Hermann Osthoff (HeidICON 28885) (cropped)

Hermann Osthoff (18 April 1847,

Billmerich Unna is a city of around 59,000 people in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, the seat of the Unna district. The newly refurbished Unna station has trains to all major cities in North Rhine Westphalia including Dortmund, Cologne, Münster, Ham ...

– 7 May 1909,

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 ...

) was a

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 ...

linguist Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguis ...

. He was involved in

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 ...

and the

Neogrammarian The Neogrammarians (German: ''Junggrammatiker'', 'young grammarians') were a German school of linguists, originally at the University of Leipzig, in the late 19th century who proposed the Neogrammarian hypothesis of the regularity of sound change ...

school. He is known for formulating

Osthoff's law Osthoff's law is an Indo-European sound law which states that long vowels shorten when followed by a resonant (Proto-Indo-European language (PIE) *''m'', *''n'', *''l'', *''r'', *''y'', *''w''), followed in turn by another consonant (i.e. in a cl ...

, and published widely on Indo-European word-formation and morphology.

Life

Osthoff studied

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 ...

Germanic philology Germanic philology is the philological study of the Germanic languages, particularly from a comparative or historical perspective. The beginnings of research into the Germanic languages began in the 16th century, with the discovery of literary tex ...

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...

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 historical relatedness. Genetic relatedness ...

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

Tübingen Tübingen (, , Swabian: ''Dibenga'') is a traditional university city in central Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is situated south of the state capital, Stuttgart, and developed on both sides of the Neckar and Ammer rivers. about one in thr ...

and

Bonn The federal city of Bonn ( lat, Bonna) is a city on the banks of the Rhine in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, with a population of over 300,000. About south-southeast of Cologne, Bonn is in the southernmost part of the Rhine-Ruhr r ...

. In 1869 he obtained his doctorate in Bonn as a student of

Hermann Usener Hermann Karl Usener (23 October 1834 – 21 October 1905) was a German scholar in the fields of philology and comparative religion. Life Hermann Usener was born at Weilburg and educated at its Gymnasium. From 1853 he studied at Heidelberg, ...

. During his time in that city he became a member of the Burschenschaft Alemannia of Bonn. From 1871 onward, he taught classes at the gymnasium in

Kassel Kassel (; in Germany, spelled Cassel until 1926) is a city on the Fulda River in northern Hesse, Germany. It is the administrative seat of the Regierungsbezirk Kassel and the district of the same name and had 201,048 inhabitants in December 2020 ...

. In 1875, he successfully completed his postdoctoral

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 a ...

at the

University of Leipzig Leipzig University (german: Universität Leipzig), in Leipzig in Saxony, Germany, is one of the world's oldest universities and the second-oldest university (by consecutive years of existence) in Germany. The university was founded on 2 Decemb ...

, and in 1877, was named an associate professor of comparative linguistics and Sanskrit at the

University of Heidelberg } 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, ...

. Shortly afterwards, he was granted full professorship at Heidelberg, where he later served as dean (1894/95) and vice-rector (1899–1900).Osthoff, Hermann
In: Neue Deutsche Biographie (NDB). Band 19, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1999, , S. 627 f. The main focus of his research was in

Indo-European languages The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Dutc ...

. Along with

Karl Brugmann Karl Brugmann (16 March 1849 – 29 June 1919) was a German linguist. He is noted for his work in Indo-European linguistics. Biography He was educated at the universities of Halle and Leipzig. He taught at the gymnasium at Wiesbaden and at Le ...

and

August Leskien August Leskien (; 8 July 1840 – 20 September 1916) was a German linguist active in the field of comparative linguistics, particularly relating to the Baltic and Slavic languages. Biography Leskien was born in Kiel. He studied philology at the ...

, he was a significant figure in the founding of the

Neogrammarians The Neogrammarians (German: ''Junggrammatiker'', 'young grammarians') were a German school of linguists, originally at the University of Leipzig, in the late 19th century who proposed the Neogrammarian hypothesis of the regularity of sound change. ...

. He was a vocal critic of a young

Ferdinand de Saussure Ferdinand de Saussure (; ; 26 November 1857 – 22 February 1913) was a Swiss linguist, semiotician and philosopher. His ideas laid a foundation for many significant developments in both linguistics and semiotics in the 20th century. He is widel ...

's pioneering work ''Mémoire sur le système primitif des voyelles dans les langues indo-européennes'', in which the 20-year-old Saussure postulated the

laryngeal theory The laryngeal theory is a theory in the historical linguistics of the Indo-European languages positing that: * The Proto-Indo-European language (PIE) had a series of phonemes beyond those reconstructable by the comparative method. That is, the ...

in 1879. However, Saussure's theory was confirmed with the discovery of Hittite in the early 20th century.

Selected works

* ''Morphologische Untersuchungen auf dem Gebiete der indogermanischen Sprachen'' (with Karl Brugmann); (6 volumes, 1878–1910) – Morphological studies in the field of Indo-European languages. * ''Das Verbum in der Nominalcomposition im Deutschen, Griechischen, Slavischen und Romanischen'', 1878 – The verb in

nominal composition In linguistics, a compound is a lexeme (less precisely, a word or sign) that consists of more than one stem. Compounding, composition or nominal composition is the process of word formation that creates compound lexemes. Compounding occurs whe ...

in German, Greek, Slavic and Romance. * ''Das physiologische und psychologische Moment in der sprachlichen Formenbildung'', 1879 – The physiological and psychological moment in linguistic morphogenesis. * ''Zur Geschichte des Perfects im Indogermanischen'', 1884 – History of perfects in Indo-European.Most widely held works by Hermann Osthoff
WorldCat Identities

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Osthoff, Hermann 1847 births 1909 deaths People from Unna People from the Province of Westphalia Linguists from Germany Historical linguists Linguists of Indo-European languages Heidelberg University faculty