Manu Leumann

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Manu Leumann (born October 6, 1889 in Strasbourg , † July 15, 1977 in Zurich ) was a German Indo-Europeanist .

Live and act

Manu Leumann, son of the Indologist Ernst Leumann (1859-1931), attended the Strasbourg Protestant grammar school and in 1909 began studying classical philology and linguistics at the university there . He spent three semesters in Göttingen (with Friedrich Leo ) and Berlin (with Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff ). In 1914 he received his doctorate in Strasbourg with Albert Thumb with a dissertation on the Latin adjectives ending in -lis . Shortly thereafter, Leumann was drafted as a soldier when the First World War broke out .

After his return he went to Munich in 1919, where he worked on the Thesaurus Linguae Latinae . In 1922 he was appointed editor of the project and private lecturer for Indo-European Linguistics at Munich University . In 1927 Leumann accepted a call to the University of Zurich for the chair of Indo-European Comparative Languages, related disciplines of classical philology and Sanskrit (as the successor to Eduard Schwyzer ), where he was most effective. Here he also founded the “Leumann School” of Indo-European and Latin linguistics. His students included Peter Frei , Ernst Risch , Meinrad Scheller and others. In 1958 Leumann withdrew from the chairmanship of the International Thesaurus Commission , in 1959 he was retired. Until 1961 he was chairman of the Indo-European Society . In 1964 he left the Swiss National Science Foundation . He was visiting professor in Nijmegen (1962) and Freiburg im Üechtland (1968). Since 1950 he was a corresponding member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences .

In comparative linguistics and the reconstruction of Indo-European, Leumann limited himself to a selection of Indo-European languages, including Latin and Sanskrit in particular. He dealt with historical changes in word formation, word meaning, inflection and syntax. In his work Homeric Words (Basel 1950) he highlighted discontinuity (the loss of understanding) as an important criterion for changing word meanings. In the interests of philology, Leumann particularly dealt with the historical language level of Latin and comprehensively described the Latin-Greek language relationships.

In retirement, Leumann devoted himself mainly to the revision of his Latin grammar, the first processing of which from 1926-28 (together with Johann Baptist Hofmann ) no longer satisfied him. In 1977 he published the Latin theory of sounds and forms . He died shortly afterwards at the age of 87.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Manu Leumann obituary at the Bavarian Academy of Sciences (PDF file).
personal data
SURNAME Leumann, Manu
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Indo-Europeanist
DATE OF BIRTH October 6, 1889
PLACE OF BIRTH Strasbourg
DATE OF DEATH 15th July 1977
Place of death Zurich