745209572 | page=164 | url=https://archive.org/details/bim_eighteenth-century_an-inquiry-into-the-orig_hutcheson-francis_1725/page/164/mode/2up | via=Internet Archive}} Jespersen writes this in {{Cite book | first=Otto | last=Jespersen | title=An International Language | orig-year=1928 | year=<!-- Not specified --> | ___location=[Paris] | publisher=Feedbooks | pages=41–42 | url=http://covers.feedbooks.net/userbook/14934.pdf?t=1282324854&filename=Otto+Jespersen+-+An+International+Language | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160309064850if_/http://covers.feedbooks.net/userbook/14934.pdf?t=1282324854&filename=Otto+Jespersen+-+An+International+Language | archive-date=9 March 2016 | via=Wayback Machine}} (Also [https://viewer.onb.ac.at/10B876CB first edition], via [[Österreichische Nationalbibliothek]], p. 52. Jespersen does not identify the 1908 publication.)</ref></blockquote>
Politically, Jespersen leant to the left:{{Sfnp|Christophersen|1989|p=5}}
<blockquote>By temperament he belonged to no party for he could never endorse any party-political platform to the full, but he was closest to the [[Social Democrats (Denmark)|Social Democrats]] in their ideas about [[social justice]], [[equal opportunity]] and the like</blockquote>
He had a "dislike of anything that is stilted and pretentious and aimed at making the writer appear more important than he is".{{Sfnp|Christophersen|1989|p=6}}
<blockquote>Lack of respect for authority and tradition was an important part of Jespersen's personality. . . . Intellectually Jespersen's inclination to go his own way expressed itself in [[scepticism]] and an urge to contradict.{{Sfnp|Christophersen|1989|p=8}}</blockquote>
==Personal life==
As a student, Jespersen enjoyed chess and reading French and English literature.{{Sfnp|Nielsen|1989b|p=14}}
Jespersen married Ane Marie Djørup on 13 April 1897; the couple, later together with their son (Frans{{Sfnp|Thomas|2011|p=152}}),<!-- Nielsen is a lot more informative on family material than is Thomas, but Thomas alone names the son. --> lived in [[Frederiksberg]] (administratively outside Copenhagen but geographically part of it), until their move in 1901 to Ermelundsly, a large house in [[Jægersborg]], near [[Gentofte]]. In 1934 they again moved, to Lundehave, a large house in the outskirts of [[Helsingør]], provided by the [[Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters]] for a distinguished academician.{{Sfnp|Nielsen|1989b|p=20}}
Ane Marie died on 30 March 1937. Jespersen became ill in December 1942; he died on 30 April 1943, and his urn was interred in a cemetery at [[Helsingør]].{{Sfnp|Nielsen|1989b|pp=25–26}}
==Notes==
{{Notelist}}
==References==
{{Reflist}}
==Works cited==
{{refbegin|2}}
<!-- A -->
* {{Cite book|first1=Bas|last1=Aarts|first2=Sylvia|last2=Chalker|first3=Edmund|last3=Weiner|authorlink3=Edmund Weiner|title=The Oxford Dictionary of English Grammar|date=2014|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-174444-0|edition=2nd|___location=Oxford}}
* {{Cite book | title=The Oxford Handbook of the History of Linguistics | editor-first=Keith | editor-last=Allan | editor-link=Keith Allan (linguist) | ___location=Oxford | publisher=Oxford University Press | year=2013 | isbn=978-0-19-958584-7 | doi=10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199585847.013.0002}}
** {{harvc | in1=Allan | year=2013 | chapter=Orthography and the early history of phonetics | first=Michael K. C. | last=MacMahon | pages=105–122 | doi=10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199585847.013.0006}}
** {{harvc | in1=Allan | year=2013 | chapter=The origins and the evolution of language | first=Salikoko S. | last=Mufwene | author-link=Salikoko Mufwene | pages=13–52 | doi=10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199585847.013.0002}}
<!-- B -->
