Heinrich Koppelmann

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Heinrich Ludwig Koppelmann (born July 19, 1894 in Lippstadt ; † May 6, 1972 ) was a German linguist .

Life

Koppelmann was born in 1894 as the son of the university professor Wilhelm Koppelmann (1860–1934). After graduating from high school , he studied at the Eberhard Karls University in Tübingen and in 1913 became a member of the Tübingen fraternity, Derendingia , to which his father and younger brother had already belonged. In 1922 he was at the University of Muenster with a thesis on Frederick's colonization in East Friesland Dr. phil. PhD . He later became a teacher in the Netherlands and later in the Dutch East Indies . He also published numerous articles and books on linguistic topics in the 1920s to 1950s.

Hypothesis from the Eurasian language family

In 1928, Koppelmann presented similarities between Indo-European and other Eurasian languages, namely Ainu and Korean . Building on this, he hypothesized in 1933 that these languages ​​were also related to Ural (and, connected to it, Jukhagir ) and the Altaic language family , as well as Nivkh and Sumerian . In doing so, he took over parts of Holger Pedersen's nostratic hypothesis and excluded Semitic (including modern Afro-Asian ) from his hypothesis. Semitic, in his view, is more distantly related to the "Eurasian" family. In this respect, Koppelmann can be seen as the forerunner of Joseph Greenberg , who represented a very similar hypothesis with his Eurasian . Greenberg apparently came to a very similar grouping independently when he first introduced his Eurasian in 1987. It was not until his final publication in 2000/2002 that he named Koppelmann (1933) as a source of literature.

It is noteworthy that in 1933 Koppelmann not only listed grammatical and lexical similarities, but also supported them with proposed sound laws. This is where his work differs from Joseph Greenberg's Eurasian. Greenberg, on the other hand, saw Japanese as part of the language family, due to completely different numerals and the lack of comparable personal pronouns known to him , Koppelmann did not include Japanese.

The Eurasian hypothesis did not find widespread acceptance; Koreanists in particular criticized numerous errors. The representatives of the nostratic did not pursue Koppelmann's ideas any further, only Greenberg came to similar results again. More recently, the researchers of the nostratic (especially Allan Bomhard) have come closer to the Eurasian / Eurasian (see the corresponding articles). The German Koreanist Andre Eckardt tried to prove the thesis that Korean was an Indo-European language, but found hardly any acceptance.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Membership directory of the Derendingia fraternity in Tübingen. 1967, master roll no. 509
  2. ↑ Heinrich Koppelmann: The relationship between Korean and the Ainu language family with the Indo-European languages. In: Anthropos. International Journal of Ethnology and Linguistics, Vienna 1928.
  3. ^ Heinrich Koppelmann: The Eurasian language family. Carl Winters University Bookstore, Heidelberg 1933.
  4. ^ Joseph Greenberg: Language in the Americas. Stanford University Press 1987.
  5. ^ Joseph Greenberg: Indo-European and Its Closest Relatives: The Eurasiatic Language Family, Volume 1, Grammar. Stanford University Press 2000.
  6. ^ Joseph Greenberg: Indo-European and Its Closest Relatives: The Eurasiatic Language Family, Volume 2, Lexicon. Stanford University Press 2002.
personal data
SURNAME Koppelmann, Heinrich
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Koppelmann, Heinrich Ludwig
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German linguist
DATE OF BIRTH July 19, 1894
PLACE OF BIRTH Lippstadt
DATE OF DEATH May 6, 1972