KURATH, HANS

born Dec. 13, 1891, Villach, Austria

died Jan. 2, 1992, Ann Arbor, Mich., U.S.

Austrian-born U.S. linguist.

He immigrated to the U.S. in 1907. He is best known as the chief editor of the Linguistic Atlas of New England , 3 vol. (1939–43), the first linguistic atlas of a region of the U.S. His other works include A Word Geography of the Eastern United States (1949) and The Pronunciation of English in the Atlantic States (1961). Kurath was later editor in chief (1946–62) of the Middle English Dictionary .