• Saul Levin
  • Date of Birth: July 13, 1921
  • Born City: Chicago
  • Born State/Country: IL
  • Parents: Nathan S. & Rose Finken L.
  • Date of Death: March 4, 2021
  • Death City: Chandler
  • Death State/Country: AZ
  • Married: Ruth Harris, March 17, 1951 (div. 1970s).
  • Education:

    A.B ., U. of Chicago, 1942; Ph.D.,  1949; U.S. Army Signal Corps, 1942-6; Society of Fellows. Harvard, 1946-9.

  • Dissertation:

    "'Archo' and "Arche'" (Chicago, 1949)

  • Professional Experience:

    Instr. classics, U. of Chicago 1949-51; asst. prof. to assoc. prof., Washington U. (St. Louis), 1951-61; prof. SUNY Binghamton (now Binghamton University, SUNY) 1961-90; Distinguished Professor of Ancient Languages, 1990-2000; founder, Center for Medieval and Early Renaissance Studies; co-ed., General Linguistics

  • Publications:

    “Love and the Hero in the Iliad,” TAPA 80 (1949) 37-49; “Who Composed the OdysseyCJ 45 (1950) 271; “The Significance of Ethnic Classes in Greek and English,” TAPA 81 (1950) 130-52; “Προσκηδής, Mournful,” CP 45 (1950) 110-11; Εἰς Ῥώμην, To Rome (trans.) (Glencoe, IL: The Free Press, 1950); “Xenophon on the Surrender of Athens, Journal of General Education 5 (1951) 271-9; “An Exercise in Reading History. Xenophon on the Surrender of Athens,” Journal of General Education 5 (1951) 271-9; “The Problem of Verifying the Linear B Decipherment,” AJA 63 (1959) 189-90; The Linear B Decipherment Controversy Reexamined (Albany, NY: State U. of New York Press, 1964); “The Fallacy of a Universal List of Basic Vocabulary,” Proceedings of the Ninth International Congress of Linguists, Cambridge, Mass. Aug. 27-31, 1962, ed. Horace G. Lunt (Den Haag: Mouton, 1964) 232-6; “Greek and Non-Greek Inflections in Linear B,” in Mycenaean Studies. Proceedings of the Third International Colloquium for Mycenaean Studies Held at Wingspread, 4-8 September 1961, ed. Emmett L. Bennett (Madison, WI; U. of Wisconsin Press, 1964) 147-56; “Further Remarks,” in Mycenaean Studies. Proceedings of the Third International Colloquium for Mycenaean Studies Held at Wingspread, 4-8 September 1961, ed. Emmett L. Bennett (Madison, WI; U. of Wisconsin Press, 1964) 157-9; “The Non-Greek Prefix o- in Linear B Tablets,” Arion 6 (1967) 266-8; “Anomalies of Homeric Greek, Clarified by Semitic Parallels,” Europa. Studien zur Geschichte und Epigraphik der frühen Ägäis. Festschrift für Ernst Grumach, ed. William C. Brice (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1967) 194-203; “St. Paul's Ideology for the Urbanized Roman Empire,” Concordia Theological Monthly 39 (1968) 607-11; “The Persistence of Classical Latin in the Middle Ages” Northeast Modern Languages Assoc. Newsletter 1 (1969) 2; “Remarks on the ‘Historical’ Present and Comparable Phenomena,” Foundation of Language 5 (1969) 386-90; “Indo-European Penetration of the Civilized Aegean World, as Seen in the Horse Tablet of Knosos (Ca 895),” Congresso di micenologia 1967. Atti e memorie (1969) 1179-85;  “Grassmann's ‘Law’ in the Early Semitic Loan-Word χιτών, κιθών,” SMEA 8 (1969) 66-75; “The Nikandre Inscription (Schwyzer 788) and the myth of the Indo-European long *Ā,” Kadmos 9 (1970) 157-65; The Indo-European and Semitic Languages: an Exploration of Structural Similarities Related to Accent, Chiefly in Greek, Sanskrit, and Hebrew (Albany, NY: State U. of New York Press, 1971); “The Etymology of νέκταρ. Exotic Scents in Early Greece,” SMEA 13 (1971) 31-50; “Know Thyself. Inner Compulsions Uncovered by Oracles,” Fons perennis. Saggi critici di filologia classica raccolti in onore di Vittorio d'Agostino (Turin: Amministr. Della RSC, 1971) 231-57; “ἴττω Ζεύς. Boeotians Using Their Dialect or Conforming to the National κοινή,” Proceedings of the First International Conference on Boiotian Antiquities. Actes du premier congrès international sur la Béotie antique (Montreal: McGill U., Dept. of Classics, 1972) 51-60; “Greek with Substrate Phenomena or ‘a Jargon’––What