The Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES) has honored Victor Friedman with the 2014 Distinguished Contributions Award.

Friedman, the Andrew W. Mellon Distinguished Service Professor in the Department of Linguistics, was recognized by ASEEES for his distinguished career in linguistics and his record of excellent research and scholarship. He is the third UChicago professor in a row to be honored with this award, following Professor Emeritus Ronald Suny (2013) and Bernadotte E. Schmitt Distinguished Service Professor Emerita Sheila Fitzpatrick (2012), and the first from the Division of the Humanities.

“By recognizing my scholarship, ASEEES is affirming the value of small and contested languages such as Modern Macedonian, which is one of my main areas of concentration,” says Friedman. As the third linguist so honored by the ASEEES, Friedman says, “the award is testimony to the value of doing linguistics that keeps the place of language in society firmly in view.”

Established in 1948, ASEEES advances knowledge about Central Asia, the Caucasus, Russia, and Eastern Europe in a regional and global context by supporting teaching, research, and publications related to the study of the region.