Heinrich Hübschmann Explained

Heinrich Hübschmann
Birth Date:1 July 1848
Birth Place:Erfurt, Prussia
Death Place:Freiburg im Breisgau, German Empire
Nationality:German
Occupation:Philologist
Known For:Research on the Armenian language

Johann Heinrich Hübschmann (1 July 1848 – 20 January 1908) was a German philologist.

Life

Hübschmann was born on 1 July 1848 at Erfurt. He studied Oriental philology at Jena, Tübingen, Leipzig, and Munich; in 1876 he became professor of Iranian languages at Leipzig, and in 1877 professor of comparative philology at Strasbourg. Hübschmann died on 20 January 1908 in Freiburg im Breisgau.

Research on the Armenian language

Hübschmann was the first to show in 1875 that the Armenian language was not a branch of the Iranian languages (earlier assumed so because of the immense amount of Iranian influence on Armenian throughout its history) but an entirely separate Indo-European branch in its own right.[1] He used the comparative method to separate the Iranian loanwords, which make up the majority of the Armenian loanwords, from an older layer of native Armenian words.[2]

Works

References

Attribution

Notes and References

  1. Web site: A Reader in Nineteenth Century Historical Indo-European Linguistics: On the Position of Armenian in the Sphere of the Indo-European Languages . Utexas.edu . 20 March 2007 . 9 December 2015 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20151221145559/http://www.utexas.edu/cola/centers/lrc/books/read12.html . 21 December 2015 .
  2. Encyclopedia: Schmitt . Rüdiger . Rudiger Schmitt . Bailey . Harold Walter . Harold Walter Bailey . Yarshater . Ehsan . Ehsan Yarshater . . Iranian influences in Armenian Language . 9 December 2015 . 2011 . 1986 . Encyclopædia Iranica Foundation . Online . The revolutionary element in Hübschmann’s procedure was that according to him Arm. words fully or largely agreeing with Ir. forms in phonetic shape were suspect of being loanwords and could therefore not safely be regarded as genuine Arm. words. It was due to this methodological principle, which only gradually gained universal acceptance, that Hübschmann became the significant pioneer in the study of Ir. borrowings in Armenian. . amp.