Hans Kurath

Hans Kurath (13 December 1891 – 2 January 1992) was an American linguist of Austrian origin. He was full professor for English and Linguistics at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. The many varieties of regional English that he encountered during his trips convinced Kurath of the necessity of completing a systematic study of American English.

In 1926, he convinced the Modern Language Association to begin planning for the project and in 1931, a pilot study of the New England region was initiated under his direction. It soon became clear, however, that the undertaking was too complex to be completed by a single team of linguists. The project was thus expanded to eight additional regional operations.

Kurath guided the vision and goals of the regional projects for three decades and oversaw the publication of a series of volumes that are known collectively as the Linguistic Atlas of the United States, the first linguistic atlas of the US. That work made him receive the Loubat Prize.

He was also the first main editor of the Middle English Dictionary. Together with Raven I. McDavid, Jr. he also published a linguistic atlas of the Eastern United States, The Pronunciation of English in the Atlantic States.

Kurath was born in Villach, Austria-Hungary. He emigrated to the US in 1907 and became a US citizen in 1912. He studied at the Universities of Texas and Chicago. He did his Ph.D. in 1920. Afterwards, he was professor for German at Northwestern University (1920–1927) and then professor for German and Linguistics at the Ohio State University (1927–1931) and Brown University (1931–1946).

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