Probal Dasgupta: Biography, Facts and Career

Probal Dasgupta (19 September 1953 – 1 June 2026) was an Indian linguist, Esperantist and academic administrator. He published his first article in phonology in Indian Linguistics, the journal of the Linguistic Society of India, at the age of eighteen. His doctoral dissertation at New York University, Questions and Relative and Complement Clauses in a Bangla Grammar (1980), contributed to the study of Bangla syntax. Dasgupta's research focused on Bangla syntax, morphology and sociolinguistics. He is associated with the development of the substantivist approach to linguistics in collaboration with Rajendra Singh. Beyond formal linguistics, he wrote on Esperanto studies and language politics, including The Otherness of English: India's Auntie Tongue Syndrome (1993), which examined the sociolinguistic position of English in India. He was a member of the Akademio de Esperanto beginning in 1983 and served as its vice-president from 2001 to 2015. In 2016 he was elected president of the Akademio for a three-year term ending in 2019 and was subsequently re-elected to serve until 2022. He also served as president of the Universal Esperanto Association from 2007 to 2013. Dasgupta taught at the University of Calcutta, Deccan College Postgraduate and Research Institute, the University of Hyderabad, and the Indian Statistical Institute, where he headed the Linguistic Research Unit from 2008 until his retirement in 2018.

Quick facts about Probal Dasgupta

• Full name: Probal Dasgupta
• Born: 1953-09-19
• Nationality: India
• Known as: Author
• Wikidata ID: Q12817

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