Johann Heinrich Hübschmann (1 July 1848 – 20 January 1908) 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 **Ge ...

philologist Philology () is the study of language in oral and written historical sources; it is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics (with especially strong ties to etymology). Philology is also defined ...

Life

Hübschmann was born on 1 July 1848 at

Erfurt Erfurt () is the capital and largest city in the Central German state of Thuringia. It is located in the wide valley of the Gera river (progression: ), in the southern part of the Thuringian Basin, north of the Thuringian Forest. It sits in ...

. He studied Oriental philology at

Jena Jena () is a German city and the second largest city in Thuringia. Together with the nearby cities of Erfurt and Weimar, it forms the central metropolitan area of Thuringia with approximately 500,000 inhabitants, while the city itself has a po ...

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 three ...

Leipzig Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as ...

, and

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and ...

; in 1876 he became

professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an academic rank at universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who professes". Professo ...

of Iranian languages at Leipzig, and in 1877 professor of comparative philology at

Strasbourg Strasbourg (, , ; german: Straßburg ; gsw, label= Bas Rhin Alsatian, Strossburi , gsw, label= Haut Rhin Alsatian, Strossburig ) is the prefecture and largest city of the Grand Est region of eastern France and the official seat of the ...

. Hübschmann died on 20 January 1908 in

Freiburg im Breisgau 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 ...

Research on the Armenian language

Hübschmann was the first to show in 1875 that the

Armenian language Armenian (Classical Armenian orthography, classical: , Armenian orthography reform, reformed: , , ) is an Indo-European languages, Indo-European language and an independent branch of that family of languages. It is the official language of Armenia ...

was not a branch of the

Iranian languages The Iranian languages or Iranic languages are a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages in the Indo-European language family that are spoken natively by the Iranian peoples, predominantly in the Iranian Plateau. The Iranian languages are groupe ...

(earlier assumed so because of the immense amount of Iranian influence on Armenian throughout its history) but an entirely separate

Indo-European 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, Du ...

branch in its own right. He used the

comparative method In linguistics, the comparative method is a technique for studying the development of languages by performing a feature-by-feature comparison of two or more languages with common descent from a shared ancestor and then extrapolating backwards t ...

to separate the Iranian loanwords, which make up the majority of Armenian words, from an older layer of native Armenian words.

Works

*"Ueber die Stellung des Armenischen im Kreise der indogermanischen Sprachen" (1875) *''Armenische Studien'' (1883) *''Das indogermanische Vokalsystem (1885) *''Etymologie und Lautlehre der ossetischen Sprache'' (1887) *''Persische Studien'' (1895) * ''Armenische Grammatik. I. Theil. Armenische Etymologie. I. Abtheilung: Die persischen und arabischen Lehnwörter im Altarmenischen.'' Leipzig, 1895 ** ''Armenische Grammatik. I. Theil. Armenische Etymologie'' (Bibliothek indogermanischer Grammatiken. Band VI), Leipzig, 1897 *''Altarmenische Ortsnamen'' (1904)

References

Attribution

German philologists German non-fiction writers 1848 births 1908 deaths Writers from Erfurt German male non-fiction writers Armenian studies scholars {{Germany-writer-stub