The Department of Linguistics, University of Calcutta is the oldest Department of Lingsastics in our country. Under the new regulation of Indian Universities act (1904) the Department of Comparative Philology was established as an independent Department in the l'ost Graduate course of study. This was also the first Department of its kind outside England and America. The name of the Department was changed to Linguistics much later in the year 1986. The first student who came out from our Department with PG degree in Comparative philology was Dr Muhammad Shahidullah in 1912. The great polyglot Dr Harinath Dey was attached with this department for a brief period. Dr. Otto Strauss was the first appointment as a Professor in the Department (1913). The Department started its teaching and research with primary focus was on Comparative Philology with special reference to Indo-Aryan studies, Iranian studies, Greek, Latin and also non-Aryan languages of our country. In the last hundred years the Department reached its excellence due to the constellation of three stars of high magnitude: Dr Muhammad Shahidullah (1885-1969), Dr Suniti Kumar Chatterji (1890-1977) and Dr Sukumar Sen (1900-1992). In this context I should also mention the name of Prof Batakrishna Ghosh (1905-1950), a contemporary of the trio and a very distinguished philologist. It is to be noted that both Shahidullah (1910-1912) and Sen (1921-1923) were the direct products of our Department, while Chatterji was the product of the Department of English with a specialized course in Germanic philology. However, Chatterji attended some classes in our Department in Avestan Text and Grammar when he was appointed lecturer in the department of English in the University of Calcutta. The Department of Comparative Philology reached its zenith when Chatterji joined the department as a Khaira Professor of Indian Linguistics and Phonetics in the year 1922 just after receiving his D.Phil degree from SOAS Chatterji remained in the Khaira Professor post for the next thirty years. No denying the fact this was the golden era of our Department when students from other parts of our country came to the department mainly because of the attraction of Chatterjt To be frank enough even nowadays we cannot think the existence of our Department without Chatterji.
The current issue of the Bulletin of the Department of Linguistics, number 19, is dedicated to the memory of Prof S.K.Chatterji. Throughout the year 2015, the 125 Birth Anniversary of Chatterji was celebrated in and around our department was no exception. We initiated this memorable event with a daylong seminar in our Department in March 2014. The Department has recently organized an International level seminar in two Phases (November 26 and 27, 2015 and December 22nd 2015) in this occasion.
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