Oswald Orth (1832 – 13 December 1920) was the first professor of English Literature at the

University of Liège The University of Liège (french: Université de Liège), or ULiège, is a major public university of the French Community of Belgium based in Liège, Wallonia, Belgium. Its official language is French. As of 2020, ULiège is ranked in the 301 ...

Life

Orth was born in 1832 in Weilbach, now a subdivision of

Flörsheim am Main Flörsheim am Main () is a town in the Main-Taunus district, in Hesse, Germany. It is situated on the right bank of the River Main (river), Main, opposite Rüsselsheim, 12 km east of Mainz and 21 km west of Frankfurt. Geography Popul ...

, in the

Duchy of Nassau The Duchy of Nassau (German: ''Herzogtum Nassau'') was an independent state between 1806 and 1866, located in what is now the German states of Rhineland-Palatinate and Hesse. It was a member of the Confederation of the Rhine and later of the G ...

. In 1869 he obtained a doctorate from the

University of Rostock The University of Rostock (german: link=no, Universität Rostock) is a public university located in Rostock, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany. Founded in 1419, it is the third-oldest university in Germany. It is the oldest university in continen ...

with a thesis on the philosophy of history. He became a teacher of German at the Athénée royal de Liège. At the creation of the department of

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 ...

of the University of Liège in 1890, he was appointed to teach

English philology English studies (usually called simply English) is an academic discipline taught in primary, secondary, and post-secondary education in English-speaking countries; it is not to be confused with English taught as a foreign language, which is ...

comparative grammar 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 ...

of the

Germanic languages The Germanic languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family spoken natively by a population of about 515 million people mainly in Europe, North America, Oceania and Southern Africa. The most widely spoken Germanic language, E ...

, and historical grammar of German. He was president of the organising committee of the second conference of the ''Association belge des professeurs de langues vivantes'', held in September 1909. Orth retired in 1904, and was succeeded as professor of English Literature by his former doctoral student, Paul Hamelius, and in comparative grammar by Joseph Mansion. At his death, in 1920, he bequeathed his personal library to the university.''1890-1990: Cent ans de philologie germanique'' (Liège, 1990), p. 79

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Orth, Oswald 1832 births 1920 deaths Philologists Academic staff of the University of Liège