is the Difference?,” Kadmos 11 (1972) 129-39; “An Author's Reply. Levin to Messing,” CP 69 (1974) 294-5; “The Letter H in Early Naxian Inscriptions. A Reply to M. Lejeune,” RPh 48 (1974) 96-9; “Diotima's Visit and Service to Athens,” GB 3 (1975) 223-40; “The Superlative in Latin and the Romance Languages,” Views on Language (Murfreesboro, TN: Inter-University Publishers, 1975) 228-34; “Greek Occupational Terms with Semitic Counterparts,” The First LACUS Forum 1974 (Columbia, SC: Hornbeam Press, 1975) 246-63; “The Indo-European and Semitic Languages. A Reply to Oswald Szemerényi,” General Linguistics 15 (1975) 197-205; “Greek Occupational Terms with Semitic Counterparts,” Paleontologia linguistica. Atti del VI Convegno internazionale di linguisti tenuto a Milano nei giorni 2-6 settembre 1974 (Brescia: Paideia, 1977) 175-80; “Something Stolen: a Semitic Participle and an Indo-European Neuter Substantive,” Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 4 (1977) 317-39; “The Perfumed Goddess,” Bucknell Review 24 (1978) 49-59; “Scholarly and Literary Bilingualism,” The Fourth LACUS Forum 1977 (Columbia, SC: Hornbeam Press, 1978) 226-35; “The Connective Particles in Classical Greek Discourse V-VI,” CUNY Forum Papers in Linguistics (Flushing, NY: Queens College Press, 1978-9) 52-8; “Homo: Humus and the Semitic Counterparts. The oldest Culturally Significant Etymology,” in Amsterdam Studies in the History of Linguistic Science Series IV, Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 13 (1979) 207-15; “Jocasta and Moses' Mother Jochebed,” Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Boiotian Antiquities (McGill University, Montreal 2-4.11.1973)ed. John M. Fossey & Albert Schachter (Montreal: McGill U., Dept. of Classics, 1979) 49-61; “Predication through an Obligatory Copulative Verb,” The Fifth LACUS Forum 1978 (Columbia, SC: Hornbeam Press, 1979) 503-9; “εἰμί, I Am in Early Attic,” General Linguistics 20 (1980) 181-91; “The Imperative, in Relation to Other Verbal Forms or Functions,” The Sixth LACUS Forum 1979 (Columbia, SC: Hornbeam Press, 1980) 162-9; “The Significance of Dialect Words in Greek Literature I: The Homeric Word for Goddess,” General Linguistics 21 (1981) 236-47; “The Greek Diacritical Marks and Their Application to Other Languages in the Renaissance,” General Linguistics 22 (1982) 21-37; “The Significance of Dialect Words in Greek Literature II: The Doric Tinge in Lyrical Passages in Attic tragedy,” General Linguistics 22 (1982) 79-98; The Significance of Dialect Words in Greek Literature III: Non-Attic Names in Thucydides’ History,” General Linguistics 22 (1982) 143-57; “Syllabic Writing and the Discovery of Root-Verbs,” The Ninth LACUS Forum 1982 (Columbia, SC: Linguistic Association of Canada and the United States, 1982) 505-12; “The Significance of Dialect Words in Greek Literature IV: The Feminine Suffix -ισσα (>ess).” General Linguistics 22 (1982) 217-25; “Aristotle's Theory of Metaphor,” Ph&Rh 15 (1982) 24-46; “The Origin of Grammar in Sophistry,” General Linguistics23 (1983) 41-7; “Hebrew pi(y)lέgεš, Greek παλλακή, Latin paelex. The Origin of Intermarriage among the Early Indo-Europeans and Semites,” General Linguistics 23 (1983) 191-7; “The Cases of Nouns and Pronouns in Ancient Indo-European Languages. Morphology at Odds with Syntax,” The Eleventh LACUS Forum 1984 (Columbia, SC: Hornbeam Press, 1984) 447-57; “De productis a correptis vocalibus sedulo distinguendis,” Hermes Americanus 2 (1984) 166-72; “Indo-European Descriptive Adjectives with Oxytone Accent and Semitic Stative Verbs,” General Linguistics 24 (1984) 83-110; “Plutarch’s Part in the damnatio memoriae of the emperor Domitian,” in La Béotie antique, Lyon-Saint-Étienne, 16-20 mai 1983 (Paris: Éd. du CNRS, 1985) 283-7; “The Significance of Dialect Words in Greek Literature V: χρᾶϝ and χρῆσθαι/χρᾶσθαι in Atticistic Texts,” General Linguistics 25 (1985) 211-17; “Communing with Teiresias,” in Actes