Hermann Möller
Encyclopedia
Hermann Möller was a Danish
linguist noted for his work in favor of a genetic relationship
between the Indo-European
and Semitic
language families
and his version of the laryngeal theory
.
Möller grew up in North Frisia
after its conquest by Germany in the German–Danish War of 1864 and attended German universities (Pulsiano and Treharne 2001:447). He began teaching Germanic philology at the University of Copenhagen
in 1883 and continued to do so for over thirty-five years (ib.). Also in 1883, he published Das altenglische Volksepos in der ursprünglichen strophischen Form, 'The Old English Folk Epic in the Original Strophic Form', in which he argued, among other things, that Beowulf
had been composed in a fixed meter which was corrupted by later poets (ib.).
was the Vergleichendes indogermanisch-semitisches Wörterbuch, 'Dictionary of Comparative Indo-European–Semitic', published in 1911.
Although Möller's association of Semitic and Indo-European reflected a high level of linguistic expertise and was the fruit of many years of labor, it did not receive general acceptance from the linguistic community and is rarely mentioned today (2010).
It was, however, accepted as valid by a number of leading linguists of the time, such as Holger Pedersen
(1924) and Louis Hjelmslev
. According to Hjelmslev (1970:79), "a genetic relationship between Indo-European and Hamito-Semitic was demonstrated in detail by the Danish linguist Hermann Möller, using the method of element functions".
Möller's work was continued by Albert Cuny
(1924, 1943, 1946) in France and more recently by the American scholar Saul Levin (1971, 1995, 2002).
It was doubtless thanks to Möller's work that Holger Pedersen included Hamito-Semitic in his proposed Nostratic
language family, a classification maintained by subsequent Nostraticists (e.g. Vladislav Illich-Svitych
and Aharon Dolgopolsky
). The Hamitic family was shown to be invalid by Joseph Greenberg
(1950), who consequently rejected the name Hamito-Semitic, replacing it with Afroasiatic
, under which Semitic is classed today, along with some but not all of the languages formerly classed as Hamitic.
The American Nostraticist Allan Bomhard
began his career with work in the tradition of Möller and Cuny, initially comparing Indo-European and Semitic (1975). He subsequently broadened the base to include Afroasiatic in general, an approach found in his first major work, Toward Proto-Nostratic: A New Approach to the Comparison of Proto-Indo-European and Proto-Afroasiatic (1984). He later expanded his comparisons to include other language families, such as Uralic
and Kartvelian
(cf. Bomhard 2008:6).
In carrying out his Indo-European–Semitic comparison, Möller produced a reconstruction of Proto-Semitic
of hitherto unparalleled sophistication. According to Edgar Sturtevant
(1908:50):
.
In 1878, Ferdinand de Saussure
, then a 21-year old student at the University of Leipzig
, published his Mémoire sur le système primitif des voyelles dans les langues indo-européennes, 'Dissertation on the original system of vowels in the Indo-European languages', the work that founded the laryngeal theory. According to Saussure, Indo-European had had two "sonantic coefficients", vanished sounds that had two properties: they lengthened a preceding vowel; one of them gave the vowel e or a timbre, while the other gave the vowel o timbre.
Saussure's argument was not accepted by any of the Neogrammarian
s, the school, primarily based at the University of Leipzig, then reigning at the cutting-edge of Indo-European linguistics. Several of them attacked the Mémoire savagely. The critiques of Osthoff
were particularly virulent, often descending to personal invective against Saussure (De Mauro in Saussure 1972:327-328). One of the few scholars to rise to Saussure's defense was Möller, beginning in an article in 1880 – a defense which placed him in the line of Osthoff's wrath as well (ib. 328).
Möller offered several refinements over Saussure's original version of the theory:
For the first half-century of its existence, the laryngeal theory was widely seen as "an eccentric fancy of outsiders" (Szemerényi 1996:123). "In Germany it was totally rejected" (ib. 134). In 1927, the Polish linguist Jerzy Kuryłowicz announced that Hittite
h was found in two of the positions predicted for a "laryngeal" by the Saussure–Möller theory. The evidence was crushing, overwhelming. As a result, the laryngeal theory is generally accepted today in one form or another, although scholars who deal with the theory disagree on the number of laryngeals to be accepted, with most positing three (like Möller) or four, but some positing as few as one (proposed by Szemerényi 1996:139-140) or as many as thirteen (namely Martinet 1986:146).
