Philipp Lenz (philologist)

Philipp Lenz (born October 21, 1861 in Handschuhsheim ; † April 17, 1926 in Baden-Baden ) was a German teacher and dialect researcher who has made an outstanding contribution to the documentation of the Handschuhsheim dialect. Until 1912 he was also the editor of the magazine for German dialects .

Life

The son of a beer brewer and innkeeper attended elementary school in Handschuhsheim and grammar school in Heidelberg , and later that in Laubach . After graduating from high school in 1881, he studied French, Old Provencal and Gothic in Heidelberg , after two semesters in Leipzig and Freiburg, he completed his studies back in Heidelberg with lectures on Old French, Old English as well as Latin, Greek and the grammar of the Indo-European languages. During his studies, he lived mostly still in the family home, only winter 1881/82 and summer 1882, before the guest semester in Leipzig, he lived in a " shack " in the Heidelberg Sandgasse 6. His dissertation he wrote in 1885 about the syntactic use of particles ge in the works of Alfred the Great . After the state examination in 1886, he served as a one-year volunteer in 1886/87 , then in 1887 he entered the teaching profession in Constance as an intern. In 1888, a grand ducal grant enabled him to travel to England. In the fall of 1888 he accepted a position at the Heidelberg high school.

His most important research activity fell during his time as a student and young teacher. At that time he always lived in simple circumstances, be it in his parents' house or later in rented rooms. Not only was he at school professionally, but also privately in constant direct contact with dialect speakers from his home town of Handschuhsheim, which was incorporated into Heidelberg in 1903. As a schoolboy he had already started collecting expressions typical of the region. He published the collection, which had grown over the years, in annotated form when he took up his post in Constance in 1887 and submitted an addition in 1892.

In 1894 he was transferred to the higher girls' school in Baden-Baden . There he worked on two more works on the Handschuhsheim dialect by 1898. He also became editor of the magazine for German dialects .

In 1901 he married Emmy Hübsch († 1965) a second cousin. By 1906 the couple had two daughters and a son. In 1904 he bought a semi-detached house at Ebersteinstrasse 27 in Baden-Baden.

After 1910, the grown family and his professional tasks let his interest in dialect research wane. At the end of the year 1912 he resigned from his position as editor of the journal for dialect research . Due to increasing hearing loss , he gradually withdrew from the public. The Badische Heimat association offered him an office in 1924, which Lenz refused with reference to his disability.

Already in 1914 he handed over some of his dialectical notes to Freiburg, in 1923 most of the remainder to Ernst Ochs , who in 1926 also received Lenz's estate in his will.

The Handschuhsheim district association put a memorial plaque for Philipp Lenz on the Handschuhsheimer Tiefburg in 1982 .

Fonts

• The Handschuhsheim dialect. 1st part vocabulary. Constance 1887 (also Leipzig 1888)
• The Handschuhsheim dialect. Addendum to the dictionary of 1887. Darmstadt 1892
• The foreign words of the Handschuhsheim dialect. 2 parts. Baden-Baden 1895/96 and 1896/97
• Comparative dictionary of the New High German language and the Handschuhsheim dialect. 1898

literature

• Dialect researcher Philipp Lenz , in: Yearbook of the Handschuhsheim district association 1991 , pp. 65–67.
• Ursula Perkow : From Handschuhsheim to Baden-Baden. On the life and work of dialect researcher Philipp Lenz , in: Yearbook of the Handschuhsheim district association 2003 , pp. 47–53.