du troisième congrès international su la Boétie antique, Montréal-Québec, 31.x.1979-4.xi.1979, ed. John M. Fossey, Hubert Giroux, & Ginete Gauvin (Amsterdam: Gieben, 1985) 87-91; ‘The Ethnic paradigm as a Pattern for nominal Forms in Greek and Hebrew,” with John Palmer Brown, General Linguistics 26 (1986) 71-105; “The Perennial Language Question among the Greeks,” General Linguistics 27 (1987) 162-72; “A Camel or a Cable through a Needle’s Eye,” in The Fourteenth LACUS Forum 1987 (Lake Bluff, IL: Linguistic Association of Canada and the United States, 1988) 406-15;  “The Early History of Christianity, in Light of the ‘Secret Gospel’ of Mark,” ANRW II. 25,6 (1988) 4270-4292; “The Old Greek Oracles in Decline,” ANRW II, 18,2 (1989) 1599-1649; “The Accentuation of the Boeotian Dialect, According to the Berlin Papyrus of Corinna,” in Boiotika. Vorträge vom 5. Internationalen Böotien-Kolloquium zu Ehren von Professor Dr. Siegfried Lauffer, Institut für Alte Geschichte, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, München, 13.-17. Juni 1986, ed. Hartmut Beister (Munich: Maris, 1989) 17-22; “Adulter(a) ‘The Other (Wo)man’: Clarifying a Troubled Latin Etymology,” The Seventh LACUS Forum 1989 (Lake Bluff, IL: Linguistic Association of Canada and the United States, 1990) 244-9; “From Scrolls to Codex: the Ancient and the Medieval Book,” in A Miscellany of Medieval and Renaissance Studies in Honor of Aldo S. Bernardo, ed. Anthony L. Pellegrini & Bernard S. Levy (Binghamton: State University of New York at Binghamton, 1990) 1-12; “Evidence from Boeotian on the Attic Diphthong OY,” in Essays in the Topography, History and Culture of Boiotia, ed. Albert Schachter (Montreal: McGill University Dept. of Classics, 1990) 135-8; The Classics in the Middle Ages: Papers of the Twentieth Annual Conference of the Center for Medieval and Early Renaissance Studies, with Aldo S. Bernardo (Binghamton, NY: 1990); “Thesmophoros=legifera?: the Import of the Primeval Thesmophoria,” General Linguistics 31 (1991) 1-12; “Le chameau et le trou de l'aiguille: κάμηλος ou κάμιλος?,” L’Information Grammaticale 51 (1991) 35-8; “Studies in Comparative Grammar II: The Prehistory of the Indo-European Thematic Declension, in View of the Semitic Cognates,” General Linguistics 32 (1992) 111-44; “Semitic and Indo-European I: The Definite Article, and Egyptian/Semitic/Indo-European Etymology,” General Lingusitics 32 (1992) 1-15; Semitic and Indo-European. [1],: The Principal Etymologies: with Observations on Afro-Asiatic(Amsterdam: Benjamins, 1995); Semitic and Indo-European 2: Comparative Morphology, Syntax, and Phonetics(Amsterdam: Benjamins 2002); “Σώφρων “firm-midriff(ed)” An Ethical Term Rooted in Childhood Training,” AncW 36 (2005) 213-16.

  • Notes:

          Saul Levin showed a predilection and aptitude for foreign languages as a boy and was guided by this linguistic ability throughout his life. After service in the Army Signal Corps during World War II he pursued Indo-European linguistics with a particular interest in explicating the role of Hebrew as part of the Indo-European family. In the course of his long career, most of which was spent at Binghamton, he wrote on subjects from the ancient world to the Renaissance and was a founder of the Center for Medieval and Early Renaissance Studies.  He co-edited General Linguistics in which he published many articles.  He wrote a number of articles on Linear B tablets and produced a book on the Linear B controversy from Knossos. He also served as Co-Editor of the academic journal General Linguistics for many years. After retiring in 2000 at the age of 78, he continued with scholarly research, publishing two books and many articles. At Binghamton he taught a wide variety of classes in the history and culture of the early Mediterranean.

  • Sources:

    J.P. Maher, "Prolegomena to Saul Lavin's Studies of Semitic and Indo-European," LACUS Forum, 35 (2008). 

  • Author: Ward Briggs