* {{Cite book | author-link=Hans Basbøll |last=Basbøll | first=Hans | year=2021 | chapter-url=https://portal.findresearcher.sdu.dk/en/publications/otto-jespersen-a-great-phonetician-and-linguist-in-his-danish-con | chapter=Otto Jespersen: A great phonetician and linguist in his Danish context | editor-last=Qu |editor-first=Changliang <!-- 曲長亮 --> | script-title=zh:叶斯柏森论语音 = ''Otto Jespersen on Phonetics'' | ___location=Beijing | publisher=Commercial Press | pages=436–470 | isbn=9787100202923 | via=University of Southern Denmark}}
<!-- C -->
<!-- D -->
<!-- E -->
<!-- F -->
* {{Cite journal | last=Falk | first=Julia S. | author-link=Julia S. Falk | year=1992 | title=Otto Jespersen, Leonard Bloomfield, and American structural linguistics | journal=Language | volume=68 | number=3 | pages=465–491 | doi=10.2307/415791 | jstor=415791}}
* {{Cite journal | last=Falk | first=Julia S. | author-link=Julia S. Falk | title=Words without grammar: Linguists and the international language movement in the United States | journal=Language and Communication | volume=15 | number=3 | pages=241–259 | year=1995 | doi=10.1016/0271-5309(95)00010-N}}
<!-- G -->
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* {{Cite book | chapter=Otto Jespersen | chapter-url=https://publish.iupress.indiana.edu/read/untitled-82cf7470-9317-4434-915b-f0f25f3620fe/section/3e680b2e-39bb-434b-b6b1-022bcc522231 | first=Niels | last=Haislund | editor-first=Thomas A. | editor-last=Sebeok | editor-link=Thomas A. Sebeok | title=Portraits of Linguists: A Biographical Sourcebook for the History of Western Linguistics, 1746–1963: 2, From Eduard Sievers to Benjamin Lee Whorf | ___location=Bloomington | publisher=Indiana University Press | year=1966 | orig-date=1943 }} Reprint of {{Cite journal| title=Otto Jespersen |first=Niels |last=Haislund | journal=Englische Studien | volume=75 |year=1943 | pages=273–282 | language=en}}
* {{Cite journal | first=Louis | last=Hjelmslev | author-link=Louis Hjelmslev | title=Otto Jespersen | journal=Acta Linguistica | volume=3 | year=1943 | pages=119–130 | url=https://archive.org/details/acta-linguistica-hafniensia_1942-1943_3/page/118/mode/2up | via=Internet Archive | language=fr}} Reprinted within {{Cite book | pages=41–54 | first=Louis | last=Hjelmslev | chapter=Otto Jespersen | title=Essais linguistiques II | series=Travaux du Cercle Linguistique de Copenhague | volume=14 | ___location=Copenhagen | publisher=Nordisk Sprog- og Kulturforlag | year=1973 | url=https://lingvistkredsen.ku.dk/udgivelser/travaux/arkiv/tclc_14.pdf}} Also reprinted within {{Cite book | chapter-url=https://publish.iupress.indiana.edu/read/untitled-82cf7470-9317-4434-915b-f0f25f3620fe/section/3e680b2e-39bb-434b-b6b1-022bcc522231 | first1=Niels | last1=Haislund | first2=Louis | last2=Hjelmslev | chapter=Otto Jespersen (1860–1943) | editor-first=Thomas A. | editor-last=Sebeok | editor-link=Thomas A. Sebeok | title=Portraits of Linguists: A Biographical Sourcebook for the History of Western Linguistics, 1746–1963: 2, From Eduard Sievers to Benjamin Lee Whorf | ___location=Bloomington | publisher=Indiana University Press | year=1966 }}
* {{Cite book |last1=Hovdhaugen | first1=Even | author-link1=Even Hovdhaugen | first2=Fred | last2=Karlsson | author-link2=Fred Karlsson | first3=Carol | last3=Henriksen | first4=Bengt | last4=Sigurd | year=2000 | title=The History of Linguistics in the Nordic Countries | ___location=Helsinki | publisher=Societas Scientiarum Fennica | isbn=951-653-305-1}} (Also [https://web.archive.org/web/20170830011352/http://www.ling.helsinki.fi/~fkarlsso/Hist_Ling_Nord.pdf preprint].)
