Hermann Blattner

Hermann Blattner (1866–1910) as a former lord of his student union.

Hermann Blattner (born July 22, 1866 in Schinznach-Dorf ; † April 20, 1910 in Brugg ) was a Swiss Germanist , pharmacist , journalist and writer as well as an editor at the " Schweizerischen Idiotikon ", the dictionary of the Swiss German language. However, his childhood dream of becoming a researcher in Africa came to nothing.

Life and work

Youth and education

Blattner grew up in Schinznach in central Aargau . In 1880 the family moved to the nearby town of Brugg, where the father took over a pharmacy. Blattner graduated from the district school there and from Easter 1882 attended the canton school in Aarau , where he was Adolf Frey's favorite student .

In 1888 he passed the Matura and studied German language and literature at the universities of Zurich , Bern and Leipzig . At the latter university, Blattner became the preferred student of Friedrich Zarncke , co-author of the "Middle High German Dictionary", and was encouraged by him to the best of his ability. Blatter wrote the dissertation on the dialects of the canton Aargau in Leipzig (published in 1890).

As a seeker, pharmacist and journalist

Back in Brugg, Blattner briefly taught natural sciences and Italian at the district school. He pursued his military career up to the degree of captain, but then dropped out in the middle of the general staff school.

His aim in life as a young man was colonial service . As a student, he had already made contact with the German traveler to Africa, Gerhard Rohlfs, and the German-born Ottoman-Egyptian governor Emin Pascha ( Eduard Schnitzer ). In order to be able to set off for Africa more quickly, he moved to Asturias , Spain , in the late 1880s , where his brother-in-law ran a dynamite factory. He spent the waiting time hiking through northern Spain, which he reported on in the feature section of the “ Neue Zürcher Zeitung ”, and a trip through Castile , where he contracted malaria . The unhelpful replies from Rohlfs and Emin Pascha that finally arrived, and finally the negative decision from the German Colonial Office in Berlin had a devastating effect on Blattner, and he returned to Brugg disaffected.

Shortly after he was awarded a position as a teacher at the Brugger district school, his older brother Otto died at the beginning of 1892. Hermann subsequently took on the task of looking after his nephews and nieces and entered his father's pharmacy as an apprentice. From 1894 to 1896 he completed a second degree in pharmacy at the University of Zurich and, after passing his state examination, took over his father's business in autumn 1896. In the same year he married the pastor's daughter Ida Belart.

When his mother died in 1903, Blattner sold the pharmacy and moved to Basel , where he joined the editorial team of the “ Basler Nachrichten ”. Just a year and a half later, he gave up the job again.

As a dialectologist

Blattner was elected to the editorial staff of the " Schweizerischer Idiotikon " in Zurich in 1904 and started work in early 1905. In his own words, this position corresponded to a long-cherished dream. But after five years, in the spring of 1910, he died at the age of not even 44 years at a pneumonia . Blattner was particularly valued by his dictionary colleagues for his good knowledge of the language and folk life of his home canton Aargau and for his broad life experience in general; In the “Idiotikon's” report on 1910, he received an unusually personal appreciation from editor-in-chief Albert Bachmann and a warm obituary from his colleague Eduard Schwyzer in the “Neue Zürcher Zeitung”. - His successor in the editorial office was the future professor of German studies Wilhelm Wiget .

Blattner's dissertation on the Aargau dialects, printed in 1890, was one of the early scientific works on Swiss German . It was written before the dialect monographs of the series “ Contributions to Swiss German Grammar ”, which were created under Bachmann's aegis, and thus did not yet meet the strict requirements of the emerging dialectology , but in the part about the sounds the influence of the Leipzig School is still noticeable. From today's point of view, the particular value of the work lies in the fact that it documents signs of rounding in the Central Aargau dialects for the 1880s , of which two generations later, on the occasion of the data collection for the “ Linguistic Atlas of German-speaking Switzerland ”, no more traces were found. These witnesses are against the background that the High Alemannic dialects are almost the only ones in the whole of High German that have preserved the unrounded quality of the Middle High German sounds, a sign that even in the Swiss Central Plateau the rounding had once gained a foothold, but then - possibly in the wake of Switzerland's linguistic and political life of its own - could not prevail.

