Oskar Bandle

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Oskar Bandle
(Photo: Inga-Lill Nissas, approx. 1985).

Oskar Ernst Bandle (born January 11, 1926 in Frauenfeld ; † January 17, 2009 ibid) was a Swiss Nordicist and onomastic who taught and researched the Scandinavian languages and literatures in all their breadth. He was considered one of the leading representatives of his subject in German-speaking countries.

Life

Bandle was born in the capital of the canton of Thurgau as the son of a businessman and a primary school teacher. After graduating from the Frauenfeld canton school , he studied German and English at the University of Zurich from 1944 and took courses in Swedish and Icelandic. A stay abroad took him to the University College in London, then he worked on Alexander Jóhannesson's Icelandic Etymological Dictionary in Reykjavík in 1948/49 and continued his studies from 1949 at the Universities of Copenhagen and Uppsala .

After returning to Zurich, he received his doctorate in 1954 under Rudolf Hotzenköcherle and Eugen Dieth with a thesis on the language of the oldest Icelandic translation of the Bible, the Guðbrandsbiblía from 1584 (dissertation printed in 1956). From 1958 to 1962 he worked as an editor at the Swiss Idiotikon (dictionary of the Swiss German language) in Zurich. In 1961 he became a lecturer at the University of Freiburg im Breisgau . During this time he spent several study visits to Norway , the Faroe Islands and Iceland , during which he gathered the material for his post- doctoral thesis on West Nordic pet terminology; it appeared in two volumes in 1965.

In the same year, Bandle was appointed to the still young Saarland University in Saarbrücken, where he taught as a full professor of Germanic philology with special emphasis on Nordic studies. From 1968 until his retirement in 1993 he was a full professor at the newly created coordinating professorship for Nordic philology in Zurich and Basel .

His academic papers are in the UZH archive .

Create

The subject of Bandle's research was linguistic history , dialectology , place-name studies as well as older and more recent literary studies (particularly literary history ) of Danish , Swedish , Norwegian , Faroese and Icelandic . The common denominator of all this work was a cultural-historical approach and a way of thinking in the general context. Bandle spoke the Germanic idioms of Northern Europe fluently. The Swiss enjoyed a great reputation in Scandinavia and was recognized as one of the leading Nordicists from German-speaking countries.

Linguistics

The Guðbrandsbiblía printed in 1584

Bandle's fame is based on three linguistic works. His almost five hundred-page dissertation on the Guðbrandsbiblía (1956), a comprehensive grammar of the language of this Bible translation, became the standard work on the Icelandic linguistic history of the 16th century. His two-volume habilitation thesis on West Nordic domestic animal terminology (1965) was the first large word-geographical work in Scandinavia (Germany, France, Italy and Switzerland were preceded by a dialectgeographic analysis ) and is now an indispensable source for the Norsk Ordbok . The third important work, which deals with the development and structure of the five North Germanic languages ​​(1973), represents a sovereign synthesis of the entire Scandinavian language history, in which Bandle's diverse linguistic detailed studies. Towards the end of his life, Bandle was chief editor of the voluminous two-volume handbook The Nordic Languages (2002 and 2005), the most extensive comparative history of the North Germanic languages ​​to date.

For the Swiss Idioticon he wrote, among other things, the large article Ding with its complex history of meaning from 'assembly' (cf. Thing and Alþingi ) to its semantically faded application as 'an object in general' (printed in 1963).

Literary studies

In three early essays on the origin of the Icelandic sagas (1965, 1969, 1972), Bandle spoke out against the then prevailing theory of authorship and origin and emphasized the importance of oral storytelling. In the late 1980s he took up the topic again in the context of the new orality / literacy research, this time on the basis of the prehistoric sagas (Fornaldarsögur), which he located "between orality and literacy".

Bandle devoted himself to more recent literatures from 1976 onwards, with the history of reception and literary history as cultural history in the center. The focus of the epoch was on Romanticism and Late Romanticism ( Oehlenschläger , Winther , Jónas Hallgrímsson ), the Nordic classics of the Modern Breakthrough ( Ibsen , Strindberg , Hamsun ) and the neo-romantic Swedish poets of the 1890s. In 1988, Bandle organized the 17th study conference of the International Association for Scandinavian Studies on the subject of "Nordic Romanticism" in Zurich and Basel .

