Peter Gaeffke

Peter Gaeffke (born December 6, 1927 in Breslau ; † March 30, 2005 in Philadelphia , Pennsylvania , USA ) was a German linguist and Indologist .

Life

The father, Albert Gaeffke, was an engineer . Son Peter attended the Maria-Magdalenen-Gymnasium in Breslau from 1938 to 1944 , where the lifelong friendship with Fritz Schlawe arose. Then he had to do his military service until 1945. He was then taken prisoner. 1947–1948 Gaeffke studied history and German at the philosophical-theological college in Regensburg . It was here that the Germanist Ernst Schwarz became interested in Indo-European . In 1948 he continued his studies at the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz . 1950 to 1952 Gaeffke was an assistant at the Indo-European seminar under Professors Ernst Risch and Walter Porzig . In 1951 he passed the state examination in Latin , Greek , German and Indo-European linguistics. In 1952 he received his doctorate in Mainz with “summa cum laude”. 1952 made Gaeffke his study clerkship , and then participated in a study course in Dublin part of the "Institute for advanced celtic studies". From late 1952 to 1955 he studied Sanskrit in Calcutta with a grant from the Indian government. At the same time he worked there as a German lecturer .

Services

From 1955 to 1962 Gaeffke was reinstated in the school service by the Rhineland-Palatinate Ministry of Education . He continued to deal intensively with the Indian languages ​​and with the literature of the subcontinent . In 1964 he received a professorship at the Dutch University of Utrecht . Its main subject was Indian literature in the 20th century. He presented the first results of his work in three publications in 1966/67. In 1972 Gaeffke received a visiting professorship at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia , and in 1975 he became professor of modern Indian literature at the institutes "South Asia Studies" and "Asian and Middle Eastern Studies". Gaeffke, whose linguistic studies had started with Latin and Ancient Greek, increasingly became an expert in oriental languages: Hebrew , Arabic , Urdu and of course the ancient Indian language Sanskrit as well as the culture and religions of South Asia . In 1984 he hosted an International Sanskrit Conference. Book publications and specialist articles testify to his scientific work. This also included the areas of “Literature East and West” and “Muslim Culture in the South Asian Subcontinent.” In addition to his professional competence, his human qualities as a scientist, colleague and teacher were also widely recognized. Gaeffke worked at the "Penn" for more than 30 years. In 2003 he retired. He died at the age of 77. The obituary of the University of Pennsylvania for Peter Gaeffke says: he was characterized by sympathy, sincerity, courage and absolute integrity . And academic as well as intellectual debates were for him necessarily connected with morality .

Publications

• Hindi Literature in the Twentieth Century , Wiesbaden 1978
• Ramcaritmanas: The sacred lake of Rama's deeds. An Indian poem about God's walk on earth from the 16th century , Stuttgart 1975
• Investigations into the Syntax of Hindi , The Hague 1967
• Hindi novels in the first half of the twentieth century , Leiden 1966
• De Hindi literatuur en het Indische nationalisme , Leiden 1966
• The Greek nouns in -ias , Mainz 1952
• with David A. Utz (Ed.): Countries of South Asia: Boundaries, extensions and interrelations , Philadelphia 1988
• with David A. Utz (Ed.): Science and technology in South Asia , Philadelphia 1985
• with David A. Utz (Ed.): Identity and division in cults and sects in South Asia , Philadelphia 1984

Web links

• Literature by and about Peter Gaeffke in the catalog of the German National Library