In Oswald Szemerényi
's appreciation (1996:124), although "Saussure is the founder of modern views on the IE vowel system", "the true founder of the laryngeal theory is the Danish scholar Möller."
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
linguist noted for his work in favor of a genetic relationship
Genetic relationship (linguistics)
In linguistics, genetic relationship is the usual term for the relationship which exists between languages that are members of the same language family. The term genealogical relationship is sometimes used to avoid confusion with the unrelated use of the term in biological genetics...
between the Indo-European
Indo-European languages
The Indo-European languages are a family of several hundred related languages and dialects, including most major current languages of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and South Asia and also historically predominant in Anatolia...
and Semitic
Semitic languages
The Semitic languages are a group of related languages whose living representatives are spoken by more than 270 million people across much of the Middle East, North Africa and the Horn of Africa...
language families
Language family
A language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ancestor, called the proto-language of that family. The term 'family' comes from the tree model of language origination in historical linguistics, which makes use of a metaphor comparing languages to people in a...
and his version of the laryngeal theory
Laryngeal theory
The laryngeal theory is a generally accepted theory of historical linguistics which proposes the existence of one, or a set of three , consonant sounds termed "laryngeals" that appear in most current reconstructions of the Proto-Indo-European language...
.
Möller grew up in North Frisia
North Frisia
North Frisia or Northern Friesland is the northernmost portion of Frisia, located primarily in Germany between the rivers Eider and Wiedau/Vidå. It includes a number of islands, e.g., Sylt, Föhr, Amrum, Nordstrand, and Heligoland.-History:...
after its conquest by Germany in the German–Danish War of 1864 and attended German universities (Pulsiano and Treharne 2001:447). He began teaching Germanic philology at the University of Copenhagen
University of Copenhagen
The University of Copenhagen is the oldest and largest university and research institution in Denmark. Founded in 1479, it has more than 37,000 students, the majority of whom are female , and more than 7,000 employees. The university has several campuses located in and around Copenhagen, with the...
in 1883 and continued to do so for over thirty-five years (ib.). Also in 1883, he published Das altenglische Volksepos in der ursprünglichen strophischen Form, 'The Old English Folk Epic in the Original Strophic Form', in which he argued, among other things, that Beowulf
Beowulf
Beowulf , but modern scholars agree in naming it after the hero whose life is its subject." of an Old English heroic epic poem consisting of 3182 alliterative long lines, set in Scandinavia, commonly cited as one of the most important works of Anglo-Saxon literature.It survives in a single...
had been composed in a fixed meter which was corrupted by later poets (ib.).
Indo-European and Semitic
Möller's magnum opusMasterpiece
Masterpiece in modern usage refers to a creation that has been given much critical praise, especially one that is considered the greatest work of a person's career or to a work of outstanding creativity, skill or workmanship....
was the Vergleichendes indogermanisch-semitisches Wörterbuch, 'Dictionary of Comparative Indo-European–Semitic', published in 1911.
Although Möller's association of Semitic and Indo-European reflected a high level of linguistic expertise and was the fruit of many years of labor, it did not receive general acceptance from the linguistic community and is rarely mentioned today (2010).
It was, however, accepted as valid by a number of leading linguists of the time, such as Holger Pedersen
Holger Pedersen (linguist)
Holger Pedersen was a Danish linguist who made significant contributions to language science and wrote about 30 authoritative works concerning several languages....
(1924) and Louis Hjelmslev
Louis Hjelmslev
Louis Hjelmslev was a Danish linguist whose ideas formed the basis of the Copenhagen School of linguistics. Born into an academic family , Hjelmslev studied comparative linguistics in Copenhagen, Prague and Paris...
. According to Hjelmslev (1970:79), "a genetic relationship between Indo-European and Hamito-Semitic was demonstrated in detail by the Danish linguist Hermann Möller, using the method of element functions".
Möller's work was continued by Albert Cuny
Albert Cuny
Albert Cuny was a French linguist known for his attempts to establish phonological correspondences between the Indo-European and Semitic languages and for his contributions to the laryngeal theory....
(1924, 1943, 1946) in France and more recently by the American scholar Saul Levin (1971, 1995, 2002).
