Fritz Gysling

Fritz Gysling (born July 28, 1895 in Zurich ; † July 20, 1984 there ) was a Swiss linguist .

Life

Gysling grew up in Zurich and attended elementary school there. He then trained as a primary school teacher at the teachers' seminar in Küsnacht . Initially drafted during the First World War , he was called away from his unit and worked in St. Moritz as an educator in the Princely House of Liechtenstein and then as a primary school director in Uster .

In 1918 he was enrolled at the University of Zurich , studied Romance languages and gained a secondary teaching diploma . After studying in Paris, he did his doctorate in Zurich with Jakob Jud with a thesis on the West Lombard dialect in the Valle Anzasca in Piedmont.

Gysling worked as a secondary school teacher in Zurich for forty years. Fascinated by the South Walser dialects, which lead a very idiosyncratic linguistic island existence in the Romance-speaking environment , he turned to researching them during his holidays.

research

Gysling got to know the Walser dialect of Macugnaga on the occasion of his dissertation . The Romanists were immediately drawn to these ancient German dialects, which were at the same time subject to many Romance influences. In 1929 he traveled to Northern Italy with Rudolf Hotzenköcherle and brought home an early speech sample he had produced and pressed onto a gramophone record from the village of Agaro (municipality of Premia ). Another trip, also undertaken together with Hotzenköcherle, to almost all places in South Walser, took place in 1931; their results were integrated into the material of the Swiss Idiotikon in 1934 .

From 1950 to 1955 Gysling worked as an explorer for the language atlas of German-speaking Switzerland founded in 1935 and, together with Hotzenköcherle, carried out the dialect recordings in the northern Italian Walser towns of Gressoney , Issime , Alagna , Macugnaga , Rima , Rimella and Saley .

Publications (selection)

• Contributo alla conoscenza del dialetto della Valle Anzasca, Novara. In: Archivum Romanicum 13, 1929, pp. 87–190, also dissertation from the University of Zurich.
• Welsch and German in Gressoney. In: Vox Romanica 6, 1941/1942, pp. 111-140.
• Wedding customs from Rima (Piedmont). In: Swiss Archives for Folklore 49, 1953, pp. 16–33. doi : 10.5169 / seals-114801
• Gressoney et les rapports linguistiques franco-provençaux-grisons. In: La Valle d'Aosta. Relazioni e comunicazioni presentate al 31st Congresso Storico Subalpino di Aosta, 9-10-11 September 1956. Volume 1. [Cuneo 1958], 103-112.
• Ornavasso Walser mouth fossils. In: Studia Neophilologica 40, 1968, pp. 386-413.
• About some foreign words in the dialect of Alagna. In: Wir Walser 7, 1969, 1, pp. 16-24.
• About some place and field names in Gressoney (dedicated to Paul Zinsli on his 65th birthday in gratitude). In: Wir Walser 10, 1, 1972, 42-49.
• "Ds huedreifji" - a textbook example of a Walser motto. In: Wir Walser 11, 1973, 1, pp. 12-18.
• Plant and animal names from the southern Monte Rosa valleys. In: Die Alpen 49, 1973, pp. 73–82.
• [together with Rudolf Hotzenköcherle:] Walser dialects in Northern Italy in text and sound. Texts accompanying the language records in the phonogram archive of the University of Zurich. Frauenfeld 1952.

literature

• Paul Zinsli : Congratulations and thanks. For the Walser researcher Fritz Gysling on his 80th birthday. In: Wir Walser 1/1975, pp. 32–35.
• Paul Zinsli: † Dr. Fritz Gysling. In: Wir Walser 2/1984, pp. 38–39 (or Neue Zürcher Zeitung, August 4/5, 1984).
• Rudolf Trüb : Personal data. In: Linguistic Atlas of German-speaking Switzerland. Graduation tape. Tübingen and Basel 2003, p. 20.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Gysling himself apparently did not use the presumed baptismal name Friedrich ; however, it appears in certain bibliographies.

Web links

• Literature by and about Fritz Gysling in the catalog of the German National Library
• Publications by and about Fritz Gysling in the Helveticat catalog of the Swiss National Library