Bandle earned lasting merits with his essays on the periodization of Scandinavian literary history and especially his preoccupation with the literature of the Faroe Islands, which was virtually unknown outside of Scandinavia. His major essay Modern Faroese Literature. Attempt to determine the current position (1982, revised 1985) is the first ever historical presentation of Faroese literature .

Name customer

For the Onomastik Bandle worked during his Zurich study time when he, on a proposal by Eugen Dieth for the attention of the Federal Office of Topography elevated the field names in the canton Thurgau; The first essays on the Thurgauian place names soon followed. Decades later, after his retirement, Bandle wrote numerous thematic overview articles on the German and especially Scandinavian naming landscape for the Handbuch Namenforschung (1996) and the Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde (1994–2007). Most recently he was involved in the publication of the first two volumes of the Thurgau name book (both in 2003). In the field of onomatology, too, Bandle was concerned with the broader contexts, such as the natural landscape in the light of field and place names (1953), For the stratification of Thurgau place names (1963), Scandinavian place names from a cultural perspective or the historical development of field names : Scandinavian (the latter both 1996) make it clear.

Further work

The establishment of the Nordic departments at the universities of Zurich and Basel is largely Bandle's work, and he financed considerable parts of the two library collections privately. In 1961 he was co-founder and for many years president of the Swiss Society for Scandinavian Studies, which was supposed to strengthen the external impact of the subject under the umbrella of the Swiss Academy of Humanities and Social Sciences , and in 1973 he founded the series of contributions to Nordic philology .

Bandle's extensive erudition was complemented on a human level by his kindness, generosity, and entertaining, as well as a genuine interest in his students. The celebrations in the Nordic Department, which he organized for the students and employees, were downright legendary - Scandinavian cultural studies should not only be imparted academically, but also made tangible.

The Oskar Bandle Foundation, registered in 2010 and registered in the commercial register in 2012 and based in Zurich, aims “to support and educate Nordic Studies students of all nationalities who are enrolled at the University of Zurich. The Board of Trustees can also benefit students at the University of Basel in the same way as the purpose of the foundation.

Honors

Bandle received honorary doctorates from Uppsala and Reykjavík Universities in 1981 and 1987, respectively . He was a full member of the Kungliga Gustav Adolfs Akademien för svensk folkkultur in Uppsala, the Kungliga Vitterhets Historie och Antikvitets Academies in Stockholm and the Norske Videnskaps-Akademi in Oslo as well as a corresponding member of the Kungliga Skytteanska Samfundet .

In 1977 he received the Knight's Cross of the Icelandic Order of Falcons . In the same year he was made a first class knight of the Swedish Nordstjärne Order , in 1978 a knight of the Danish Dannebrog Order and finally in 1981 a first class knight of the Norwegian Order of St. Olav . In 1979 the University of Helsinki presented him with the Medal of Honor, and in 1999 he was awarded the Nils Ahnlund Prize of the Gustav Adolf Academy.

On his 60th birthday, Bandle received a Festschrift (edited by Hans-Peter Naumann , Basel / Frankfurt a. M. 1986), and on his 75th birthday, a selection from his essays on the history of language, literature and culture rolled into one extensive anthology reissued (edited by Jürg Glauser and Hans-Peter Naumann, Tübingen / Basel 2001).

Publications (selection)

