Carl Meinhof

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Carl Meinhof

Carl Friedrich Michael Meinhof (July 23, 1857 – February 11, 1944) was a German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium, and the Netherlands....
linguist

Linguistics

Linguistics is the science study of natural language. Linguistics encompasses a number of sub-fields. An important topical division is between the study of language structure and the study of Meaning ....
and one of the first linguists to study African languages

African languages

There are an estimated 2,000 languages spoken in Africa. They fall into four major language family:*Afro-Asiatic languages stretches from North Africa to the Horn of Africa and Southwest Asia....
.

Works
His most notable work was developing comparative grammar

Grammar

Grammar is the field of linguistics that covers the conventions governing the use of any given natural language. It includes morphology and syntax, often complemented by phonetics, phonology, semantics, and pragmatics....
studies of the Bantu languages

Bantu languages

The Bantu languages constitute a grouping belonging to the Niger-Congo languages family. This grouping is deep down in the genealogical tree of the Bantoid grouping, which in turn is deep down in the Niger-Congo tree....
, building on the pioneering work of Wilhelm Bleek.

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Early years and career

Meinhof was born in Barzwitz near Rügenwalde

Darlowo

Darlowo [] is a town at the south coast of the Baltic Sea in Middle Pomerania Pomerania, north-western Poland, with 14,931 inhabitants . Located in Slawno County in West Pomeranian Voivodeship since 1999, it was previously a town in Koszalin Voivodeship ....
in the Province of Pomerania

Province of Pomerania

The Province of Pomerania was a Provinces of Prussia of the Kingdom of Prussia and the Free State of Prussia from 1815 until 1946. Since then it has been part of Germany and Poland....
. In 1905 he became professor at the School of Oriental Studies in Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the Capital of Germany city and one of sixteen States of Germany of Germany. With a population of 3.4 million within its city limits, Berlin is the country's largest city....
.

Works

His most notable work was developing comparative grammar

Grammar

Bantu languages

Swahili language

Swahili is the first language of the Swahili people , who inhabit several large stretches of the Indian Ocean coastline from southern Somalia to northern Mozambique, including the Comoros Islands....
and Zulu

Zulu

The Zulu are the largest South African ethnic group of an estimated 10-11 million people who live mainly in the province of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa....
to determine similarities and differences.

In his work, Meinhof looked at noun classes

Noun class

In linguistics, the term noun class refers to a system of categorizing nouns. A noun may belong to a given class because of characteristic features of its referent, such as sex, animacy, shape, but counting a given noun among nouns of such or another class is often clearly conventional....
with all Bantu languages having at least 10 classes and with 22 classes of nouns existing throughout the Bantu languages, though his definition of noun class differs slightly from the accepted one. While no language has all 22 classes, Sesotho has 18. All Bantu languages have a noun class specifically for humans (sometimes including other animate beings).

Meinhof also looked at other African languages, including the Kordofanian languages

Kordofanian languages

The Kordofanian languages are a geographic grouping of three to five language families spoken in the Nuba hills of Kordofan Province, Sudan....
, Bushman

Bushman

Bushman may refer to:* Bushmen, ethnic groups in Southern Africa* Richard Bushman, historian and author* Francis X. Bushman, the first major male film star...
, Khoikhoi

Khoikhoi

The Khoikhoi or Khoi, in standardised Khoekhoe/Nama language orthography spelled Khoekhoe, are a historical division of the Khoisan ethnic group, who were the native Black Africans of southwestern Africa, closely related to the Bushmen ....
and Hamitic

Hamitic

Hamitic is a historical term for the peoples supposedly descended from Noah's son Ham, son of Noah, paralleling Semitic and Japhetic.It used to be used for grouping the non-Semitic Afro-Asiatic languages , but since, unlike the Semitic branch, these have not been shown to form a phylogenetic unity, the term is obsolete in this sense....
languages.

Meinhof developed a comprehensive classification scheme for African languages. His classification was the standard one for many years (Greenberg 1955:3). It was superseded by those of Joseph Greenberg

Joseph Greenberg

Joseph Harold Greenberg was a prominent and controversial American linguistics, principally known for his work in two areas, linguistic typology and the genetic relationship of languages....
in 1955 and especially in 1963.

In 1902, Meinhof made recordings of East African music. These are among the first recordings made of traditional African music.

Family

Carl Meinhof was the brother of Ulrike Meinhof

Ulrike Meinhof

Ulrike Marie Meinhof was a Germany left-wing militant. She cofounded the Red Army Faction in 1970 after having previously worked as a journalist for the monthly left-wing magazine konkret....
's grandfather and thus the great-uncle of the woman who would be a founding member of the German Red Army Faction

Red Army Faction

The Red Army Faction or RAF , was postwar West Germany's most violent and prominent militant left-wing terrorist group. It described itself as a communist "urban guerrilla" group engaged in armed resistance....
(RAF).