Kurt Meyer (Germanist, 1921)

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Kurt Meyer (1921-2017)

Kurt Werner Meyer (born August 22, 1921 in Zurich ; † March 7, 2017 in Aarau ) was a Swiss German studies specialist who worked as a lexicographer and librarian . He became known in particular with his work on Swiss High German standard language.

Life

Meyer passed the Matura type A (with Latin and Greek) in Zurich and then studied German and history at the University of Zurich . In 1951 he graduated from Rudolf Hotzenköcherle with a dissertation on the Swiss German adjective derivation (printed in 1960) and also received the high school teacher diploma.

From 1951 to 1968 Meyer worked as an editor at the Swiss Idiotikon in Zurich. From 1968 until his retirement in 1986 he was the head of the Aargau Cantonal Library in Aarau .

Kurt Meyer was the father of the historian Andreas Meyer .

Act

Language was at the center of Meyer's work - even after he moved to the cantonal library. Already in his dissertation he proved to be a precise linguist with extensive dialectological knowledge. He wrote the articles he wrote for the Swiss Idiotikon with “the utmost meticulousness”, as it says in the annual report for 1968; The crowning glory were the two dictionary articles about dër, die, das as demonstrative pronouns and as articles . From 1987 onwards he evaluated the 14th volume of the idiot for its "grammatical register" and remained connected to the dictionary in this way.

Via the then editor-in-chief of the Idiotikon, Hans Wanner , who was chairman of the German-speaking Swiss Language Association (today the Swiss Association for the German Language ), Meyer also joined this association, which is dedicated to promoting the Swiss variant of the German standard language. From 1957 to 1968 he was president of its regional group in Zurich (Zürcher Sprachverein) and as such ex officio member of the board of the all-German-speaking umbrella organization; from 1976 to 1993 he was its deputy chairman. For well over thirty years, from 1960 to 1996, he was also a member of the Swiss Duden Committee, the body consulted by the Duden editors about the inclusion of Helvetisms in their dictionaries. From around 1970 the Swiss Duden Committee was also chaired by Meyer. From 1964 to 1971 he also acted as editor of the association organ Sprachspiegel .

The combination of Idiotikon experience and active work at the language association provided the basis for lexicographically capturing Swiss High German vocabulary. Meyer was not the first to take on this task - Stephan Kaiser had already written a two-volume publication in 1969/70 on the peculiarities of the written German language in Switzerland, and Hannelore Fenske also had a more abstract publication on the same topic. Meyer's How do you say in Switzerland ?, which was published in 1989 by Duden Verlag as a Duden paperback , was not only intended for scientists, but was also aimed particularly at interested laypeople. Each Helvetism is illustrated with one or two example sentences that Meyer drew from his own collection that has grown over many years. In 2006 the work was published under the title Swiss Dictionary. This is what we say in Switzerland in a greatly expanded and revised version by the Frauenfelder Huber-Verlag. Meyer also edited the Swiss student dude from 1970. In addition to these books, he wrote a large number of essays on Swiss High German standard language and Swiss German dialects.

Meyer's estate concerning Swiss High German is in the archive of the Swiss Idiotikon.

Publications

Monographs

  • The derivation of adjectives in Swiss German. Suffix forms. Huber, Frauenfeld 1960 (contributions to Swiss German dialect research X) ( digitized version ).
  • How do you say in Switzerland? Dictionary of Swiss peculiarities. Dudenverlag, Mannheim / Vienna / Zurich 1989 (Duden pocket books 22). ISBN 3-411-04131-5 .
  • Swiss dictionary. That's what we say in Switzerland. Huber, Frauenfeld 2006. ISBN 3-7193-1382-4 .
  • [Together with Otmar Zehnder:] Swiss student boys. Spelling and Linguistics. Büchler, Wabern 1970.

Idiotikon -Article in selection (with the keyword the whole word family is meant)

  • Volume XII: Daughter, Tafelen, Tauff / Tauffi / tauffen, tifig, deep, valley, dolen, great, Tolen I, Tüelen, Tamp / tampen, Tampf / tampen.
  • Volume XIII: dīn I, II, Diener (the simplex of the verb together with Ida Suter), Tansen, Dienst, Tunst, Tantsch, dër / die / das I, II, Dorff.

Selection of essays

  • Mashed potatoes. An example of the word equalization within the German language. In: Sprachspiegel 18, 1962, pp. 104-108 ( digitized version ).
  • Our share in the written German language. In: Language, Language History, Language Maintenance in German-speaking Switzerland. Sixty years of the Swiss-German language association. Edited by the German-Swiss Language Association, Zurich 1964, pp. 41–60.
  • About "very" in Swiss German. In: Swiss German Dictionary. Report on the year 1967. Zurich [1968], pp. 39–58 ( digitized version ).
  • The German of the Swiss. In: Terminologie et Traduction 1, 1994, pp. 9-39.
  • “Der Duden”, Switzerland and the “Swiss Duden Committee”. In: Sprachspiegel 52, 1996, pp. 115-120 ( digitized version ).
  • The German language in Germany, Austria - and Switzerland! On a fundamental book by Ulrich Ammon. In: Sprachspiegel 53, 1997, pp. 218-224 ( digitized version ).

literature

  • Hermann Villiger: Kurt Meyer - 80 years old on August 22, 2001. A résumé. In: Sprachspiegel 57, 2001, p. 110 f. ( online ).
  • Matthias Wermke: Kurt Meyer, the peculiarities of the Swiss German [sic!] Vocabulary and the Duden. In: Sprachspiegel 57, 2001, pp. 111-113 ( online ).
  • Johannes Wyss: Obituary for Kurt Meyer. In: Sprachspiegel 73, 2017, p. 86 ( online ).
  • Relevant annual reports of the Swiss Idiotikon , especially the one about 2017, p. 2 f. ( online ).

proof

  1. ^ Kurt Meyer obituary notice. In: todesangeboteportal.ch. March 9, 2017. Retrieved March 9, 2017 .
  2. ↑ Swiss German Dictionary. Report on the year 1968. Zurich [1969], p. 1 .
  3. ↑ Schweizerisches Idiotikon, Vol. XIII, Col. 1028 ff.
  4. ↑ Schweizerisches Idiotikon, Vol. XIII, Sp. 1122 ff.
  5. ^ Stephan Kaiser: The special features of the written German language in Switzerland. Vol. 1: Words and word usage. Vol. 2: Word formation and sentence formation. Dudenverlag, Mannheim / Vienna / Zurich 1969. 1970 (Duden articles. Special series: The particularities of the written German language abroad 30a. 30b).
  6. ^ Hannelore Fenske: Swiss and Austrian peculiarities in German dictionaries. Narr, Tübingen 1973 (Institute for the German Language. Research Reports 10).
personal data
SURNAME Meyer, Kurt
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Meyer, Kurt Werner
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss linguist and librarian
DATE OF BIRTH August 22, 1921
PLACE OF BIRTH Zurich
DATE OF DEATH March 7, 2017
Place of death Aarau