Johann Thunmann

Johann Thunmann (born August 23, 1746 in Toresund , Södermanland , † December 17, 1778 in Halle (Saale) ) was a Swedish scholar, Nordist, Albanologist and Romance scholar who worked in Germany.

life and work

Life

Thunman learned the ancient languages ​​and Arabic at an early age. He was a student at Thomasgymnasiet in Strängnäs and studied theology at Uppsala University . Then he went to Mecklenburg as a private tutor. In 1769 he passed the master’s examination at the University of Greifswald and worked as an educator in the Arnim-Suckow family. From 1772 until his untimely death he was a full professor of eloquence and philosophy at the University of Halle , as well as a librarian (appointed by Karl Abraham von Zedlitz ). He published two learned books that are to be located on the border between history, geography and linguistics.

Nordic studies

In his first work, Investigations into the ancient history of some Nordic peoples , to which Anton Friedrich Büsching wrote a preface, Thunmann wrote about Baltic languages , North Germanic languages and the Finnish language . The book was re-edited in 1979 by Harald Haarmann .

Albanology and Romance Studies

Thunmann knows southern European linguistics as a scholar who became interested in the Albanian language at an early age . Romance studies sees him as an early connoisseur of Romanian (he called it the language of the Laughs ), especially Macedorian or Aromanian . Without ever having been to the Balkans, he worked from literature (e.g. the Descriptio Moldaviae by Dimitrie Cantemir ) and with informants, for example with the philosopher Konstantinos Tzechanis (1740-1800) who was in Halle and who gave him the Albanian-Modern Greek -Aromunic dictionary provided by his teacher Theodōros Anastasios Kaballiōtēs . Thunmann added a Latin translation and published the work in the chapter "On the history and language of the Albanians and the Wlachs" of his book Studies on the History of the Eastern European Peoples , Leipzig 1774 (pp. 169–366).

Works

• Investigations into the ancient history of some Nordic peoples , Berlin 1772; (also edited by Harald Haarmann , Hamburg 1979)
  • Preface by Anton Friedrich Büsching , I-XXXVI
  • About the origin of the ancient Prussians and the other Latvian peoples 1–92 (dictionary Latin - Gothic - Latvian 84–88; Latin - Finnish - Latvian 88–92)
  • Notes on the General Nordic History by Professor August Ludwig Schlözer [Halle a. P. 1771] 93-220
  • Attempted explanation of an old Prussian inscription 221–248
  • About the ancient worship of the Obotrites 249–323
• Investigations into the history of the Eastern European peoples , Leipzig 1774
  • 1. General history of the peoples who lived on the Black Sea and the Maeotic Sea except for the incursion of the Mogols [sic]
    • First division. Oldest history of Hungarians, Bulgarians, Khazars, etc. 3–168
    • [Second section] On the history and language of the Albanians and the Guards ; (also edited by Harald Haarmann, Hamburg 1976)
      • [Theodor Kawalliotis's dictionary] 169–239
      • History of the Albanians 240–322
      • From the guards 323–366
    • [Third section] On some items from Russian history 367–406

literature

• The trilingual dictionary of Theodorus Anastasiu Kavalliotis from Moschopolis, printed in Venice in 1770. Albanian-German-Modern Greek-Aromanian , ed. by Armin Hetzer, Hamburg 1981; ud T. The four-language dictionary of “Theodoros Anastasiu Kavalliotis” from Moschopolis, printed in Venice in 1770, “Albanian-German-New Greek-Aromanian”. Updated new edition , Hamburg 1998
• General German Library 37, 1779, p. 293 (obituary)
• Ion Hurdubeţiu, The Germans on the Origin of the Romanians (from Johann Thunmann to Ernst Gamillscheg) , Diss. Breslau 1943, Diss. Bucharest 1973, Bucharest 1977
• Agnija V. Desnickaja, Theodoros Kavalliotis, Daniil, Johann Thunmann and the beginnings of Balkanology, in: Meanings and ideas in languages ​​and texts. Dedicated to Werner Bahner , ed. by Werner Neumann and Bärbel Techtmeier, Berlin 1987
• Armin Hetzer, 224. Albanian Lexicography, in: Dictionaries. Dictionaries. Dictionnaires. An international handbook on lexicography. Third volume , ed. by Franz Josef Hausmann, Oskar Reichmann, Herbert Ernst Wiegand and Ladislav Zgusta, Berlin. New York 1991, pp. 2361–2367 (here: pp. 2361f)
• Helmut-Wilhelm Schaller, History of Southeastern Europe Linguistics, in: Handbuch der Südosteuropa-Linguistik , ed. by Uwe Hinrichs, Wiesbaden 1999, pp. 91–116 (here: p. 97)
• Jens Lüdtke, Diachronic Romance Linguistics and Linguistic Historiography, in: Lexicon of Romance Linguistics I, 1, Tübingen 2001, pp. 1–35 (here: p. 23)
• Pierre Swiggers: Linguistique et grammaticographie romanes, in: Lexikon der Romanistische Linguistik I, 1, Tübingen 2001, p. 36–121 (here p. 84)

Web links

• Literature by and about Johann Thunmann in the catalog of the German National Library
• Robert Elsie: Johann Thunmann: On the History and Language of the Albanians and Vlachs ( Memento of October 14, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) (review with short biography, English, accessed December 30, 2016)
• Johann August Eberhard: Praise to Mr. Johann Thunmann, professor of world wisdom and eloquence at the University of Halle . Halle an der Saale, 1779
• Entry on Johann Thunmann in the Catalogus Professorum Halensis