First and Third Prize to Indo-Europeanists from University of Copenhagen

At the annual prize competition for the best Master’s thesis by the Society for Indo‑European Studies, two graduates from the University of Copenhagen have won the first and third prizes respectively.

Louise Skydsbjerg Friis won first prize for her thesis The sigmatic aorist and Hittite – twists and turns in search of a Core-Indo-European innovation, in which she investigates the relationship between some words containing ‑s‑ in the anatolian language branch with the infamous Indo‑European s‑aorist.

Louise graduated from the University of Copenhagen in 2018 and is now working as a PhD-student on the project Tracking the Tocharians from Europe to China: a Linguistic Rreconstruction at Leiden University.

Mikkel Nørtoft won third prize for his thesis Shaving the Warrior – Archaeo‑linguistic investigation of Indo-European warrior identity, in which he through archeolinguistically comparisons investigates how far back we can trace the beautification tools of the bronze age warriors, and on a deeper level their elitist warrior ideals and rituals.

Mikkel now works as a scientific assistent at the Centre for Evolutionary Genomics (UCPH), where he maps out prehistoric migrations through ancient DNA. Furthermore he is attacted Center for Textile Research (CTR) as a guest researcher where he maps out textiles.

See the previous prize winners here