Hella Keem
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Hella Keem (also Hella Keem; 6 April 1915 Keema, Vaabina Parish – 27 December 1997 Tartu) was an Estonian linguist and ethnographer.[1]
From 1936 until 1943, she studied Estonian language, ethnography, and Finno-Ugric languages at the University of Tartu. Following the German occupation of Estonia during World War II, Keem was arrested in 1943 and spent a year in prison. She was subsequently arrested in 1945 following the Soviet occupation of Estonia and spent fives years as a prisoner, released in 1950. From 1957 until 1993, she worked as a laboratory assistant at the Estonian SSR Academy of Sciences' Language and Literature Institute.[1]
Her main fields of research were Tartu and Võro dialects. She was the most prolific dialect collector in Estonia: in total she created 223,000 labels of words, over 4000 pages of texts, and recorded 690 hours of sound recordings.[1]
Awards:
