Jurij Kusmenko is Professor Emeritus at the Institute of Northern
Europe at Humboldt University of Berlin and senior researcher at the
Institute for Linguistic Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, St.
Petersburg. He received his PhD and habilitation (Dr. Habil.) at the
Institute of Linguistics of the Soviet Academy of Sciences (1970); he is
also Doctor Honoris Causa of Vilnius University (2011). Jurij Kusmenko
has served as head of the Department for Comparative Study of the
Indo-European Languages and Areal Linguistics at the Institute of
Linguistics, St. Petersburg (1988–1994) as well as professor at the
Institute of Northern Europe at the Humboldt University of Berlin
(1994–2007). He has published over 140 articles and four books on the
history of the Germanic languages, historical phonology and grammar of
the Scandinavian languages, runology, history of Scandinavian
linguistics, Sámi-Scandinavian and West Germanic-Scandinavian contacts.
