Wilhelm Schmidt
SVD
''Svenska Dagbladet'' (, "The Swedish Daily News"), abbreviated SvD, is a daily newspaper published in Stockholm, Sweden.
History and profile
The first issue of ''Svenska Dagbladet'' appeared on 18 December 1884. During the beginning of the ...
(February 16, 1868 — February 10, 1954) was a German-Austrian
Catholic priest
The priesthood is the office of the ministers of religion, who have been commissioned ("ordained") with the Holy orders of the Catholic Church. Technically, bishops are a priestly order as well; however, in layman's terms ''priest'' refers only ...
,
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
ethnologist
Ethnology (from the grc-gre, ἔθνος, meaning 'nation') is an academic field that compares and analyzes the characteristics of different peoples and the relationships between them (compare cultural, social, or sociocultural anthropology) ...
. He presided over the Fourth
International Congress of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences that was held at
Vienna
en, Viennese
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in 1952.
Biography
Wilhelm Schmidt was born in
Hörde
Hörde is a ''Stadtbezirk'' ("City District") and also a ''Stadtteil'' ('' Quarter'') in the south of the city of Dortmund, in Germany.
Hörde is situated at 51°29' North, 7°30' West, and is at an elevation of 112 metres above mean sea level. ...
, Germany in 1868. He entered the
Society of the Divine Word
The Society of the Divine Word ( la, Societas Verbi Divini), abbreviated SVD and popularly called the Verbites or the Divine Word Missionaries, and sometimes the Steyler Missionaries, is a Catholic Church, Catholic clerical religious congregation ...
in 1890 and was ordained as a
Roman Catholic
Roman or Romans most often refers to:
*Rome, the capital city of Italy
*Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD
*Roman people, the people of ancient Rome
*'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...
priest in 1892. He studied linguistics at the universities of
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 ...
and
Vienna
en, Viennese
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.
Schmidt’s main passion was
linguistics
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 spent many years in study of
language
Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of met ...
s around the world. His early work was on the
Mon–Khmer languages
The Austroasiatic languages , , are a large language family in Mainland Southeast Asia and South Asia. These languages are scattered throughout parts of Thailand, Laos, India, Myanmar, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Nepal, and southern China and are t ...
of
Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia, also spelled South East Asia and South-East Asia, and also known as Southeastern Asia, South-eastern Asia or SEA, is the geographical United Nations geoscheme for Asia#South-eastern Asia, south-eastern region of Asia, consistin ...
, and languages of Oceania and
Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...
. The conclusions from this study led him to hypothesize the existence of a broader
Austric
The Austric languages are a proposed language family that includes the Austronesian languages spoken in Taiwan, Maritime Southeast Asia, the Pacific Islands, and Madagascar, as well as the Austroasiatic languages spoken in Mainland Southeast ...
group of languages, which included the
Austronesian language group. Schmidt managed to prove that Mon–Khmer language has inner connections with other languages of the South Seas, one of the most significant findings in the field of linguistics.
From 1912 to his death in 1954, Schmidt published his 12-volume ''Der Ursprung der Gottesidee'' (''The Origin of the Idea of God''). There he explained his theory of
primitive monotheism
The term ''Urmonotheismus'' (German for " primeval monotheism") or primitive monotheism expresses the hypothesis of a monotheistic ''Urreligion'', from which polytheistic religions allegedly degenerated. This evolutionary view of religious de ...
, the belief that
primitive religion among almost all tribal peoples began with an essentially monotheistic concept of a high god — usually a
sky god — who was a benevolent creator. Schmidt theorized that human beings believed in a God who was the First Cause of all things and Ruler of Heaven and Earth before men and women began to worship a number of gods:
*"Schmidt suggested that there had been a primitive monotheism before men and women had started to worship a number of gods. Originally they had acknowledge only one Supreme Deity, who had created the world and governed human affairs from afar."
