Norbert Jokl

Norbert Jokl
Alma mater	University of Vienna
Occupation	Albanologist
Years active	1903—1942

Norbert Jokl (February 25, 1877 – probably May 1942) was an Austrian Albanologist of Jewish descent who has been called the father of Albanology.

Jokl was born in Bzenec (then Bisenz), Southern Moravia (now the Czech Republic), to Heinrich, a merchant, and Emilie née Haas. His older brother, Willhlem, died in 1895 at the age of 21. He graduated from high school cum laude and entered the University of Vienna to study law. He graduated summa cum laude on June 23, 1901.

Eventually Jokl abandoned his pursuit of legal training, and he decided to devote himself to linguistics. He studied Indo-European linguistics, Slavistics, and Romanistics, eventually receiving a cum laude degree.

In the late autumn of 1903, he started training in the library of the University of Vienna, where he would work until 1938. At the age of 30, he began to actively study the Albanian language, a linguistic field that had not been widely studied at the time.

From 1913, he was a Privatdozent whose field was "Indo-European linguistics with special consideration to Albanian, Baltic and Slavic languages“. In 1923, he became a Professor extraordinarius, and in 1937 a Hofrat. He wrote numerous works on Albanology and became a renowned specialist. In April 1933, the paleontologist and Albanologist Franz Nopcsa (Ferenc Nopcsa) shot his secretary and himself, leaving his Albanological papers to Jokl.

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