History of Language and Dialectology
  • The language of the Guðbrandsbiblía. Orthography and sounds. To form. Copenhagen 1956 (Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana XVII).
  • Schweizerisches Idiotikon, Volume XII, columns 1742–1876 (including the word families of Talp, Ge-dult, Tult, Tamm, timmer, Dūmen, tumm, Tummel, Tuem, published 1960 and 1961) and Volume XIII, columns 470–507 (Simplex von Ding, published 1963).
  • Studies on West Norse Linguistic Geography. Pet terminology in Norwegian, Icelandic, and Faroese. A. Text volume. Copenhagen 1967 (Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana XXVIII). B. Card tape. Copenhagen 1967 (Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana Supplementum IV).
  • The structure of the North Germanic. With 23 cards. Basel / Stuttgart 1973 (contributions to Nordic philology 1), 2nd edition (with an introduction by Kurt Braunmüller) Tübingen 2011.
  • Nordisk dialektgeografi. Problem og metoder. In: Mot-Skrift. Arbeidskrift for språk og litteratur 2 (1984), pp. 44-105.
  • Dialektologi och språkhistoria. In: Nordiska dialektstudier. Föredrag vid femte nordiska dialektkonferensen Sigtuna 17–21 August 1994. Ed. By Maj Reinhammer. Uppsala 1997, pp. 31-46.
  • Icelandsk dialektgeografi. Problem above. In: Úlfar Bragason (ed.): Íslensk málsaga og textafræði. Reyjakvík 1997, pp. 9-21.
Older and younger literature
  • The author's question in the Icelandic Sagas. In: Journal for German Philology 84 (1965), pp. 321–353.
  • Icelandic sagas and hero poetry. In: Afmælisrit Jóns Helgasonar 30. júní 1969. Ed. By Jakob Benediktsson u. a. Reykjavík 1969, pp. 1-26.
  • A sensitive person's journey through the Alps. On Baggesen's experience of Switzerland in 1789/90. In: Studies on Danish and Swedish Literature. Edited by Oskar Bandle u. a. Basel / Stuttgart 1976, pp. 9-46.
  • Virkelighed and dæmoni i Christian Winthers digtning. In: Literature and Reality. Creatio versus mimesis. Problems of Realism in Modern Nordic Literature. Edited by Alex Bolckmans. Ghent 1977, pp. 269-290.
  • Ideology and reality. The image of Switzerland in Strindberg's works and letters. In: Strindberg and the German-speaking countries. International contributions to the Tübingen Strindberg Symposium 1977. Edited by Wilhelm Friese. Basel / Stuttgart 1979 (Contributions to Nordic Philology 8), pp. 335–368.
  • Modern Faroese literature. Attempt to determine your position. In: Scandinavistik 12 (1982), pp. 81–111. - Revision: Modern Faroese Literature. A paradigmatic development. In: Studia Scandinavica 8 (1985), pp. 9-29.
  • The problem of periodization in recent Nordic literary history. In: The Nordic literatures as an object of literary historiography. Contributions to the 13th Study Conference of the International Association for Scandinavian Studies (IASS) 10. – 16. August at the Ernst-Moritz-Arndt University of Greifswald. Edited by Horst Bien. Rostock 1982, pp. 146-154.
  • Periodisering i nyare nordisk litteraturhistoria. In: Samlaren 105 (1984), pp. 58-77.
  • The Fornaldarsaga between orality and written form. On the origin and development of the Örvar-Odds saga. In: Between festive days and everyday life. Ten articles on the topic of “Orality and written form”. Tübingen 1988 (ScriptOralia 6), pp. 191-213.
  • The development of the Örvar-Odds saga as a contribution to the genre typology. In: Work on Scandinavian Studies. Edited by Heiko Uecker. Frankfurt am Main u. a. 1989 (Texts and Studies on German and Scandinavian Studies 22), pp. 426–443.
  • Tradition and fiction in the Heimskringla. In: Snorri Sturluson. Colloquium on the occasion of the 750th anniversary of his death. Edited by Alois Wolf. Tübingen 1993 (ScriptOralia 51), pp. 27-47.
Onomastics
  • The natural landscape in the light of the field and place names. In: Communications from the Thurgauische Naturforschenden Gesellschaft 37 (1954), pp. 133–166.
  • For the stratification of the Thurgau place names. In: Language life in Switzerland. Linguistics, onomatology, folklore. Edited by Paul Zinsli u. a. Bern 1963, pp. 261–288.
  • Scandinavian place names from a cultural perspective. In: Name research. An international handbook on onomastics. Edited by Ernst Eichler u. a. 2nd subband. Berlin / New York 1996 (Handbooks for Linguistics and Communication Science 11.2), pp. 1090-1099.
  • Historical development of the field names: Scandinavian. In: Name research. An international handbook on onomastics. Edited by Ernst Eichle u. a. 2nd subband. Berlin / New York 1996 (Handbooks for Linguistics and Communication Science 11.2), pp. 1456–1462.
  • Fjord names. - field names. - Terrain names. - island names. - Country and landscape names. - Desert names (§ 1 continent). In: Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde. Edited by Heinrich Beck u. a. Volumes 9 (1995: 150–161 and 254–261), 10 (1997: 605–615), 15 (2000: 452–460), 17 (2000: 545–557) and 34 (2007: 301–307).
Anthology and list of publications
  • Writings on Nordic Philology. Linguistic, literary and cultural history of the Scandinavian countries. For the 75th birthday of the author . by Jürg Glauser and Hans-Peter Naumann. Francke, Tübingen / Basel 2001 (Contributions to Nordic Philology 31). - Directory of the printed writings of Oskar Bandle 1954–2000, compiled by Jürg Glauser and Matthias Hauck. Ibid. Pp. 613-622.
Editing
  • (together with Walter Baumgartner and Jürg Glauser :) Strindberg's dramas in the light of recent methodological discussions. Contributions to the IV. International Strindberg Symposium in Zurich 1979. Basel / Frankfurt am Main 1981 (contributions to Nordic philology 11).
  • (together with Jürg Glauser, Christine Holliger and Hans-Peter Naumann :) Nordic romanticism. Files of the XVII. IASS Study Conference 7. – 12. August 1988 in Zurich and Basel. Basel / Frankfurt am Main 1991 (contributions to Nordic philology 19).
  • (together with Kurt Braunmüller, Ernst Håkon Jahr, Allan Karkar, Hans-Peter Naumann and Ulf Teleman in connection with Lennart Elmevik and Gun Widmark :) The Nordic Languages. An International Handbook of the History of the North Germanic Languages. Berlin 2002 and 2005 (Handbooks for Linguistics and Communication Science 22).
  • (together with Eugen Nyffenegger :) The settlement names of the Canton of Thurgau. Origin and meaning of the names of the villages, hamlets and farms in the canton of Thurgau. 2 volumes. Frauenfeld / Stuttgart / Vienna 2003 (Thurgau name book 1.1 and 1.2).
  • (together with Jürg Glauser and Stefanie Würth): Entanglement of cultures. The language and literature exchange between Scandinavia and the German-speaking countries. For the 65th birthday of Hans-Peter Naumann. Tübingen 2004 (contributions to Nordic philology 37).

