"Language and Civilization" is a collocation in name, and a coalescence, above all, of words and workings in human life. The concept broadly envisions a congress of folks of many tongues and achievements, presenting a motley picture in detail, but a unified whole in humanity.
The twin volumes bearing this title offer a "vita activa" in conspectus. Balances variety has been the guiding principle for contributors to act upon, and their response was cheerfully consentient. One hundred scholars from countries around the globe have sent in original papers; the table of names reads as does an honours list in the fields of modern languages and related studies ... Algeo, Barber, Bolinger, Bourcier, Cannon, Cottle, Finkenstaedt, Gelling, Gneuss, Hamp, Lehmann, Lehnert, Penzl, to mention but a baker's dozen.
The work has been brought together in honour of Professor Otto Hietsch, a native of Vienna, who in his time occupied chairs of English and Germanic philology in the universities of Padua, Braunschweig, and Regensburg. He is a certificated interpreter and translator, amd did research or taught in universities as far apart as Paris and Canberra, as Durham and Ann Arbor.
Many of the present contributors are his life-long friends, associates in office, or former students; the books written and edited by him foreshadow to a fair measure the articles gathered here for the occasion of his retirement next year.