Today at Speech Tech, we remember Dr.Frederick Jelinek, an instrumental figure in speech technology who died of a heart attack on September 14 at John Hopkins University, where he had worked as a professor for two decades. Truly committed to his work, Dr.Jelinek was a pioneer in his field. He was 77.
Known to his friends and close associates as “Fred,” Dr. Jelinek also worked for IBM; his research is responsible for modern speech recognition. In 2006, he was honored by being inducted into the National Academy of Engineering.
“He envisioned applying the mathmatics of probability to the problem of processing speech and language,” said Sanjeev Khudapur, a John Hopkins associate professor of electrical and computer engineering who knew and worked with Jelink, in a statement. “This revolutionized the field. Fifty years ago no one though that was possible. Today, it’s the dominant paradigm.”
Jelinek’s success in the world of technology becomes even more poignant when you learn of the tragedies he endured. Born in Prague near what is now the Czech Republic, Jelinek was born to a Christian mother and a Jewish father. When he was in second grade, an edict issued by Nazis prevented Jews from attending school, so Jelink was taught in secret. Jelink’s father died of typhoid in the Terezin camp. After the war, Jelinek’s mother took what remained of their family–Jelinek and his sister–and emigrated to New York.
Jelinek has said that his first career choice was not engineering and his mother wanted him to become a physician like his father. He wanted to be a lawyer, so he could fight for those who were accused unjustly. “But my career is the result of political circumstances, academic possibilities and lucky accidents,” Jelinek said.
Indeed, the world of speech technology was lucky to have him. Not only did Jelinek work to create speech recognition, he also invented ways that computer systems could better translate languages.
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