Arne Runeberg

Sven Arne Runeberg (7 April 1912 — 15 November 1979) was a Finnish anthropologist and linguist, best known for his studies on magic, witchcraft, and sociolinguistics.

degree at the University of Helsinki in 1939, but World War II made a stop to his postgraduate studies.

In 1947, however, he was the first student to defend his doctoral thesis, Witches, Demons and Fertility Magic, at the new Faculty of Social Sciences in Helsinki University.

Representing evolutionary anthropology, Arne Runeberg was trained by two students of Edvard Westermarck, namely Gunnar Landtman and Rafael Karsten.

In addition to his doctoral thesis, Arne Runeberg wrote two substantial studies: Jesu korsfästelse i religionshistorisk belysning (1952) situates Jesus Christ in a long tradition of so-called carnival kings, and Some Observations on Linguistic Patterns in a Bilingual Society (1951–1954) discusses bilinguality.