Friedrich Maurer (5 January 1898 – 7 November 1984) was a German philologist who specialized in Germanic studies.

Biography

Maurer started to study

classical philology Classics or classical studies is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, classics traditionally refers to the study of Classical Greek and Roman literature and their related original languages, Ancient Greek and Latin. Classics ...

and

comparative linguistics Comparative linguistics, or comparative-historical linguistics (formerly comparative philology) is a branch of historical linguistics that is concerned with comparing languages to establish their history, historical relatedness. Genetic relat ...

at the University of Frankfurt in 1916. The same year, he was drafted, and in 1917, he was gravely injured while he was fighting at the

Western Front Western Front or West Front may refer to: Military frontiers *Western Front (World War I), a military frontier to the west of Germany *Western Front (World War II), a military frontier to the west of Germany *Western Front (Russian Empire), a majo ...

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

, causing him to spend the following period recovering in a military hospital at

Heidelberg Heidelberg (; Palatine German language, Palatine German: ''Heidlberg'') is a city in the States of Germany, German state of Baden-Württemberg, situated on the river Neckar in south-west Germany. As of the 2016 census, its population was 159,914 ...

. After the end of the war, Maurer commenced full-time studies of Germanistics at

Heidelberg University } Heidelberg University, officially the Ruprecht Karl University of Heidelberg, (german: Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg; la, Universitas Ruperto Carola Heidelbergensis) is a public research university in Heidelberg, Baden-Württemberg, ...

(1918) and

Giessen Giessen, spelled Gießen in German (), is a town in the German state (''Bundesland'') of Hesse, capital of both the district of Giessen and the administrative region of Giessen. The population is approximately 90,000, with roughly 37,000 univer ...

(1919), where he also took courses in

and

Indo-European studies Indo-European studies is a field of linguistics and an interdisciplinary field of study dealing with Indo-European languages, both current and extinct. The goal of those engaged in these studies is to amass information about the hypothetical pro ...

. Both at Heidelberg and at Giessen, Maurer was a member of the local chapters of the Wingolf. In 1922, Maurer obtained a doctorate under the supervision of Otto Behaghel, who was to have a lasting influence on Maurer's work. Maurer then obtained a

habilitation Habilitation is the highest university degree, or the procedure by which it is achieved, in many European countries. The candidate fulfills a university's set criteria of excellence in research, teaching and further education, usually including ...

in German philology in 1925, becoming professor extraordinarius in 1929, still at Giessen, and later professor ordinarius at

Erlangen Erlangen (; East Franconian: ''Erlang'', Bavarian: ''Erlanga'') is a Middle Franconian city in Bavaria, Germany. It is the seat of the administrative district Erlangen-Höchstadt (former administrative district Erlangen), and with 116,062 inhabi ...

(1931). Having previously been a member of '' Der Stahlhelm'', Maurer joined the ''

Sturmabteilung The (; SA; literally "Storm Detachment (military), Detachment") was the original paramilitary wing of the Nazi Party. It played a significant role in Adolf Hitler's rise to power in the 1920s and 1930s. Its primary purposes were providing pro ...

'' after the Nazi party took control of Germany in 1933, but left the organisation in 1935. He joined the

Nazi Party The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (german: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), was a far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported t ...

in 1937, as well as the

National Socialist Teachers League The National Socialist Teachers League (German: , NSLB), was established on 21 April 1929. Its original name was the Organization of National Socialist Educators. Its founder and first leader was former schoolteacher Hans Schemm, the Gauleiter o ...

, the National Socialist German Lecturers League and the Nationalsozialistischer Altherrenbund. In the same year, he became a full professor at

Freiburg Freiburg im Breisgau (; abbreviated as Freiburg i. Br. or Freiburg i. B.; Low Alemannic: ''Friburg im Brisgau''), commonly referred to as Freiburg, is an independent city in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. With a population of about 230,000 (as o ...

, where he was to chair the Institute for German Philology until

retiring Retirement is the withdrawal from one's position or occupation or from one's active working life. A person may also semi-retire by reducing work hours or workload. Many people choose to retire when they are elderly or incapable of doing their j ...

in 1966. From 1938/1939, Maurer worked with the Ahnenerbe. After

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, the allied military government of Germany called on Maurer, who then founded scientific institutes at the partially-destroyed University of Freiburg and the University of Erlangen. In 1958 and 1959, Maurer chaired the League of German Scholars and cofounded the Institute for the German Language (''Institut für Deutsche Sprache'', IDS) at

Mannheim Mannheim (; Palatine German: or ), officially the University City of Mannheim (german: Universitätsstadt Mannheim), is the second-largest city in the German state of Baden-Württemberg after the state capital of Stuttgart, and Germany's ...

