Martin Fogel (doctor)

Engraving by Christian Fritzsch (1738)

Martin Fogel , also Martinus Fogelius , (born April 17, 1634 in Hamburg ; † October 21, 1675 ibid) was a German doctor and linguist .

Life

Fogel was a student of the mathematician, doctor and botanist Joachim Jungius (1587–1657), who had been rector of the Johanneum since 1628 , at the Johanneum School of Scholars in Hamburg . In addition, he learned languages ​​such as the Hebrew language and the Syrian language from Aegidius Gutbier . He also studied the Arabic language . In 1653 he went to the University of Giessen and a year later to the University of Strasbourg , where he enrolled in the theological faculty.

Fogel finished his studies at the University of Padua . There he was on 19 January 1663 as a medical doctor doctorate . In 1664 he met the Grand Duke of Florence Cosimo III. de 'Medici , who a few years later asked him to compile a Finnish grammar and dictionary for him. This assignment aroused Fogels interest in the Finnish language and stimulated him to further research. He was particularly concerned with the question of the relationship between languages. He therefore tried to compare the language of the Finni with that of the Hunni .

From 1666 Fogel worked as a doctor in his hometown. In 1669 he married. The marriage gave birth to four daughters and one son. In 1675 he became professor of logic and metaphysics at the Academic Gymnasium in Hamburg. He died in 1675 of febris purpurea ( scarlet fever ). His library of 3,284 titles was to be sold after his death in 1678. A library catalog has been created. Since only a few volumes were sold to interested parties, Leibniz was able to acquire the library for Duke Johann Friedrich von Braunschweig-Lüneburg . Today it is part of the Lower Saxony State Library in Hanover.

Today Fogel is considered to be the founder of Finno-Ugric Studies , the science of the group of Finno-Ugric languages . In 1669 he sent Cosimo a nomenclator , a list of words, and a grammar of Finnish. In his main work De linguae finnicae indole observationes , he not only showed that individual words in Finnish and Hungarian are similar, but also the structures of the two languages. The work slumbered for two hundred years in the National Library in Florence until it was discovered there by Professor EN Setälä . He had found the trace of the copy in Florence through Fogel's correspondence and a copy of the observationes that are kept in the Lower Saxony State Library in Hanover .

Honors

The main hall of the Finnish-Ugric Institute of the University of Hamburg is named Martin Fogels.

literature

• Emilio Teza : Del "Nomenclator finnicus" mandato da Martin Fogel in Italia . Rendiconti della Reale Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei , Rome 1893.
• György Lakó: Martinus Fogelius' merits in the discovery of the Finno-Ugric linguistic relationship, in: Ural-Altaische Jahrbücher, Vol. 41 (1969), pp. 3-13.
• Memoriae Martini Fogelii Hamburgensis (1634-1675). Contributions to the memorial ceremony in Hamburg on April 17, 1984. Edited by Wolfgang Veenker . Hamburg: Communications from the Societas Uralo-Altaica
• Cristina Wis-Murena: La Versione di Hannover delle De Finnicae linguae indole observationes di Martin Fogel . Annali dell'Istituto universitario orientale di Napoli, 1983.
• Péter and Péter Hajdú: The Uralic Languages ​​and Literatures , Helmut Buske Verlag, Hamburg 1987.
• Maria Marten et al .: Fogels regulations: From the workshop of the Hamburg doctor Martin Fogel (1634–1675) . Klostermann, Frankfurt am Main 2015, ISBN 978-3-465-04230-3 .
• Holger Fischer: Fogel, Martin . In: Franklin Kopitzsch, Dirk Brietzke (Hrsg.): Hamburgische Biographie . tape 7 . Wallstein, Göttingen 2020, ISBN 978-3-8353-3579-0 , p. 85-86 .

Individual evidence

1. ^ Cordus books in the Lower Saxony State and University Library in Göttingen in Contributions to the History of Pharmacy , 1974, 26th year number 1, pages 4–8