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* {{Cite book | last=Jespersen | first=Otto | year=1894 | title=Progress in Language: With Special Reference to English | ___location=London | publisher=Swan Sonnenschein | oclc=607098829 | url=https://archive.org/details/cu31924026448203 | via=Internet Archive}}
* {{Cite magazine | last=Jespersen | first=Otto | year=1907 | title=Mands sprog og kvindes taie | trans-title=Man's language and women's speech | magazine=Gads Danske Magasin | pages=581–592 | lang=da}}
* {{Cite book | first=Otto | last=Jespersen | title=Language: Its Nature, Development, and Origin | ___location=London | publisher=George Allen & Unwin | year=1922 | oclc=1523115677 | url=https://archive.org/details/languageitsnatur00jespiala/page/n5/mode/2up | via=Internet Archive}}
* {{Cite book | first=Otto | last=Jespersen | title=An International Language | ___location=London | publisher=George Allen & Unwin | year=1928 | url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015004290410&seq=9 | via=Hathitrust | oclc=251023739}}
* {{Cite book | last=Jespersen | first=Otto | year=1941 | title=Sproget: Barnet, Kvinden, Slægten | trans-title=Language: Child, woman, family | ___location=Copenhagen | publisher=Gyldendal | oclc=247794469 | lang=da}}
* {{Cite book | editor-last1=Juul | editor-first1=Arne | editor-link2=Hans Frede Nielsen | editor-first2=Hans F. | editor-last2=Nielsen | title=Otto Jespersen: Facets of His Life and Work | series=Amsterdam Studies in the Theory and History of Linguistic Science 52 | ___location=Amsterdam | publisher=John Benjamins | year=1989 | isbn=9789027278357 | url=https://archive.org/details/ottojespersenfac0000unse | via=Internet Archive}}
** {{harvc | first=Paul | last=Christophersen | chapter=Otto Jespersen | pages=1–11 | in1=Juul | in2=Nielsen | year=1989}}
** {{harvc | first=W. Nelson | last=Francis | author-link=W. Nelson Francis | chapter=Otto Jespersen as grammarian | pages=79–99 | in1=Juul | in2=Nielsen | year=1989}}
** {{harvc | first=Fritz | last=Larsen | chapter=Jespersen's new international auxiliary language | pages=101–122 | in1=Juul | in2=Nielsen | year=1989}}
** {{harvc | first=Hans Frede | last=Nielsen | author-link=Hans Frede Nielsen | chapter=On Otto Jespersen's view of language evolution | pages=61–78 | in1=Juul | in2=Nielsen | year=1989 | anchor-year=1989a}}
** {{harvc | first=Jørgen Erik | last=Nielsen | author-link=Jørgen Erik Nielsen | chapter=Otto Jespersen and Copenhagen University | pages=13–28 | in1=Juul | in2=Nielsen | year=1989 | anchor-year=1989b}}
** {{harvc | first=Jørgen | last=Rischel | author-link=Jørgen Rischel | chapter=Otto Jespersen's contribution to Danish and general phonetics | pages=43–60 | in1=Juul | in2=Nielsen | year=1989}}
** {{harvc | first=Knud | last=Sørensen | author-link= | chapter=The teaching of English in Denmark and Otto Jespersen | pages=29–41 | in1=Juul | in2=Nielsen | year=1989}}
** {{harvc | first=Hans | last=Vejleskov | chapter=Otto Jespersen's thinking about child language | pages=123–146 | in1=Juul | in2=Nielsen | year=1989}}
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* {{Cite journal | first=Inge | last=Kabell | date=November 2000 | title=Jespersen and Franke: An academic friendship by correspondence | journal=Henry Sweet Society for the History of Linguistic Ideas Bulletin | volume=35 | number=1 | pages=27–37 | doi=10.1080/02674971.2000.11745522}}
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* {{Cite book | first=James D. | last=McCawley | author-link=James D. McCawley | title=The Syntactic Phenomena of English | ___location=Chicago | publisher=University of Chicago Press | year=1988}} Volume 1: {{ISBN|0-226-55623-9}} and {{ISBN|0-226-55624-7}}. Volume 2: {{ISBN|0-226-55625-5}} and {{ISBN|0-226-55626-3}}.
* {{Cite journal | first=James | last=McElvenny | author-link=James McElvenny | title=Linguistic aesthetics from the nineteenth to the twentieth century: The case of Otto Jespersen's ''Progress in Language'' | journal=History of Humanities | issn=2379-3163 | eissn=2379-3171 | date=September 2017 | pages=417–442 | doi=10.1086/693322}}
* {{Cite book | title=Language and Meaning in the Age of Modernism: C. K. Ogden and his Contemporaries | first=James |last=McElvenny | ___location=Edinburgh | publisher=Edinburgh University Press | year=2018 | isbn=978-1-4744-2503-2}} (Also {{ISBN|978-1-4744-2504-9}} and {{ISBN|978-1-4744-2505-6}}.)
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* {{Cite journal | title=English language studies in Denmark | first=Lektor K. V. | last=Olsen | journal=ELT Journal | volume=1 | number=6 | date=May 1947 | pages=157–162 | doi=10.1093/elt/1.6.157}}
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* {{Cite book | first=Margaret | last=Thomas | title=Fifty Key Thinkers on Language and Linguistics | ___location=Abingdon, Oxfordshire | publisher=Routledge | year=2011 | isbn=978-0-415-37302-9}} (Also {{ISBN|978-0-415-37303-6}} and {{ISBN|978-0-203-81448-2}}.)
* {{Cite journal | first=Margaret | last=Thomas | title=Otto Jespersen and 'The woman', then and now | journal=Historiographia Linguistica | year=2013 | volume=40 | number=3 | pages=377–408 | doi=10.1075/hl.40.3.03tho}} (Postprint also available: {{Cite web | title=Otto Jespersen and 'The woman', then and now | first=Margaret | last=Thomas | date=n.d. | hdl=2345/bc-ir:107506 | hdl-access=free | url=https://dlib.bc.edu/islandora/object/bc-ir:107506/datastream/PDF/view | via=Boston College University Libraries}})
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* {{Cite book | first=Ton | last=van der Wouden | title=Negative Contexts: Collocation, Polarity and Multiple Negation | ___location=London | publisher=Routledge | year=1997 | isbn=0-415-13849-3}}
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* {{Cite book | first1=Przemysław | last1=Żywiczyński | first2=Sławomir | last2=Wacewicz | title=The Evolution of Language: Towards Gestural Hypotheses | series=Dis/continuities: Toruń Studies in Language, Literature and Culture | ___location=Berlin | publisher=Peter Lang | year=2019 | isbn=978-3-631-79022-9}} (Also {{ISBN|978-3-631-79393-0}}.)
