CHaralampos P. Symeonidis

Professor Charalambos P. Symeonidis studied classical philology and linguistics at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (1952-1956). He pursued postgraduate studies as a scholar of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft at the Universities of Bonn, Cologne, and Munich (1965-1970), specializing in general linguistics, historical-comparative linguistics, and Balkan linguistics. He served at the University of Thessaloniki for over 40 years from 1960 onwards. Since 2001, he has taught as a visiting professor alternately in the Department of Turkish Studies and the Department of Classical Studies at the University of Cyprus, where he continues to teach primarily at the postgraduate level. He introduced Balkan linguistics in Greece in the early 1970s with numerous articles of Balkan interest and especially with the books "Lautlehre der turkischen Lehnworter im neugriechischen Dialekt des Pontos (1968-1972)" and "Der Vokalismus der griechischen Lehworter im Turkischen (1970-1974)." He is a member (often a founding member) of Greek and European linguistic societies. Honors and Awards: - 1966-1968: Research scholarship from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, Universities of Cologne and Bonn - 1969-1970: Habilitation scholarship from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, University of Munich - 1970: First prize (with a monetary award) from the Gesellschaft für Südosteuropa-Forschung for the best work in the field of Balkan studies "Der Vokalismus der griechischen Lehworter im Turkischen" (= The Vocalism of Greek Loanwords in Turkish, habilitation thesis) - 1988: Award of the honorary distinction (the medal "1300 years since the founding of the Bulgarian state") for his contribution to the area of mutual Greek-Slavic linguistic contacts. He has published 18 books and over 100 articles in Greek and international journals. His work focuses on the history of the Greek language and its dialects from ancient times to the present. A significant portion of his work examines the mutual contacts of Greek with Balkan languages, particularly Turkish, Bulgarian, and Albanian. His scientific hobby is the study of anthroponyms and toponyms. The two-volume "Etymological Dictionary of Modern Greek Oikonyms," whose foundation (i.e., the first records) was laid in 1960 when the author served as a scientific collaborator at the Manolis Triantafyllidis Foundation of A.U.Th., is the result of intensive and entirely personal work and constitutes the lifelong work of a passionate onomastics scholar. His teaching as a visiting professor at the University of Cyprus directed his research interest towards the Cypriot dialect. Thus, in 2001, his book "The Greek Linguistic Influence on the System of Proper Names in Old Church Slavonic and Particularly Bulgarian" was published in Nicosia (Center for Scientific Research, no. XXXII), (183 pages). This book was translated into Bulgarian in 2006 by the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at Sofia University. In 2006, the "History of the Cypriot Dialect from the 7th Century BC to the Present" was published by the publications of the Center for Studies of the Holy Monastery of Kykkos. Professor Symeonidis's research program of Cypriot interest includes a series of fundamental infrastructure works aimed at facilitating the study of the dialect now that Cyprus, with the recent establishment of its University, is no longer dependent but aims to achieve research autonomy.