Johann Severin father

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Johann Severin Vater (born May 27, 1771 in Altenburg , Duchy of Saxony-Altenburg , HRR ; † March 16, 1826 in Halle (Saale) , Province of Saxony , Kingdom of Prussia ) was a German theologian and linguist .

Live and act

Johann Severin Vater studied in Jena and Halle theology and was in Halle with a thesis in 1794 Animadversiones et lectiones ad Aristotelis libros tres Rhetoricum doctorate . From 1796 to 1799 he continued his studies in Jena, where he became an associate professor in 1798. From 1799 he was professor of theology and oriental languages ​​at the theological faculty in Halle . After the University of Halle was closed by the French occupation forces in 1806, he moved to the University of Königsberg . From 1808 he was a corresponding member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences . In 1810 he became a member of theAcademy of Charitable Sciences in Erfurt and, in 1812, corresponding member of the Prussian Academy of Sciences . From 1820 until his death he was back in Halle. During the time of the Prussian educational reform he was a member of the Scientific Deputation from 1810 , which was supposed to reshape the educational system in line with new humanism .

Father published theological works on Bible exegesis and church history , but made a name for himself above all as a linguist . He researched German , Russian , Polish , Hebrew , Arabic , Sanskrit and various regional languages. Furthermore, together with Friedrich Justin Bertuch , father was the editor of the journal General Archive for Ethnography and Linguistics , which combined linguistics and ethnology . Father was influential in Slavic studies , among other things through the Russian grammar he wrote and his contacts with Vuk Stefanović Karadžić , whom he arranged for a doctorate in Jena. He also made a name for himself on the American continent through his work on the Indian languages . His third volume, "Mithridates", based on the preparatory work of the original Mithridates editor Johann Christoph Adelung and his own research, is the first representation of Indian languages ​​to collect all of the contemporary information known in Europe. The volume, published in 1812, contains data on more than 500 Indian languages ​​from the entire American continent and a classification of the language families, some of which are still valid today. For this work, father also used information that Alexander von Humboldt had collected on his travels and made available to father.

Publications

  • the continuation of Johann Christoph Adelungs Mithridates (Berlin 1809-1817, 4 volumes, volume 2 completed by father, volumes 3 and 4 edited by father alone)
  • Handbook of Hebrew, Syrian, Chaldean, and Arabic grammar. Leipzig 1801
  • Practical grammar of the Russian language in tables and rules together with exercises for grammatical analysis. Leipzig 1809
  • Literature of the grammars, lexicons and word collections of all languages ​​of the world. Berlin 1815; 2nd edition by Bernhard Jülg , 1847.
  • Studies on America's population from the old continent dedicated to Chamberlain Alexander von Humboldt by Johann Severin father, professor and librarian. Christian Wilhelm Vogel, Leipzig 1810.

literature

  • Ernst Kuhn:  Father, Johann Severin . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 39, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1895, pp. 503-508.
  • Heinrich Doering : The learned theologians of Germany in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Verlag Johann Karl Gottfried Wagner, 1835, Neustadt an der Orla, vol. 4, p. 563, ( online )
  • Friedrich August Schmidt: New necrology of the Germans. Bernhard Friedrich Voigt, Ilmenau, 1828, 4th year 1826 1st part, p. 139 ( online )
  • Arnold: Father, Johann Severin. In: Johann Jakob Herzog: Real Encyclopedia for Protestant Theology and Church . Verlag Rudolf Besser, Gotha, 1863, 1st edition, p. 51 ( online )
  • Johann Jakob Günter, Johannes Günther: Life sketches of the professors at the University of Jena from 1558 to 1858. Friedrich Mancke, Jena 1858, p. 221, ( online )
  • Jens Lüdtke , The Romance Languages ​​in Mithridates of Adelung and Father. Study and text . Narr, Tübingen, 1978

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Jörg Meindl: Father, Johann Severin. In: Thomas Adam (ed.): Germany and the Americas: culture, politics, and history. ABC-CLIO, Santa Barbara 2005, p. 1088
  2. ↑ E. Winter and Ernst Eichler (eds.): Johann Severin Vater - a pioneer of German-Slavic reciprocity . Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1984
  3. ^ Leni Arnold: Vuk Karadzic's doctorate in Jena . In: Germany and the Slavic East. Festschrift to commemorate the 200th birthday of Ján Kollár. ed. by Ulrich Steltner together with Sigmar Pfeil, Inst. for Slavic Studies, Jena 1994, p. 67
  4. ↑ Jörg Meindl: Father, Johann Severin. In: Thomas Adam (ed.): Germany and the Americas: culture, politics, and history. ABC-CLIO, Santa Barbara 2005, pp. 1089-1090
  5. ↑ Isolde Schmidt: "Is there anything more beautiful than seeing the sexes of people like the families of plants in an orderly manner!" Johann Severin father's studies of American languages. In: Contributions to the history of linguistics. Volume 6, 1996, pp. 79-94
personal data
SURNAME Father, Johann Severin
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German theologian and linguist
DATE OF BIRTH May 27, 1771
PLACE OF BIRTH Altenburg , Duchy of Saxony-Altenburg , HRR
DATE OF DEATH March 16, 1826
PLACE OF DEATH Halle (Saale) , Province of Saxony , Kingdom of Prussia