Jack Thiessen

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Jack Thiessen (* 1931 in Manitoba ) is a Canadian linguist , German scholar , cultural activist and author . Mainly due to his intensive occupation with the vocabulary of the Plautdietschen and his short stories in this language, Thiessen is considered one of the most prominent linguists of the Russian mennonites worldwide .

life and work

Jack Thiessen was born in 1931 in Manitoba, Canada and grew up in a German - born Russian Mennonite family and community near Winnipeg . His parents were immigrants from the old colony of Chortitza on the Dnepr ( Ukraine , formerly southern Russia ). His mother tongue was or is Plautdietsch ; the use of the German and English languages ​​was added - as is customary among the Mennonites in Canada - in the early years of childhood. Thiessen studied at the Mennonite Collegiate Institute and the University of Manitoba , wrote his doctoral thesis on Plautdietsch at the University of Marburg in 1961 and published it two years later as a study on the vocabulary of the Canadian Mennonites in the series German Dialect Geography: Studies on the German Language Atlas . This publication examines the Plautdietsch vocabulary in the context of Prussian dialects and Mennonite cultural history. In addition to his constant preoccupation with lexical aspects of the Plautdietsch language, Thiessen wrote numerous short stories and some more extensive narratives . In 1961 he became a member (and from 1971 to 1976 also chairman) of the Manitoba Arts Council . While Jack Thiessen was professor and dean of the 1960s and 1970s and played a key role in establishing the German Department at the University of Manitoba and the University of Winnipeg , his first dictionary for the Plautdietsche language ( Mennonite Low-German Dictionary ) appeared in Elwert in Marburg in 1977 Publishing company. In the 1980s and 1990s he worked as a freelance translator and in the meantime held a visiting professorship for the English language and Canadian literature at the University of Kiel and the University of Jena . As "perhaps the crowning achievement of his life", John Considine rates his second dictionary ( Mennonitisch-Plautdeutsches Wörterbuch / Mennonite Low German Dictionary ), which appeared in Canada in 1999 and was revised in 2003 by the Max Kade Institute ( University of Wisconsin-Madison ) Form was issued. Jack Thiessen is described by colleagues as "one of the most excitingly talented lexicographers alive today". He lives in New Bothwell, Manitoba, Canada with his wife Audrey.

Publications (selection)

  • Jack Thiessen: Yiddish in Canada: The death of a language. Schuster-Verlag, Leer 1973, ISBN 3796300405
  • Al Reimer and Jack Thiessen (Eds.): A Sackful of Plautdietsch: A collection of Mennonite Low German stories and poems. Hyperion Press, Winnipeg 1983, ISBN 0-920534-25-2
  • Jack Thiessen: Sermon fier haite. Buske-Verlag, Hamburg 1984, ISBN 3-87118-598-1
  • Victor Peters and Jack Thiessen: Mennonite Names / Mennonite Names. Elwert-Verlag, Marburg 1987, ISBN 3-770808-52-5
  • Victor Peters and Jack Thiessen: Plautdietsche Jeschichten: Conversations - Interviews - Stories. Elwert-Verlag, Marburg 1990 (in the series of publications of the Commission for East German Folklore in the German Society for Folklore), ISBN 3-7708-0927-0
  • Jack Thiessen: Tribute to Trucking. American Historical Press, Sun Valley 1990, ISBN 0897813464
  • Antoine de Saint-Exupery ; Jack Thiessen (translator): Dee tjliena Prinz. Plautdietsch , ed. by Walter Sauer, Naumann-Verlag, Nidderau 2002 (Le petit prince in German dialects, Volume 15), ISBN 3-933575-85-0
  • Wilhelm Busch ; Jack Thiessen (translator): Max enn Moritz. Eene Jungejeschijcht enn sewen Schowanacke , ed. by Walter Sauer, Inkfaß edition, Neckarsteinach 2003, ISBN 3-9808205-6-4
  • Jack Thiessen: Mennonite Low German Dictionary = Mennonite-Low German Dictionary. Max-Kade-Institute for German-American Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison 2003, ISBN 0-924119-09-8
  • Jack Thiessen: Dittsied. Plautdietsche Jeschichte , Tweeback-Verlag, Bonn 2011, ISBN 978-3-98119787-7

Plautdietsche short stories by Jack Thiessen

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Heinz Antor, Sylvia Brown, John Considine et al .: Refractions of Germany in Canadian Literature and Culture. de Gruyter, Berlin 2003, pp. 145–168
  2. ↑ http://ereimer.net/Thiessen/Review-of-Dictionary-by-DrJohnConsidine.htm
personal data
SURNAME Thiessen, Jack
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Thiesse, Hauns (plautdietsch)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Canadian linguist, German scholar, cultural activist and author
DATE OF BIRTH 1931
PLACE OF BIRTH Manitoba , Canada