{{refend}}
==Further reading==
* Andersen, Alsing;<!-- Not sure if this is the famed Alsing Andersen (the Socialist) --> [[Vilhelm Andersen]]; {{Ill|Carl Adolf Bodelsen|da|C.A. Bodelsen|sv|Carl Adolf Bodelsen}}; [[Harald Bohr]]; [[Niels Bohr]]; [[Viggo Brøndal]]; Torsten Dahl; Niels Haislund; Chr. <!-- Christian? Christopher? something else? --> Nielsen; [[Valdemar Poulsen]]; Valdemar Østerberg, eds. ''Hilsen til Otto Jespersen på Firs-aarsdagen 16. juli 1940'' ("Greetings to Otto Jespersen on his eightieth birthday, 16 July 1940"). Copenhagen: Munksgaard, 1940. {{OCLC|13021793}}
* Bøgholm, Niels; Aage Brusendorff; and {{Ill|Carl Adolf Bodelsen|da|C.A. Bodelsen|sv|Carl Adolf Bodelsen}}, eds. ''A Grammatical Miscellany Offered to Otto Jespersen on His Seventieth Birthday.'' Copenhagen: Levin & Munksgaard; London: George Allen & Unwin, 1930. {{OCLC|2335192}}.
* Cerbasi, Donato. ''Introduzione ad Otto Jespersen.'' Rome: Nuova Cultura, 2011. {{ISBN|9788861347649}}.
* {{Nihongo2|石橋幸太郎、他}} ({{Ill|Kōtarō Ishibashi|lt=Ishibashi, Kōtarō|ja|石橋幸太郎}}; et al). {{Nihongo2|O.イエスペルセン}} (''O. Jespersen''). {{Nihongo2|不死鳥英文法ライブラリ}}. Tokyo: Nan'undō, 1964. {{NCID|BN07459377}}.
* {{Nihongo2|宮畑一郎}} (Miyahata, Ichirō). {{Nihongo2|イェスペルセン研究}} (''Jespersen kenkyū''). Tokyo: Kobian Shobō, 1985. {{ISBN|4875580207}}, {{NCID|BN00673040}}.
* [[Jørgen Erik Nielsen|Nielsen, Jørgen Erik]]; and Arne Zettersten, eds. ''A Literary Miscellany: Proceedings of the Otto Jespersen Symposium April 29–30, 1993.'' Copenhagen: Department of English, University of Copenhagen, 1994. {{ISBN|8788648605}}.
==External links==
{{Ido sidebar |expanded=History}}
* {{Commonscatinline}}
* {{wikisource-inline}}
* {{Gutenberg author|id=47187}}
* {{Internet Archive author |sname=Otto Jespersen}}
* "[http://interlanguages.net/OJbiblio.html Otto Jespersen Online Bibliography]", ''International Auxiliary Languages.''
* "[http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/302975/Otto-Jespersen Otto Jespersen]", ''Encyclopædia Britannica''
* {{Cite web | last=McElvenny | first=James | title=Otto Jespersen and progress in international language | website=History and Philosophy of the Language Sciences | date= 15 May 2013 | url=https://hiphilangsci.net/2013/05/15/otto-jespersen-and-progress-in-international-language/}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Jespersen, Otto}}
[[Category:Otto Jespersen|*]]
[[Category:Linguists of English]]
[[Category:1860 births]]
[[Category:1943 deaths]]
[[Category:Academic staff of the University of Copenhagen]]
[[Category:Constructed language creators]]
[[Category:Corresponding fellows of the British Academy]]
[[Category:Danish autobiographers]]
[[Category:Historical linguists of English]]
[[Category:Humboldt University of Berlin alumni]]
[[Category:Idists]]
[[Category:Linguists of Germanic languages]]
[[Category:Members of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences]]
[[Category:19th-century Danish linguists]]
[[Category:Novial]]
[[Category:People from Frederiksberg]]
[[Category:People from Gentofte Municipality]]
[[Category:People from Helsingør]]
[[Category:People from Hillerød Municipality]]
[[Category:People from Randers]]
[[Category:Phoneticians]]
[[Category:Rectors of the University of Copenhagen]]
[[Category:Syntacticians]]
[[Category:20th-century Danish linguists]]
[[Category:University of Copenhagen alumni]]
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