In 1906, Schmidt founded the journa
''Anthropos'' and in 1931, the Anthropos Institute, both of which still exist today. In 1938, Schmidt and the Institute fled from Nazi-occupied Austria to
Fribourg
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, twintowns = Rueil-Malmaison (France)
, website = www.ville-fribourg.ch
, Location of , Location of ()
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, Switzerland. He died there in 1954.
His works available in English translation are: ''The Origin and Growth of Religion: Facts and Theories'' (1931), ''High Gods in North America'' (1933), ''The Culture Historical Method of Ethnology'' (1939), and ''Primitive Revelation'' (1939).
On ''Primitive Revelation'', Eric J. Sharpe has said: "Schmidt did believe the emergent data of historical ethnology to be fundamentally in accord with biblical revelation—a point which he made in ''Die Uroffenbarung als Anfang der Offenbarung Gottes'' (1913) . . . A revised and augmented version of this apologetical monograph was published in an English translation as ''Primitive Revelation'' (Sharpe 1939)."
[Sharpe, Eric J. ''Comparative Religion: A History''. 1975. 2nd ed. La Salle IL: Open Court, 1986. 180.]
See also
*
Robert Holcot Robert Holcot, OP (c. 1290 – 1349) was an English Dominican scholastic philosopher, theologian and influential Biblical scholar.
Biography
He was born in Holcot, Northamptonshire. A follower of William of Ockham, he was nicknamed the ''Doctor ...
Notes
References
* An Vandenberghe, "Entre mission et science. La recherche ethnologique du père Wilhelm Schmidt SVD et le Vatican (1900-1939)", ''Sciences sociales et missions'', N°19/December 2006, pp. 15–36
* Schmidt, Wilhelm. 1906. "Die Mon–Khmer-Völker, ein Bindeglied zwischen Völkern Zentralasiens und Austronesiens", 'The Mon–Khmer peoples, a link between the peoples of Central Asia and Austronesia'. ''Archiv für Anthropologie'', Braunschweig, new series, 5:59-109.
* Schmidt, Wilhelm. 1930. "Die Beziehungen der austrischen Sprachen zum Japanischen", 'The Connections of the Austric Languages to Japanese'. ''Wien Beitrag zur Kulturgeschichte und Linguistik'' 1:239-51.
* Peter Rohrbacher
Völkerkunde und Afrikanistik für den Papst. Missionsexperten und der Vatikan 1922–1939In: Römische Historische Mitteilungen 54 (2012), 583–610.
* Peter Rohrbacher
Pater Wilhelm Schmidt im Schweizer Exil: Interaktionen mit Wehrmachtsdeserteuren und Nachrichtendiensten, 1943–1945In: Paideuma. Mitteilungen zur Kulturkunde 62, 203–221.
* Peter Rohrbacher
''Pater Wilhelm Schmidt und Sigmund Freud: Gesellschaftliche Kontexte einer religionsethnologischen Kontroverse in der Zwischenkriegszeit''In: ''cultura & psyché – Journal of Cultural Psychology'' Vol. 1, 2020.
* Peter Rohrbacher
''Österreichische Missionsexperten und das Ringen um den vatikanischen Standpunkt im „Rassendiskurs“ der Zwischenkriegszeit''In: ''Römische Historische Mitteilungen'' 62 (2020), 221–248.
* Peter Rohrbacher
''Pater Wilhelm Schmidt im Schweizer Exil: Interaktionen mit Wehrmachtsdeserteuren und Nachrichtendiensten, 1943–1945''In: Andre Gingrich; Peter Rohrbacher (Hg.), Völkerkunde zur NS-Zeit aus Wien (1938–1945): Institutionen, Biographien und Praktiken in Netzwerken. Wien: OEAW 2021/3, S. 1611–1642.
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Schmidt, Wilhelm
1868 births
1954 deaths
German anthropologists
20th-century anthropologists
Linguists from Germany
Paleolinguists
Linguists of Tasmanian languages
Linguists of Austric languages
Linguists of Austronesian languages
Linguists of Austroasiatic languages
Divine Word Missionaries Order
20th-century Austrian Roman Catholic theologians
20th-century German Roman Catholic priests
People from Fribourg