It was doubtless thanks to Möller's work that Holger Pedersen included Hamito-Semitic in his proposed Nostratic
Nostratic languages
Nostratic is a proposed language family that includes many of the indigenous language families of Eurasia, including the Indo-European, Uralic and Altaic as well as Kartvelian languages...
language family, a classification maintained by subsequent Nostraticists (e.g. Vladislav Illich-Svitych
Vladislav Illich-Svitych
Vladislav Markovich Illich-Svitych was a Russian linguist and accentologist, also a founding father of comparative Nostratic linguistics.Of Ukrainian descent, he was born in Kiev but later moved to work in Moscow. He resuscitated the long-forgotten Nostratic hypothesis, originally expounded by...
and Aharon Dolgopolsky
Aharon Dolgopolsky
Aharon Dolgopolsky is a Russian-born Israeli comparative linguist and one of the modern founders of comparative Nostratic linguistics.Born in Moscow, he arrived at the long-forgotten Nostratic hypothesis in the 1960s, at around the same time but independently of Vladislav Illich-Svitych...
). The Hamitic family was shown to be invalid by Joseph Greenberg
Joseph Greenberg
Joseph Harold Greenberg was a prominent and controversial American linguist, principally known for his work in two areas, linguistic typology and the genetic classification of languages.- Early life and career :...
(1950), who consequently rejected the name Hamito-Semitic, replacing it with Afroasiatic
Afro-Asiatic languages
The Afroasiatic languages , also known as Hamito-Semitic, constitute one of the world's largest language families, with about 375 living languages...
, under which Semitic is classed today, along with some but not all of the languages formerly classed as Hamitic.
The American Nostraticist Allan Bomhard
Allan R. Bomhard
Allan R. Bomhard is an American linguist.He was educated at Fairleigh Dickinson University, Hunter College, and the City University of New York, and served in the U.S. Army from 1964—1966. He currently resides in Charleston, SC...
began his career with work in the tradition of Möller and Cuny, initially comparing Indo-European and Semitic (1975). He subsequently broadened the base to include Afroasiatic in general, an approach found in his first major work, Toward Proto-Nostratic: A New Approach to the Comparison of Proto-Indo-European and Proto-Afroasiatic (1984). He later expanded his comparisons to include other language families, such as Uralic
Uralic languages
The Uralic languages constitute a language family of some three dozen languages spoken by approximately 25 million people. The healthiest Uralic languages in terms of the number of native speakers are Hungarian, Finnish, Estonian, Mari and Udmurt...
and Kartvelian
South Caucasian languages
The Kartvelian languages are spoken primarily in Georgia, with a large group of ethnic Georgian speakers in Russia, the United States, the European Union, and northeastern parts of Turkey. There are approximately 5.2 million speakers of this language family worldwide.It is not known to be related...
(cf. Bomhard 2008:6).
In carrying out his Indo-European–Semitic comparison, Möller produced a reconstruction of Proto-Semitic
Proto-Semitic language
Proto-Semitic is the hypothetical proto-language ancestral to historical Semitic languages of the Middle East. Locations which have been proposed for its origination include northern Mesopotamia, the Arabian Peninsula, and the Levant with a 2009 study proposing that it may have originated around...
of hitherto unparalleled sophistication. According to Edgar Sturtevant
Edgar H. Sturtevant
-Biography:Sturtevant was born in Jacksonville, Illinois, the older brother of Alfred Sturtevant. He studied at the University of Chicago receiving there in 1901 a Ph.D. with a dissertation on Latin case forms. He became an assistant professor of classical philology at Columbia University in New...
(1908:50):
- The theory that Indo-European and Semitic sprang from a common origin has often been suggested and rejected. The first scholar equipped with exact knowledge of both fields to undertake its defence is H. Möller in his book Semitisch und Indogermanisch, I Konsonanten (Kopenhagen and Leipzig, 1906). His argument rests necessarily upon a series of phonetic laws which describe the variations of the two main branches from the assumed parent language. On the Indo-European side Möller starts with the hypothetical forms that all Indo-European scholars use (though with varying views as to their value). For the other term of the comparison, however, he has to construct for himself a prehistoric Semitic. Some reviewers see in this preliminary task the chief value of the book.
The laryngeal theory
Möller is also well known for his contributions to the laryngeal theoryLaryngeal theory
The laryngeal theory is a generally accepted theory of historical linguistics which proposes the existence of one, or a set of three , consonant sounds termed "laryngeals" that appear in most current reconstructions of the Proto-Indo-European language...
.
