Christian Schweigaard Stang

Christian Schweigaard Stang (15 March 1900 – 2 July 1977) was a Norwegian linguist, Slavicist and Balticist, professor in Balto-Slavic languages at the University of Oslo from 1938 until shortly before his death. He specialized in the study of Lithuanian and was highly regarded in Lithuania.

He was born in Kristiania as a son of politician and academic Fredrik Stang (1867–1941) and his wife Caroline Schweigaard (1871–1900). He was a grandson of Emil Stang and Christian Homann Schweigaard, and a nephew of Emil Stang, Jr. He grew up in Kristiania and took his examen artium 1918 at Frogner School.

He received his magister degree in comparative Indo-European linguistics in 1927, and his Ph.D. in 1929. Subsequently he was the University Fellow in comparative Indo-European linguistics for the period 1928-33. From 1938 to 1970 he was professor of Slavonic languages at the University of Oslo. He served as the dean of the Faculty of Humanities from 1958 to 1960.

Stang was recognized as the leading international expert on Slavic Language learning, on the Baltic-Slavonic comparative linguistics, as well as Lithuanian during his period of study. One of Stang's most noted works was "Vergleichende Grammatik der baltischen Sprachen" (in English "Comparative Grammar of the Baltic languages") published in 1966. In addition to his monumental comparative grammar from 1966, his work on the Baltic and Slavonic verb convincingly demonstrated the close historical connections and interrelationships among the Baltic, Slavonic languages and Germanic languages. In his work on Slavonic accents from 1952, he noted that the Slav and Baltic accent system originally had been identical and that the differences are due to later, secondary changes. His research on Balto-Slavic comparative accentology culminated with work Slavonic Accentuation (Oslo, 1957) which, according to Kortlandt, "...marked an era in the study of the subject. The importance of this book can hardly be overestimated." Stang proved in this work that

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