Geoffrey Hull

Geoffrey Hull

Geoffrey Stephen Hull (born 6 September 1955) is an Australian linguist, ethnologist and historian who has made contributions to the study of Romance, Celtic, Slavonic, Semitic, Austronesian and Papuan languages, in particular to the relationship between language and culture.

Life and career

Of English and Scots ancestry on his father's side, his maternal family belonged to the Latin community of Egypt (of mixed Maltese, Venetian, Triestine and French descent) which left that country during the post-war period of nationalization (1946–1957).[1] He grew up familiar with the large range of languages spoken in his extended family (French, Maltese, Italian and various dialects of Italy, Occitan, Slovene, Greek and Arabic).[2]

Education and academic career

Hull studied arts at the University of Sydney (1974–1982), completing a doctorate in historical linguistics after dialectological research in Italy and Switzerland. His Ph.D thesis[3] was a reconstruction of the Padanian language underlying the modern Gallo-Italian, Venetian and Ladin dialects. Before graduation he also undertook studies in philosophy and theology at the Aquinas Academy, Sydney.

In his academic career Hull taught in the areas of linguistics and modern and classical European languages at Sydney University, Melbourne University, the University of Wollongong and other Australian tertiary institutions. He is a professional lexicographer and a translator working in over a dozen languages. He is currently an adjunct professor at Macquarie University, Sydney.[4]

Achievements in East Timor and work on the Tetum language

In the 1990s he assisted the East Timorese leadership in exile by standardizing Tetum and creating a range of linguistic and literary resources for this and other languages of East Timor, then under Indonesian occupation. [5] [6][7][8] He was also a member of a human rights delegation organized by the Australian Catholic Social Justice Council which visited the country in 1997 amid escalating violence and reported to the United Nations, the Indonesian Human Rights Commission, the Australian government and the Vatican. In September 1999 he testified before the Australian Senate Inquiry on East Timor on abuses he had witnessed in that country during past visits. [9] [10] From 2001 to 2007 he was research and publications director of the Instituto Nacional de Linguística, the national language authority of the independent state of Timor-Leste. He was the designer, principal author and editor of the national Tetum dictionary[11] and was founder and co-editor of the academic journal Estudos de Línguas e Culturas de Timor-Leste.[12]

Awards

On 22 May 2012, Hull was awarded the honour of Comendador da Ordem do Infante Dom Henrique (Knight Commander of the Order of Prince Henry) by the President of Portugal, Aníbal Cavaco Silva, for services to the Portuguese language.[13]

Other areas of interest

Outside the field of linguistics Hull is known for writings on religious questions, most notably the historical causes and socio-cultural impact of church reforms of the 1960s on the Latin Catholic and Eastern Catholic traditions.[14]

Select publications

Sources

References

  1. ↑ Professor J. Aquilina Interviews Dr Geoffrey Hull (University of Melbourne): Lil Ħutna. Valletta: Dar l-Emigrant, Jnaury-June 1985, pp. 18-21
  2. ↑ Esperança, João Paulo http://webzoom.freewebs.com/jpesperanca/estado_do_tetum.pdf (p.7)
  3. ↑ Hull, Dr Geoffrey (1982) "The Linguistic Unity of Northern Italy and Rhaetia", PhD thesis, Western Sydney University, MacArthur.
  4. ↑ http://www.ling.mq.edu.au/clsl/people.htm
  5. ↑ Esperança, João Paulo. O que é a Lusofonia/Saida maka Luzofonia. Baucau: Instituto Camões – Centro de Língua Portuguesa de Díli, 2005, pp. 36-38.
  6. ↑ Timor Oriental: n'est-ce qu'il qu'une question politique? Églises d'Asie: Agence d'Information des Missions Etrangères de Paris, Dossiers et documents No. 9/92, 1992.
  7. ↑ Timor-Leste: Identidade, Língua e Política Educacional. Lisbon: Ministério dos Negócios Estrangeiros/Instituto Camões, 2001.
  8. ↑ (Geoffrey Hull, Lance Eccles). Gramática da Língua Tétum. Lisbon: Lidel, 2005.
  9. ↑ Testimony of Dr Geoffrey Hull. 10 September 1999." Australian Senate Inquiry on East Timor. Canberra: Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, 1999, Hansard 508-512.
  10. ↑ http://www.aph.gov.au/senate/committee/FADT_CTTE/completed_inquiries/1999-02/east_timor/report/c05.htm
  11. ↑ Disionáriu Nasionál ba Tetun Ofisiál
  12. ↑ Aone van Engelenhoven, "Ita-nia Nasaun Oin-ida, Ita-nia Dalen Sira Oin-Seluk - Our Nation is One, Our Languages are Different: Language Policy in East Timor." In Paulo Castro Seixas e Aone van Engelenhoven, eds. Diversidade Cultural na Construção da Nação e do Estado em Timor-Leste. Porto: Edições Universidade Fernando Pessoa, 2006, pp. 106-127.
  13. ↑ Cavaco elogia Acordo Ortográfico mas confessa que em casa ainda escreve à moda antiga, Público, 22 May 2012
  14. ↑ The Banished Heart: Origins of Heteropraxis in the Catholic Church. London: T&T Clark, 2010.
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