Rasmus Rask

Danish linguist and philologist

Rasmus Kristian Rask (Danish: [ˈʁɑsmus ˈkʰʁestjæn ˈʁɑsk]; born Rasmus Christian Nielsen Rasch; 22 November 1787 – 14 November 1832) was a Danish linguist, philologist and a principal founder of the science of comparative linguistics. In 1818, he first showed that, in their consonant sounds, words in the Germanic languages vary with a certain regularity from their equivalents in the other Indo-European languages. What Rask observed proved to be the basis of a fundamental law of comparative linguistics (Grimm's law), which was formally set forth in 1822 by Jacob Grimm.

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