literature

Obituaries

  • Society for Scandinavian Studies (ed.): In memory of Oskar Bandle. Three speeches on the occasion of the academic funeral service in honor of Prof. Dr. Dr. H. ch c. Oskar Bandle in the Senate Room of the University of Zurich on Saturday, April 18, 2009. Zurich 2010. - In it:
    • Angelika Linke: Biographical Appreciation (pp. 9–14);
    • Hans-Peter Naumann: Studies in Linguistics (pp. 17–23);
    • Jürg Glauser: Writings on older and newer Scandinavian literature (pp. 24–32);
    • Eugen Nyffenegger: name research (pp. 35–40).
  • Aldo Keel: On the death of Oskar Bandle. Nordist out of passion. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung, January 23, 2009.
  • Obituary for Oskar Bandle. In: Thurgauer Jahrbuch , vol. 84, 2009, p. 192 f. ( e-periodica.ch ).

Web links

proof

  1. ^ Oskar Bandle's estate in Kalliope .
  2. ^ German word atlas , Atlas linguistic de la France , language and subject atlas of Italy and southern Switzerland and language atlas of German-speaking Switzerland .
  3. Schweizerisches Idiotikon, Volume XIII, columns 470–507, article Ding .
  4. Angelika Linke: Biographical appreciation. In: In memory of Oskar Bandle. Three speeches on the occasion of the academic funeral service in honor of Prof. Dr. Dr. H. ch c. Oskar Bandle in the Senate Room of the University of Zurich on Saturday, April 18, 2009. Zurich 2010, p. 12.
  5. ^ Oskar Bandle Foundation , accessed on July 2, 2015.
  6. Database query on the website of the President of Iceland , accessed on July 6, 2020.
  7. ^ Information from the Swedish Chapter of the Order of August 22, 2015.
  8. ^ Information from the Danish Chapter of the Order of July 1, 2015.
  9. Information from the Royal Norwegian Court of December 16, 2015.