. In 1979, Maurer fell gravely ill and had to cease his work. He died in 1984.

Work

Like Behaghel, his thesis supervisor, Maurer directed much attention to the study of

dialect The term dialect (from Latin , , from the Ancient Greek word , 'discourse', from , 'through' and , 'I speak') can refer to either of two distinctly different types of linguistic phenomena: One usage refers to a variety of a language that ...

s (

dialectology Dialectology (from Greek , ''dialektos'', "talk, dialect"; and , '' -logia'') is the scientific study of linguistic dialect, a sub-field of sociolinguistics. It studies variations in language based primarily on geographic distribution and their asso ...

and dialect geography) and to the

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ger ...

. He published numerous works on

medieval literature Medieval literature is a broad subject, encompassing essentially all written works available in Europe and beyond during the Middle Ages (that is, the one thousand years from the fall of the Western Roman Empire ca. AD 500 to the beginning of t ...

and

poetry Poetry (derived from the Greek '' poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings ...

that were notable for their connections between literature studies,

cultural history Cultural history combines the approaches of anthropology and history to examine popular cultural traditions and cultural interpretations of historical experience. It examines the records and narrative descriptions of past matter, encompassing the ...

prehistoric Prehistory, also known as pre-literary history, is the period of human history between the use of the first stone tools by hominins 3.3 million years ago and the beginning of recorded history with the invention of writing systems. The use o ...

archaeology Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of Artifact (archaeology), artifacts, architecture, biofact (archaeology), biofacts ...

and

sociology Sociology is a social science that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. It uses various methods of empirical investigation and ...

. With Friedrich Stroh, Maurer published ''Deutsche Wortgeschichte'' ("History of German Words") in 1943. Maurer's 1942 linguistic work ''Nordgermanen und Alemannen'' ("Northern

Germans , native_name_lang = de , region1 = , pop1 = 72,650,269 , region2 = , pop2 = 534,000 , region3 = , pop3 = 157,000 3,322,405 , region4 = , pop4 = ...

and Alemanni") is considered his most important one, where he put forth a theory of the development of the Germanic languages that was strongly imbued with

nationalist Nationalism is an idea and movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the State (polity), state. As a movement, nationalism tends to promote the interests of a particular nation (as in a in-group and out-group, group of peo ...

ideology by hypothesizing a strong union of the Germanic peoples in antiquity; a theory that is still controversial. He sought to construct a conception of the

West Germanic languages The West Germanic languages constitute the largest of the three branches of the Germanic family of languages (the others being the North Germanic and the extinct East Germanic languages). The West Germanic branch is classically subdivided into ...

as precursors to Modern German. Against the common division of Germanic into

North North is one of the four compass points or cardinal directions. It is the opposite of south and is perpendicular to east and west. ''North'' is a noun, adjective, or adverb indicating direction or geography. Etymology The word ''no ...

East East or Orient is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sun rises on the Earth. Etymology As in other languages, the word is formed from the fa ...

and West Germanic languages, he posited a fivefold division into North Germanic (Scandinavia), North Sea Germanic (Saxon, Frisian etc.), Weser-Rhine Germanic (

Cherusci The Cherusci were a Germanic tribe that inhabited parts of the plains and forests of northwestern Germany in the area of the Weser River and present-day Hanover during the first centuries BC and AD. Roman sources reported they considered themse ...

Chatti The Chatti (also Chatthi or Catti) were an ancient Germanic tribe whose homeland was near the upper Weser (''Visurgis''). They lived in central and northern Hesse and southern Lower Saxony, along the upper reaches of that river and in the val ...

, later

Franks The Franks ( la, Franci or ) were a group of Germanic peoples whose name was first mentioned in 3rd-century Roman sources, and associated with tribes between the Lower Rhine and the Ems River, on the edge of the Roman Empire.H. Schutz: Tools, ...

Elbe Germanic Elbe Germanic, also called Irminonic or Erminonic, is a term introduced by the German linguist Friedrich Maurer (1898–1984) in his book, ''Nordgermanen und Alemanen'', to describe the unattested proto-language, or dialectal grouping, ancestra ...