In 1878, Ferdinand de Saussure
Ferdinand de Saussure
Ferdinand de Saussure was a Swiss linguist whose ideas laid a foundation for many significant developments in linguistics in the 20th century. He is widely considered one of the fathers of 20th-century linguistics...
, then a 21-year old student at the University of Leipzig
University of Leipzig
The University of Leipzig , located in Leipzig in the Free State of Saxony, Germany, is one of the oldest universities in the world and the second-oldest university in Germany...
, published his Mémoire sur le système primitif des voyelles dans les langues indo-européennes, 'Dissertation on the original system of vowels in the Indo-European languages', the work that founded the laryngeal theory. According to Saussure, Indo-European had had two "sonantic coefficients", vanished sounds that had two properties: they lengthened a preceding vowel; one of them gave the vowel e or a timbre, while the other gave the vowel o timbre.
Saussure's argument was not accepted by any of the Neogrammarian
Neogrammarian
The Neogrammarians were a German school of linguists, originally at the University of Leipzig, in the late 19th century who proposed the Neogrammarian hypothesis of the regularity of sound change...
s, the school, primarily based at the University of Leipzig, then reigning at the cutting-edge of Indo-European linguistics. Several of them attacked the Mémoire savagely. The critiques of Osthoff
Hermann Osthoff
Hermann Osthoff was a German linguist. He was involved in Indo-European studies and the Neogrammarian school. He is known for formulating the Osthoff's law.- Life :...
were particularly virulent, often descending to personal invective against Saussure (De Mauro in Saussure 1972:327-328). One of the few scholars to rise to Saussure's defense was Möller, beginning in an article in 1880 – a defense which placed him in the line of Osthoff's wrath as well (ib. 328).
Möller offered several refinements over Saussure's original version of the theory:
- He argued that a third coefficient was needed: one that produced o timbre, another e timbre, a third a timbre (1880). This view was adopted by most scholars who subsequently endorsed the laryngeal theory (Szemerényi 1996:123-124).
- He argued that the coefficients changed not only a preceding but also a following vowel to these timbres (Szemerényi 1996:123). This argument has also been widely accepted.
- In 1917, Möller published a major work on the theory, Die semitisch-vorindogermanischen laryngalen Konsonanten, 'The Semitic–Pre-Indo-European Laryngeal Consonants'. In this work, he argued that the vanished sounds were laryngealsGlottal consonantGlottal consonants, also called laryngeal consonants, are consonants articulated with the glottis. Many phoneticians consider them, or at least the so-called fricative, to be transitional states of the glottis without a point of articulation as other consonants have; in fact, some do not consider...
, a type of sound also found in SemiticSemitic languagesThe Semitic languages are a group of related languages whose living representatives are spoken by more than 270 million people across much of the Middle East, North Africa and the Horn of Africa...
languages. He also argued that the presence of laryngeals in both Semitic and Indo-European constituted a proof of these families' relationship. As a result of Möller's thesis, the theory originated by Saussure came to be known as "the laryngeal theory" and the vanished sounds it posits as "the laryngeals". Today, relatively few scholars believe these sounds were actually laryngeals (indeed there is no consensus on their phonetic value or even whether this is knowable), but the term remains in general use (Auroux et al. 2006:2463).
For the first half-century of its existence, the laryngeal theory was widely seen as "an eccentric fancy of outsiders" (Szemerényi 1996:123). "In Germany it was totally rejected" (ib. 134). In 1927, the Polish linguist Jerzy Kuryłowicz announced that Hittite
Hittite language
Hittite is the extinct language once spoken by the Hittites, a people who created an empire centred on Hattusa in north-central Anatolia...
h was found in two of the positions predicted for a "laryngeal" by the Saussure–Möller theory. The evidence was crushing, overwhelming. As a result, the laryngeal theory is generally accepted today in one form or another, although scholars who deal with the theory disagree on the number of laryngeals to be accepted, with most positing three (like Möller) or four, but some positing as few as one (proposed by Szemerényi 1996:139-140) or as many as thirteen (namely Martinet 1986:146).
In Oswald Szemerényi
Oswald Szemerényi
Oswald John Louis Szemerényi was a Hungarian Indo-Europeanist with strong interests in comparative linguistics in general....
's appreciation (1996:124), although "Saussure is the founder of modern views on the IE vowel system", "the true founder of the laryngeal theory is the Danish scholar Möller."
