Innsbruck linguist and Luwian Studies foundation board member Ivo Hajnal was awarded the Grand Medal of Honor in Silver for Services to the Republic of Austria on December 14, 2022. The prestigious award was presented by the rector of the University of Innsbruck Tilmann Märk on behalf of the federal president. It recognizes Ivo Hajnal’s outstanding achievements in academia and his work as chairman of the academic senate of the University of Innsbruck from 2005 to 2019, and as the initiator of the Austria-Israel Academic Network Innsbruck.
Rector Tilmann Märk said, “Ivo Hajnal has made important contributions in all branches of modern linguistics, each combining interesting combinations of theory often with application to socially highly relevant issues and data.” With numerous publications on historical-comparative linguistics, Ivo Hajnal has made an internationally recognized name for himself as an Indo-Europeanist. In addition to historical-comparative linguistics, he has also made important contributions to general and applied linguistics.