Anton Schall (orientalist)

Anton Schall (born April 1, 1920 in Rottenburg am Neckar , † September 28, 2007 in Heidelberg ) was a German orientalist .

Life

After his school days, Schall was drafted into the Wehrmacht and then took part in the Second World War as a soldier. He suffered a very serious wound (head injury), which initially meant that he could neither speak nor walk ( aphasia and partial akinesia ). Schall first had to laboriously learn to speak again and suffered all his life from the consequences of this wound.

After his health was somewhat restored, Schall studied classical philology , oriental studies and above all Semitic studies at the University of Tübingen , among others with Enno Littmann . He finished his studies in 1948 with his dissertation Studies on Greek Foreign Words in Syriac , and his habilitation thesis in 1956 was titled On Ethiopian Verse Art . In 1959, Schall became associate professor for Semitic Studies and Islamic Studies (seminar for languages ​​and cultures of the Near East ) at the University of Heidelberg in 1966 and taught these subjects until he retired in 1988.

Schall was a member of the KStV Alamannia Tübingen and, as a professor in Heidelberg, became an honorary philistine at the KStV Ripuaria, both in the KV . In 1969 he was made a knight of the papal New Year's Eve . His grave is in the cemetery in Heidelberg-Handschuhsheim.

meaning

Despite his severe handicaps caused by the war injury, Schall achieved an unusual and multifaceted scientific achievement with great energy and care, including all Semitic and non-Semitic languages ​​in his research. He also influenced the orientalist studies of the later Viennese Romanist Walter Selb .

In 1979, Anton Schall founded the publication series “Heidelberg Studies on the History and Culture of the Modern Middle East” (originally: “Heidelberg Oriental Studies”) and was its editor until 1990.

Works

• Studies of Greek foreign words in Syriac. Darmstadt 1960.
• A century of oriental studies. Pictures of life from the pen of Enno Littmann and a list of his writings. Compiled by Rudi Paret and Anton Schall for the 80th birthday on September 16, 1955. Wiesbaden 1955.
• To the Ethiopian verse art. A study on the Metra des Qene based on the treatise "Al-Qene laun min as-si'r al-habasi" by Murad Kamil. Wiesbaden 1961.
• Mandean grammar. In the appendix: The handwritten additions in the hand copy of Theodor Nöldeke . (This photomechanical reprint is based on the Halle / S. 1875 edition.) Darmstadt 1964.
• To the Syrian inscription on the bronze gate of the Basilica of San Paolo Fuori le Mura in Rome. In: Roman quarterly for Christian antiquity and church history (RQ) 65, 1970, page 232.
• The sighting of Christianity in the Koran in communications and research articles by the Cusanus Society 9, 1971
• Islam, aslam and the Christian baptismal confession in the journal for missiology and religious studies 64, 1980
• Elementa arabica. Introduction to the classical Arabic language. Wiesbaden 1988. ISBN 3-447-02433-X .
• Foreign World Islam: Insights into a World Religion. Publications of the Rabanus Maurus Academy, Frankfurt am Main. Mainz 1982. ISBN 3-7867-0868-1 .
• Brief Syrian grammar / Theodor Nöldeke. Reprographic reprint of the 2nd edition Leipzig 1898. Darmstadt 1977. ISBN 3-534-00434-5 .
• The Resurrection of a Dead Language - Updating Syro-Aramaic in the Present Annual and Conference Reports of the Görres Society, 1982
• Contribution to: Political and communication science publications of the Görres Society, Volume 8: The political Islam. Intentions and Effects. Edited by Jürgen Schwarz. With contributions by Konrad Dilger, Theodor Hanf, Arnold Hottinger , Ludger Kühnhardt, Johannes Reissner, Anton Schall, Jürgen Schwarz, Udo Steinbach and Ludwig Watzal. 1993.
• Together with Verena Boll and Frederick Heyer: Studies related to the Ethiopian Orthodox Church history, literature and Qine (Poetry). Quoted from: Haile Sellassie Homepage . History of Education, Printing and Literacy in Ethiopia, Nov. 14, 6, 1998. By Dr Richard Pankhurst.
• Anton Schall was one of the employees of the Theological Real Encyclopedia - TRE. Berlin 1976-2007. ISBN 3-11-002218-4 .

swell

• H. Kotzur in Siegfried Koß, Wolfgang Löhr (Hrsg.): Biographical Lexicon of KV. 7th part (= Revocatio historiae. Volume 9). Akadpress, Essen 2010, ISBN 978-3-939413-12-7 , p. 126 f.