Paul Kretschmer (2 May 1866 – 9 March 1956) was a German
linguistLinguistics is the scientific 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...
who studied the earliest history and interrelations of the
Indo-European languagesThe Indo-European languages are a family of several hundred related languages and dialects, including most major languages of Europe, Iran, and northern India, and historically also predominant in Anatolia and Central Asia...
and showed how they were influenced by non-Indo-European languages, such as
EtruscanThe Etruscan language was spoken and written by the Etruscan civilization in the ancient region of Etruria and in parts of Lombardy, Veneto, and Emilia-Romagna , in Italy...
.
Krestschmer was born in
BerlinBerlin is the capital city and one of sixteen states of Germany. With a population of 3.4 million within its city limits, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city and the eighth most populous urban area in the European Union...
and where he studied classic philology and indogermanistic under Hermann Diels.
His epochal study of pre-Greek elements in ancient Greek was his 1896
Einleitung in die Geschichte der griechischen Sprache (
Introduction to the History of the Greek Language).
Discussion
Ask a question about 'Paul Kretschmer' Start a new discussion about 'Paul Kretschmer' Answer questions from other users |
Paul Kretschmer (2 May 1866 – 9 March 1956) was a German
linguistLinguistics is the scientific 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...
who studied the earliest history and interrelations of the
Indo-European languagesThe Indo-European languages are a family of several hundred related languages and dialects, including most major languages of Europe, Iran, and northern India, and historically also predominant in Anatolia and Central Asia...
and showed how they were influenced by non-Indo-European languages, such as
EtruscanThe Etruscan language was spoken and written by the Etruscan civilization in the ancient region of Etruria and in parts of Lombardy, Veneto, and Emilia-Romagna , in Italy...
.
Krestschmer was born in
BerlinBerlin is the capital city and one of sixteen states of Germany. With a population of 3.4 million within its city limits, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city and the eighth most populous urban area in the European Union...
and where he studied classic philology and indogermanistic under Hermann Diels.
His epochal study of pre-Greek elements in ancient Greek was his 1896
Einleitung in die Geschichte der griechischen Sprache (
Introduction to the History of the Greek Language). Comparing Greek place names with their foreign counterparts in ancient Anatolia, he concluded that a non-Greek, Mediterranean culture had preceded the Greeks there, leaving extensive linguistic traces. The discoveries of the archaeologist Sir
Arthur EvansSir Arthur John Evans was a British archaeologist most famous for unearthing the palace of Knossos on the Greek island of Crete at Kephala Hill and for developing the concept of "Minoan civilization" from the structures and artifacts there and elsewhere in Crete and the eastern Mediterranean...
at
KnossosKnossos , also known as Labyrinth, or Knossos Palace, is the largest Bronze Age archaeological site on Crete and probably the ceremonial and political center of the Minoan civilization and culture. The palace appears as a maze of workrooms, living spaces, and store rooms close to a central square...
, Crete, around 1900 tended to confirm Kretschmer's views.
Following a professorship at the University of Marburg in Germany (1897–99), Kretschmer occupied the chair in
comparative linguisticsComparative linguistics is a branch of historical linguistics that is concerned with comparing languages to establish their historical relatedness....
at the
University of ViennaThe University of Vienna is a public university located in Vienna, Austria. It was founded by Duke Rudolph IV in 1365 and is, therefore, the oldest university in the German-speaking world and one of the largest in Central Europe.-History:...
, where he remained until 1936. An adherent of the
NeogrammarianThe 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...
school of linguistics, which stressed rigorous comparative methodology, he also contributed to Modern Greek dialectology and furthered the study of German linguistic geography.
He died in
ViennaVienna is the capital of the Republic of Austria and also one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.7 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre. It is the 10th largest city by...
in 1956.