Johann Joseph Schmidlin

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Johann Joseph Schmidlin (born October 15, 1725 in Ludwigsburg , † December 31, 1779 in Hamburg ) was a German lexicographer .

Johann Joseph Schmidlin, copper engraving from 1780

Life

He was barely four years old when his father, the special superintendent in Ludwigsburg, Christoph Andreas Schmidlin, died. His mother then moved with him to his grandmother in Neuchâtel and in 1736 she married the court preacher and consistorial councilor in Kirchberg, Johann Ludwig Wolf.

After attending high school in Öhringen studied Schmidlin at the University of Wittenberg theology . Dissatisfied with the narrowness of the pastoral profession and the strictness of his stepfather, he went to Tübingen to study law , but also studied English and Italian language studies. In 1748, after completing his studies, he received the offer of a private tutor position with the title of court master with the young imperial counts of Giech from Thurnau (Upper Franconia), which he was supposed to attend to the Collegium Carolinum in Braunschweig, today's Technical University of Braunschweig , and lectures himself could visit. However, it was during this time that Schmidlin discovered his passion for the theater and other amusements, and he got into debt. Because of the neglect of his actual activity, he lost the post of court master. In the following years he moved from place to place and carried out various activities. After a short stay in England he settled in Hamburg, became editor and publisher of the Hamburgisches Journal and married in 1763.

In the meantime equipped with the title of a princely Hohenlohe privy councilor, he now tackled his long-cherished project of a real and universal dictionary of the French language, on which he worked tirelessly and which he wanted to publish himself. In 1771 the Bavarian Academy of Sciences accepted him as a foreign member. When he died on December 31, 1779, he had only been able to complete the lexicon up to the letter J.

literature

personal data
SURNAME Schmidlin, Johann Joseph
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German lexicographer
DATE OF BIRTH October 15, 1725
PLACE OF BIRTH Ludwigsburg
DATE OF DEATH December 31, 1779
Place of death Hamburg