Erwin Reifler

Erwin Reifler (born June 16, 1903 in Vienna , † April 23, 1965 in Seattle ) was an American sinologist and linguist of Austrian descent. He was a specialist in semantics and the Chinese language , and is also considered a pioneer of machine translation .

biography

Erwin Reifler studied modern Greek , Chinese and political science in Vienna, a. a. with Arthur von Rosthorn . 1927–1928 worked for a Chinese news agency in Berlin , 1930–1931 as an interpreter for Chinese students at the Police Academy in Vienna.

In 1932 Reichler was assistant to the Austrian adviser to the government of Shanghai and in the same year he became a German professor at Jiaotong University . At the same time he gave Chinese lessons for foreigners and in 1939 married one of his students, Henrietta Braun.

As part of his Chinese lessons, he developed a mnemonic system and later special theories about the etymology of Chinese characters .

The outbreak of war forced Reifler to temporarily settle in Hong Kong in 1937 . In 1940 he returned to Shanghai and eventually became professor of sinology at the Université l'Aurore .

In 1947 he went on a lecture tour to the USA , met a.o. a. Wittfogel , became a professor at the University of Washington and settled in Seattle, where he lived until his untimely death and mainly taught Chinese writing, classical Chinese and Chinese grammar .

Works

• A New Approach to the Chinese Language . Arts Association of Hong Kong University 1938.
• La Langue Chinoise à la Lumière de la Philologie Moderne. Bulletin de l'Université de l'Aurore 3ser v4 # 2 (1943) 419-434.
• Étude sur l'Étymologie des Caractères Chinois. Bulletin de l'Université de l'Aurore , 3ser v5 # 1 (1944) 1-36.
• Contribution de la Philologie Chinoise à la Philologie Mondiale. Bulletin de l'Université de l'Aurore 3ser v7 # 1 (1946) 31-50.
• Nature Complémentaire des Philologies Chinoise et Étrangères. Bulletin de l'Université de l'Aurore 3ser v9 # 36 (1948) 98-106.
• La 'Fission de l'Atome' en Sinologie à l'Aide de la Sémantique Comparative. Analysis of the Associations Préhistoriques d'Idées qui en Résultent (Découverte d'un Aspect Nouveau en Sinologie). Bulletin de l'Université de l'Aurore 3ser v10 # 38 (1949) 239-254.
• Linguistic Analysis, Meaning, and Comparative Semantics. Lingua 3 (1952/53) 371-390.
• "Ever Think of Your Ancestor!" A Pious Interpretative Fraud of Early Confucianism and Its Consequences for the Formal and Semantic Interpretation of the Wen Wang Ode. MS v14 (1949-1955) 340-377.
• Mechanical Determination of the Constituents of German Substantive Compounds. Mechanical Translation v2 # 1 (July 1955) 3-14.
• The Philological and Mathematical Problems of Wang Mang's Standard Grain Measures: The Earliest Chinese Approximation to p, in Chingju Li Jiwvn Syenshvng Chishrswei Lunwvn Ji (1965).
• The Archaeological and Metrological evidence for an Indus Valley and Sumero-Babylonian Origin of the Ancient Chinese Measuring System, in RN Danekar (ed), Proceedings of the Twenty-Sixth Congress of Orientalists v4 (1970) 139-162.
• The Foot of Chou and the Span of Han. MS v29 (1970-1971) 419-422.
• Semantic Parallelism in Job 5, pt I. Jewish Bible Quarterly v26 # 3 (# 103, July-Sept 1998) 143-148.
• Semantic Parallelism in Job 5, pt II. Jewish Bible Quarterly , v26 # 4 (# 104, Oct-Dec 1998) 216-222.
• HJ Griffin (ed.): Ancient Hebrew and Solomonic Building Construction: Compiled From the Notes of Dr Erwin Reifler [microfiche]. Mansell 1984.
• Erwin Reifler. A Comparative History of Metrology [microfiche]. Mansell 1984. With HJ Griffin.

literature

• Lew R. Micklesen: Erwin Reifler and Machine Translation at the University of Washington. In: W. John Hutchins (Ed): The Early Years of Machine Translation . John Benjamin 2000, ISBN 902724586X .
• Bernhard Führer: Forgotten and Lost. The history of Austrian Chinese studies . Project 2001, ISBN 3897330172 .

Web links

• Erwin Reifler (University of Massachusetts Amherst, Warring States Project)