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Dr. Peter Hans Nelde, Professor of Germanic Linguistics and Director of the 
Research Center on Multilingualism at the Catholic University of Brussels 
(Belgium), died on August 31, 2007 after a long illness. 
 
He established ‘contact linguistics’ as an integral part of our discipline, 
supported by annual international symposia on ‘Contact + Confli(c)t’ 
between linguistic minorities and majorities, and through the series 
‘Plurilingua’, which he maintained as editor-in-chief. Peter Nelde had 
taught at the universities of Buffalo, Gent, Leipzig, Nijmegen and Vienna 
and directed the international research project on linguistic diversity 
(LINEE) sponsored by the European Union. His long list of publications 
includes the International Handbook on Contact Linguistics (1996/97) and 
the EUROMOSAIC reports on the linguistic minorities of Europe (1996, 2004). 
Peter Nelde had occupied the Leibniz Chair at the University of Leipzig and 
was a Knight of the Royal Belgian Court.