As a writer

Blatter not only wrote for daily newspapers, magazines and homeland newspapers, but was also active as a writer. His "Festival for the Aargau Cantonal Rifle Festival in Brugg 1902" was played in the Roman theater of Vindonissa ( Windisch ), the dialect drama "De neu Herr Pfarer" (also 1902) was performed in Brugg by the gymnastics club, and the novella "Aus der hinter Gasse" ( 1910) breathes the spirit of Gottfried Keller . His poetic work, influenced by Heinrich Leuthold and Ludwig Ferdinand Schmid , appeared under the pseudonym Heinrich Ragor in the magazine "Deutsche Dichtung".

Publications

Linguistics

• About the dialects of the canton Aargau (borders; division; phonetics). Vocalism of the Schinznacherm [and] a [rt]. Effingerhof, Brugg 1890.
• Collaboration on the “Schweizerischer Idiotikon” (end of volume V, entire volume VI and beginning of volume VII).

literature

• [together with Viktor Jahn:] Festival for the Aargau Cantonal Rifle Festival in Brugg 1902. Effingerhof, Brugg 1902.
• De new mister pastor. A little piece. Bern 1902.
• From the back alley. Features of the «Basler Nachrichten», 1910.
• [under the pseudonym Heinrich Ragor:] Poems in the magazine "Deutsche Gedichte".

Other contributions

• Collaboration with various newspapers, magazines and the «Brugger Neujahrsblatt».

swell

• Hans Kaeslin: Dr. phil. Hermann Blattner, born on July 22, 1866, died on April 20, 1910. In: Brugger Neujahrs-Blätter für Jung und Alt 22 (1911), pp. 3–28.
• Heinz Vogelsang: Blattner, Hermann . In: Biographisches Lexikon des Aargau 1803–1957. Sauerländer, Aarau 1958 (Argovia 68/69), pp. 77-78.
• O. M [ittler]: Hermann Blattner. In: Historisch-Biographisches Lexikon der Schweiz , Vol. II, p. 269.
• Margrit Lang: Blattner, Hermann. In: German Literature Lexicon . 3rd, completely revised edition, supplementary volume II. Saur, Bern / Munich 1995, column 162.
• Report on the progress of work on the Swiss-German Idiotikon , years 1904, 1905 and 1910.
• Vita in Hermann Blattner's dissertation.
• Obituaries in the Basler Nachrichten of April 22, 1910 (Fritz Baur) and in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung of April 26, 1910 (Eduard Schwyzer).
• Blattner Hermann in the matriculation edition of the University of Zurich.

Web links

• Publications by and about Hermann Blattner in the Helveticat catalog of the Swiss National Library

proof

1. ↑ These are the cases of Middle High German / öi / to Aargau / ai / (for example fraie “be happy”) and from / öi / in Hiat (diphthongized Middle High German / üː /) to / ai / (for example nai “new”). - Even as late as at the end of the 20th century, Hans-Peter Schifferle also recorded relict-like roundings in north-east Aargau, see: Dialect structures in border landscapes. Investigations into dialect change in northeastern Aargau and in the neighboring southern Baden area of ​​Waldshut. Dissertation Zurich, Bern 1995 (Europäische Hochschulschriften I.1538), p. 219.
2. ↑ For the context see Hans-Peter Schifferle: Dialect structures in border landscapes. Investigations into dialect change in northeastern Aargau and in the neighboring southern Baden area of ​​Waldshut. Dissertation Zurich, Bern 1995 (Europäische Hochschulschriften I.1538), pp. 216–220.