Otto Dempwolff (25 May 1871 in
Pillau
Baltiysk (russian: Балти́йск; german: Pillau; Old Prussian: ''Pillawa''; pl, Piława; lt, Piliava; Yiddish: פּילאַווע, ''Pilave'') is a seaport town and the administrative center of Baltiysky District in Kaliningrad Oblast, Ru ...
,
Province of Prussia
The Province of Prussia (; ; pl, Prowincja Prusy; csb, Prowincjô Prësë) was a province of Prussia from 1829 to 1878. Prussia was established as a province of the Kingdom of Prussia in 1829 from the provinces of East Prussia and West Prussia ...
– 27 November 1938, in
Hamburg
(male), (female) en, Hamburger(s),
Hamburgian(s)
, timezone1 = Central (CET)
, utc_offset1 = +1
, timezone1_DST = Central (CEST)
, utc_offset1_DST = +2
, postal ...
) was a German
physician
A physician (American English), medical practitioner (Commonwealth English), medical doctor, or simply doctor, is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through th ...
,
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 ...
and
anthropologist who specialized in the study of the
Austronesian language family.
Initially trained as a
physician
A physician (American English), medical practitioner (Commonwealth English), medical doctor, or simply doctor, is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through th ...
, Dempwolff began his linguistic research while serving as medical doctor in the German colonies
German New Guinea
German New Guinea (german: Deutsch-Neu-Guinea) consisted of the northeastern part of the island of New Guinea and several nearby island groups and was the first part of the German colonial empire. The mainland part of the territory, called , ...
and
German East Africa. Under the mentorship of
Carl Meinhof
Carl Friedrich Michael Meinhof (23 July 1857 – 11 February 1944) was a German linguist and one of the first linguists to study African languages.
Early years and career
Meinhof was born in Barzwitz near Rügenwalde in the Province of Po ...
, he began his academic career at the
Hamburgisches Kolonialinstitut, which later became part of the
University of Hamburg
The University of Hamburg (german: link=no, Universität Hamburg, also referred to as UHH) is a public research university in Hamburg, Germany. It was founded on 28 March 1919 by combining the previous General Lecture System ('' Allgemeines Vo ...
. In 1931, he founded the "Seminar für indonesische und Südseesprachen", which he headed until his death in 1938.
[ He was also appointed to the "Königlich Preußische Phonographische Kommission" (Royal Prussian Phonographic Commission) for his expertise in medicine, as well as African and Indonesian languages. The purpose of the commission was to record the approximately 250 languages spoken by the prisoners of German WWI PoW camps.]Proto-Austronesian
Proto-Austronesian (commonly abbreviated as PAN or PAn) is a proto-language. It is the reconstructed ancestor of the Austronesian languages, one of the world's major language families. Proto-Austronesian is assumed to have begun to diversify ...
sound system and vocabulary.[ P. 528–543.]
See also
* Proto-Oceanic language
Notes
Bibliography
*Dempwolff, Otto (1916). ''Die Sandawe, Linguistisches und ethnographisches Material aus Deutsch Ostafrika, Abhandlungen des Hamburger Kolonialinstituts.'' Band XXXIV/Heft 19, L. Friederichsen, Hamburg 1916, 180 Seiten.
*Dempwolff, Otto (1920) ''Die Lautentsprechungen der indonesischen Lippenlaute in einigen anderen austronesischen Sprachen, Habilitationsschrift.'' ZfES 2.Beiheft, Dietrich Reimer, Berlin 1920, 96 Seiten.
*Dempwolff, Otto (1934). ''Vergleichende Lautlehre des austronesischen Wortschatzes, Band 1: Induktiver Aufbau einer indonesischen Ursprache.'' Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für Eingeborenen-Sprachen 15. Berlin: Dietrich Reimer.
*Dempwolff, Otto (1937). ''Vergleichende Lautlehre des austronesischen Wortschatzes, Band 2: Deduktive Anwendung des Urindonesischen auf austronesische Einzelsprachen.'' Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für Eingeborenen-Sprachen 17. Berlin: Dietrich Reimer.
*Dempwolff, Otto (1938). ''Vergleichende Lautlehre des austronesischen Wortschatzes, Band 3: Austronesisches Wörterverzeichnis.'' Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für Eingeborenen-Sprachen 19. Berlin: Dietrich Reimer.
* Dempwolff, Otto (1939). ''Grammatik der Jabêm-Sprache auf Neuguinea.'' Abhandlungen aus dem Gebiet der Auslandskunde, vol. 50. Hamburg: Friederichsen de Gruyter.
External links
Otto Dempwolff (1871-1938), Sprachwissenschaftler
(in German)
1871 births
1938 deaths
People from Pillau
People from the Province of Prussia
Linguists from Germany
Linguists of Austronesian languages
University of Königsberg alumni
University of Marburg alumni
Leipzig University alumni
Humboldt University of Berlin alumni
University of Tübingen alumni
University of Hamburg faculty
{{Germany-linguist-stub