Otto Jespersen

Otto Jespersen (1860–1943) was a Danish linguist, one of the leading language scholars of his time. Professor of English at the University of Copenhagen from 1893 to 1925, he wrote a monumental Modern English Grammar on Historical Principles, Growth and Structure of the English Language, Language: Its Nature, Development and Origin and The Philosophy of Grammar. He was a pioneer of phonetics and of modern methods of language teaching, and he argued that languages tend to become simpler and more efficient over time. He also created Novial, an international auxiliary language.