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Jens Holt

In general, Jens Holt (1904-1973) is not characterized as particularly interesting, when referred to within linguistics. However, Holt followed Hjelmslev's footsteps as a teacher in Aarhus in 1937, when Hjelmslev was offered a position as a professor at Copenhagen University. At Aarhus University, Holt taught Sanskrit, Indoeuropean phonology and morphology as well as all of the common and basic disciplines within linguistics.

Holt used Hjelmslev's and Uldall’s creative vocabulary in which we see particularly in Rational Semantik from 1946; it is strictly about pleremics.

In the correspondances between Holt and Hjelmslev, we sense a mutual professional respect as well as a mutual loyality to each other. It turns out that within this professional respect, a warm friendship unfolds between the authors over the years, in which we find caring notes to each other and little jokes. These are intertwined their academic discussions which are rooted in their common interest in structural linguistics and their wish to immortalize languages (especially Indo-European languages).

Additionally, Holt and Hjelmslev's discussions were typically quite friendly, in comparison to Eli Fischer-Jørgensen and Paul Diderichsen whose critical comments would feed a somewhat tense written discussion. Holt and Hjelmslev’s approach to language was the same, and they wanted the same for linguistics as a discipline and as a science. This particular correspondence contains interesting and practical contributions to the solution of analytical issues within the structuralistic domain.