Johann Siegmund Popowitsch

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Johann Siegmund Popowitsch.

Johann Siegmund Valentin Popowitsch ( Slovenian : Janez Žiga Valentin Popovič ; born February 9, 1705 in Arzlin / Arclin near Cilli / Celje in Lower Styria / Spodnja Štajerska (today located in Slovenia ); † November 21, 1774 in Perchtoldsdorf , Lower Austria ) was a Austrian linguist and natural scientist and, through his advocacy of the Upper German writing language, one of the pioneers of the standard Austrian variety of the German language .

Life

Popowitsch, the son of an employee of the Count Schrattenbach rule Salloch in Krain / Kranjska, grew up bilingually, German and Slovenian. He received his first lessons from a clergyman, then he took philosophical and theological studies at the Jesuit College in Graz . He broke off his studies without an academic degree and also discarded the possibility of admission to the Jesuit order , instead he undertook a three-year journey through the southern crown lands of the Habsburg monarchy , Italy , Sicily and Malta , covering long distances on foot. He then worked for 15 years for various families in Graz and Vienna as a court master ( private tutor ). After a serious illness in 1735 he gave up this activity and lived temporarily in poor conditions as a private scholar , from 1744 to 1746 he worked as a teacher at the Knight Academy of the Upper Austrian Abbey of Kremsmünster (about this time he later commented negatively). From 1747 to 1753 he lived first in Regensburg , then in Leipzig , where he devoted himself to scientific studies. On the mediation of the Viennese Archbishop Johann Joseph Graf Trautson Popowitsch received the first advertised professorship for the German language (officially: for "German bills of exchange") at the Vienna University in 1753 , which he held until 1766. In this function he published an introduction to the German language for use in Austrian schools (1754), which was introduced in 1763 after the grammar school reform in the schools of the then important Piarist Order as the standard for German teaching. Retired due to illness , he spent the last years of his life in the Lower Austrian market town of Perchtoldsdorf, where he is also buried.

Popovich was a polymath , he made contributions to various areas of knowledge, although only a small part of his research was published during his lifetime. Some of his estate is lost, the rest is kept in the Austrian National Library in Vienna. Popowitsch's main scientific interests were on the one hand biology and on the other hand linguistics . He himself saw this as a necessary complement to one another.

In 1758 he was elected a member of the Leopoldina . In 1760 he became an honorary member of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Saint Petersburg .

Biological research

Already at a young age, Popowitsch put on an extensive herbarium , which he continuously used on his own research trips , a. a. - unusual at the time - extended into the high mountains . Sponges and mushrooms were also of special interest . In 1750 he published his extensive studies of the sea anonymously .

Linguistic research

Popowitsch's linguistic work is now considered his main work. On the basis of his own create in decades of work archive - in the form of card boxes - of terms and grammatical properties of the Austrian countries and Southern spoken German he strongly opposed Gottscheds and Adelung on efforts, the Meissen or Saxon varieties of German as To enforce "High German" standard language, which earned him violent attacks by Gottsched's followers. His efforts to establish Austrian-South German varieties as the normative for a German standard language failed, but had some influence on the beginnings of the development and standardization of an Austrian standard variety of the German language.

During his lifetime, Popowitsch was only able to publish smaller linguistic works; his two main works were only published posthumously: The attempt to unify the dialects of Teutschland was published in 1780 by the former Jesuit Ignaz Lethmüller, and his extensive dictionary Vocabula Austriaca et Stiriaca was - based on a copy the largely lost original card box inventory by the Piarist Father Anton Wasserthal - published in 2004 by the Viennese professor of German studies Richard Reutner as part of a research project financed by the Austrian National Bank .

It is noticeable that in German studies in Austria in recent years and decades, historical interest in Popowitsch's linguistic work has increased, which is to be seen in connection with an increasing insistence on the peculiarities of Austrian German (a reaction to the growing dominance of Inland Germans , especially in the electronic media). In contrast, Popowitsch is largely ignored in German research in the history of linguistic history in Germany.

So far, Popowitsch's contributions to Slavic studies have received little attention, although they are of dubious quality: He took the view that the Slovenes were actually Slavic Teutons and that their language, which at that time was not yet standardized in terms of linguistics, was derived from Low German ; a scientifically untenable claim which was later adapted by Carinthian "German nationalists" (so-called Windisch theory ) - albeit usually without direct reference to Popowitsch .

Quotes

“But it would be excellent to wish that, above all, the industrious man's dictionary of Austrian dialect would be given to us.” Johann Christoph Adelung , 1782

“I really appreciate this man, and. did not wish that his work would go to waste: for knowledge of antiquity, language, and nature were combined with a very mature judgment. [...] In my mind, even his smallest essays, letters, etc. immediately saved. ” Johann Gottfried Herder , 1798

“The value of these rich collections of material lies, firstly, in their age: they testify to a large number of dialect and slang facts for the second half of the 18th century; second, in the precise definition of the meanings and in the detailed factual descriptions: Popowitsch united the natural scientist with the linguist. ” Paul Kretschmer , 1918.

Works

literature

  • Kurt Faninger, Johann Siegmund Valentin Popowitsch. An Austrian grammarian of the 18th century, Frankfurt a. M. 1996. ISBN 3-631-48869-6
  • Peter Kühn, Johann Siegmund Valentin Popowitsch's "Attempt to unite the dialects of Teutschland". A contribution to dialect lexicography in the 18th century. In: Ulrich Knoop (Ed.): Studies on Dialectology I. Hildesheim, Zurich, New York: Olms 1987, 81–148
  • Constantin von Wurzbach : Popowitsch, Johann Sigmund Valentin . In: Biographisches Lexikon des Kaiserthums Oesterreich . 23rd part. Kaiserlich-Königliche Hof- und Staatsdruckerei, Vienna 1872, pp. 108–113 ( digitized version ). [incorrect in the details].
  • Arnold Luschin-Ebengreuth, Johann Sigismund Popowitsch, in: Franz Haussmann (ed.), Südsteiermark. Ein Gedenkbuch, Graz 1925, pp. 207–223.
  • Gustav Gugitz, Johann Siegmund Valentin Popowitsch and his contributions to Upper Austrian folklore , in: Heimatgaue 18 (1937), pp. 97–114. (PDF file; 1.51 MB)
  • Roswitha Kornhofer, Johann Siegmund Valentin Popowitsch: A life between linguistics and natural science, in: Michael Benedikt u. a. (Ed.), Displaced Humanism - Delayed Enlightenment, Volume 2: Austrian Philosophy at the Time of the Revolution and Restoration 1750–1820, Vienna 1992, pp. 503–521. ISBN 3-85132-020-4

Individual evidence

  1. Gerda Mraz: The Josephine Archducal ABC or name booklet ; Dortmund 1980; ISBN 3-88379-167-9 , page 84 (afterword)
  2. ^ Foreign members of the Russian Academy of Sciences since 1724. Johann Sigismund Valentin Popowitsch. Russian Academy of Sciences, accessed October 16, 2015 (Russian, here: incorrect form of the middle name).

Web links