(

Suebi The Suebi (or Suebians, also spelled Suevi, Suavi) were a large group of Germanic peoples originally from the Elbe river region in what is now Germany and the Czech Republic. In the early Roman era they included many peoples with their own name ...

Marcomanni The Marcomanni were a Germanic people * * * that established a powerful kingdom north of the Danube, somewhere near modern Bohemia, during the peak of power of the nearby Roman Empire. According to Tacitus and Strabo, they were Suebian. Origi ...

Lombards The Lombards () or Langobards ( la, Langobardi) were a Germanic people who ruled most of the Italian Peninsula from 568 to 774. The medieval Lombard historian Paul the Deacon wrote in the '' History of the Lombards'' (written between 787 an ...

, later Alemanni) and Oder-Weichsel Germanic (

Vandals The Vandals were a Germanic people who first inhabited what is now southern Poland. They established Vandal kingdoms on the Iberian Peninsula, Mediterranean islands, and North Africa in the fifth century. The Vandals migrated to the area be ...

, Burgundians,

Goths The Goths ( got, 𐌲𐌿𐍄𐌸𐌹𐌿𐌳𐌰, translit=''Gutþiuda''; la, Gothi, grc-gre, Γότθοι, Gótthoi) were a Germanic people who played a major role in the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the emergence of medieval Euro ...

). The theory was supported mainly by

Tacitus Publius Cornelius Tacitus, known simply as Tacitus ( , ; – ), was a Roman historian and politician. Tacitus is widely regarded as one of the greatest Roman historians by modern scholars. The surviving portions of his two major works—the ...

and

Pliny the Elder Gaius Plinius Secundus (AD 23/2479), called Pliny the Elder (), was a Roman author, naturalist and natural philosopher, and naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and a friend of the emperor Vespasian. He wrote the encyclopedic ...

and especially the latter's observation in the '' Natural History'' of there being ''Germanorum genera quinque'': "five kinds of Germans". Seeing a connection between supratribal groupings described (though marginally) by the Roman historians Pliny the Elder and

, he estimated that during a period ranging from roughly 50 BCE to c. 300 CE, five protolanguages (or dialect groups) emerged that included the direct, unattested, predecessors of all (

West West or Occident is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sun sets on the Earth. Etymology The word "west" is a Germanic word passed into some ...

and

) Germanic languages, which have always remained in various degrees of contact. In the third edition of 1952, Maurer added archaeological evidence to support his classification, most notably citing Rafael von Uslar's article of the same year, "Archäologische Fundgruppen und germanische Stammesgebiete vornehmlich aus der Zeit um Christi Geburt." Maurer equated the five groups of findings discussed in that article with five linguistic groups. His theory has been criticized by later linguists, but they focused mainly on the terms that Maurer used by equating tribes and peoples to language groups and use of nationalistic

jargon Jargon is the specialized terminology associated with a particular field or area of activity. Jargon is normally employed in a particular communicative context and may not be well understood outside that context. The context is usually a partic ...

, which was then considered acceptable. No written evidence of the Germanic languages prior to the 7th century CE exists to prove or to disprove Maurer's thesis.Johannes Hoops, Heinrich Beck, Dieter Geuenich, Heiko Steuer (1989). ''Reallexikon der germanischen Altertumskunde.'' Band 7. Walter de Gruyter, (pp. 113–114).

Awards

Brüder-Grimm-Preis der Philipps-Universität Marburg Brothers Grimm Prize of the University of Marburg is a literary prize of Hesse. Winners * 1943 Karl Helm * 1950 Georg Baeseke * 1952 Erik Rooth * 1954 Hermann Teuchert * 1957 Gesenius G. Kloeke * 1959 Luis Hammerich * 1961 Emil Öhmann * 196 ...

, 1963 *

Honorary doctorate An honorary degree is an academic degree for which a university (or other degree-awarding institution) has waived all of the usual requirements. It is also known by the Latin phrases ''honoris causa'' ("for the sake of the honour") or '' ad ho ...

of the

University of Glasgow , image = UofG Coat of Arms.png , image_size = 150px , caption = Coat of arms Flag , latin_name = Universitas Glasguensis , motto = la, Via, Veritas, Vita , ...

, 1966 * Jacob-Burckhardt-Preis, 1976

Biography

Work

Awards

References

Further reading