Ernst Fraenkel (Linguist)

Ernst Fraenkel (born October 16, 1881 in Berlin , † October 2, 1957 in Hamburg ) was a German linguist who made great contributions to Indo-European and Baltic Studies .

Life

Ernst Fraenkel, son of the internist Albert Fraenkel , studied classical philology , Sanskrit and Indo-European studies with Johannes Schmidt at the universities of Bonn , Leipzig and Berlin since 1899 . In 1905 he received his doctorate with a dissertation on ancient Greek denominative verbs. From 1906 to 1908 he studied with August Leskien , a recognized expert on the Baltic languages , in Leipzig. In 1909 he became a private lecturer at the University of Kiel , in 1916 associate professor and in 1920 full professor . According to the law to restore the civil service , Fraenkel was considered a Jew, even though he was baptized Protestant. As a so-called pre-war official, Fraenkel was still allowed to continue teaching. That situation has changed since 1936 because of the Nuremberg Laws , under which he was retired at the age of 54. Scientific publishing in Germany was also prohibited. Fraenkel then moved to Hamburg. From 1945 to 1954 he headed the comparative linguistics seminar at the university there . He retired in 1953 at the age of 72.

Works

Among the most important works by Fraenkel are Syntax of the Lithuanian Cases (1928) and the Lithuanian Etymological Dictionary , partly edited from the estate until 1965 by his students Erich Hofmann (1895–1982) and Eberhard Tangl (1897–1979).

Web links

• Literature by and about Ernst Fraenkel in the catalog of the German National Library
• Professor Dr. Ernst Fraenkel. uni-kiel.de , accessed on September 4, 2013 . 
• Biographical entry in the catalog persecution and emigration of German-speaking linguists 1933-1945 (accessed: April 13, 2018)