Lars-Gunnar Larsson, a professor at the University of Uppsala in Sweden, is one of the most remarkable Sami language researchers.
In his various publications he discusses questions concerning the descriptive grammar of the Sami languages. His has also published papers on language contacts between Uralic and Indo-European languages, Finnic languages, historical lexicology, and research on regional names as well. An important part of his professional career is also the development of Hungarian studies in Sweden. Besides, his contribution to scientific supervising is also remarkable: 17 PhD dissertations have been published under his supervision.
Larson has a very impressive knowledge of languages. He speaks and researches Hungarian, Finnish, Estonian, and many variants of Sami. During his university studies, he studied Arabian and Sanskrit, and chose Litvanian and Tamil as his minor subjects. He speaks fluent English, German and Russian as well. He is a member of the European Languages Atlas, as well as many scientific academies and societies in various countries. In honor of his 65th birthday, a Commemorative Volume was published in Wiesbaden.
He visited Debrecen for the first time in 1975, when he attended Hungarian language classes at the summer university. Since then Debrecen has been of special interest for him when cooperating with Hungarians. He has visited our department as a visiting professor several times, and his Sami study book is used in our Sami language classes. He has also worked as a reviewer of PhD dissertations concerning Sami languages. He is a member of the editorial board of the annual book of our department, and he publishes papers with us regularly. We are already planning to invite him as an associate member of our doctoral school. Currently he is also working on an etymological dictionary edited by Prof. emer. László Keresztes.