Works cited
- Auroux, Sylvain et al. 2006. History of the Language Sciences. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.
- Bomhard, Allan R. 1975. "An outline of the historical phonology of Indo-European." Orbis 24.2:354-390.
- Bomhard, Allan R. 1984. Toward Proto-Nostratic: A New Approach to the Comparison of Proto-Indo-European and Proto-Afroasiatic. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
- Bomhard, Allan R. 2008. Reconstructing Proto-Nostratic: Comparative Phonology, Morphology, and Vocabulary, 2 volumes. Leiden: Brill.
- Cuny, Albert. 1924. Etudes prégrammaticales sur le domaine des langues indo-européennes et chamito-sémitiques. Paris: Champion.
- Cuny, Albert. 1943. Recherches sur le vocalisme, le consonantisme et la formation des racines en « nostratique », ancêtre de l'indo-européen et du chamito-sémitique. Paris: Adrien Maisonneuve.
- Cuny, Albert. 1946. Invitation à l'étude comparative des langues indo-européennes et des langues chamito-sémitiques. Bordeaux: Brière.
- Greenberg, Joseph H. 1950. "Studies in African linguistic classification: IV. Hamito-Semitic." Southwestern Journal of Anthropology 6:47-63.
- Hjelmslev, Louis. 1970. Language: An Introduction. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
- Kuryłowicz, Jerzy. 1927. "ə indo-européen et h hittite." Symbolae in honorem J. Rozwadowski 1:95-104.
- Levin, Saul. 1971. The Indo-European and Semitic Languages: An Exploration of Structural Similarities Related to Accent, Chiefly in Greek, Sanskrit, and Hebrew. State University of New York Press. ISBN 9780873950558.
- Levin, Saul. 1995. Semitic and Indo-European, Volume 1: The Principal Etymologies, With Observations on Afro-Asiatic. John Benjamins Publishing Company. ISBN 1556195834.
- Levin, Saul. 2002. Semitic and Indo-European, Volume 2: Comparative Morphology, Syntax and Phonetics. John Benjamins Publishing Company. ISBN 1588112225.
- Martinet, André. 1986. Des steppes aux océans: l'indo-européen et les indo-européens. Paris: Payot.
- Möller, Hermann. 1880. "Zur Declination: germanisch ā, ē, ō in den Endungen des Nomens und die Entstehung des o (<a2). — Darin Exkurs: Die Entstehung des o. S. 492-534." Beiträge zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Literatur 7:482–547, 611.
- Möller, Hermann. 1883. Das altenglische Volksepos in der ursprünglichen strophischen Form. Kiel: Lipsius & Tischer.
- Möller, Hermann. 1906. Semitisch und Indogermanisch. Teil l. Konsonanten. (Only volume to appear of a projected longer work.) Kopenhagen: H. Hagerup, 1906. (Reprint: 1978. Hildesheim – New York: Georg Olms. ISBN 3487066696.)
- Möller, Hermann. 1911. Vergleichendes indogermanisch-semitisches Wörterbuch. Kopenhagen. (Reprint: 1970, reissued 1997. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht. ISBN 3525261152.)
- Möller, Hermann. 1917. Die semitisch-vorindogermanischen laryngalen Konsonanten. København: Andr. Fred. Høst.
- Pedersen, Holger. 1924. Sprogvidenskaben i det Nittende Aarhundrede. Metoder og Resulteter. København: Gyldendalske Boghandel.
- Pedersen, Holger. 1931. Linguistic Science in the Nineteenth Century: Methods and Results, translated from the Danish by John Webster Spargo. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. (English translation of the previous.)
- Pulsiano, Philip and Elaine M. Treharne. 2001. A Companion to Anglo-Saxon Literature. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.
- Saussure, Ferdinand de. 1879. Mémoire sur le système primitif des voyelles dans les langues indo-européennes. Leipzig: Teubner. (Dated 1879 but actually published in December 1878.)
- Saussure, Ferdinand de. 1972. Cours de linguistique générale, critical edition prepared by Tullio De Mauro on the basis of the third edition of 1922 (original edition 1916). Paris: Payot.
- Sturtevant, Edgar H. 1908. "Recent literature on comparative philology." The Classical Weekly 2.7:50-52.
- Szemerényi, Oswald. 1996. Introduction to Indo-European Linguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
External links
- Review of Levin (1971) by Gordon M. Messing