Claus Schönig (October 23, 1955 – June 23, 2019) was a German

Turkologist Turkology (or Turcology or Turkic studies) is a complex of humanities sciences studying languages, history, literature, folklore, culture, and ethnology of people speaking Turkic languages and the Turkic peoples in chronological and comparative c ...

. His interests included the historical linguistics of the

Turkic languages The Turkic languages are a language family of more than 35 documented languages, spoken by the Turkic peoples of Eurasia from Eastern Europe and Southern Europe to Central Asia, East Asia, North Asia (Siberia), and West Asia. The Turkic langua ...

, Altaistics, and Turko- Mongolic relations.

Career

Schönig was born in the Weisenau district of

Mainz Mainz (; #Names and etymology, see below) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate, and with around 223,000 inhabitants, it is List of cities in Germany by population, Germany's 35th-largest city. It lies in ...

in 1955. He studied under Johannes Benzing from 1974 to 1981 at the

University of Mainz The Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz () is a public research university in Mainz, Rhineland Palatinate, Germany. It has been named after the printer Johannes Gutenberg since 1946. it had approximately 32,000 students enrolled in around 100 a ...

, where he studied Turkology,

Islamic Studies Islamic studies is the academic study of Islam, which is analogous to related fields such as Jewish studies and Quranic studies. Islamic studies seeks to understand the past and the potential future of the Islamic world. In this multidiscipli ...

, and Islamic

philology Philology () is the study of language in Oral tradition, oral and writing, written historical sources. It is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics with strong ties to etymology. Philology is also de ...

. Other faculty who influenced his work at the time were

Lars Johanson Lars Johanson (born 8 March 1936 in Köping, Sweden) is a Swedish Turcologist and linguist, an emeritus professor at the University of Mainz, and docent at the Department of Linguistics and Philology, University of Uppsala, Sweden. He has been ...

, Hans-Jürgen Kornrumpf and Ahmed Temir. His 1984 dissertation focused on

auxiliary verb An auxiliary verb ( abbreviated ) is a verb that adds functional or grammatical meaning to the clause in which it occurs, so as to express tense, aspect, modality, voice, emphasis, etc. Auxiliary verbs usually accompany an infinitive verb or ...

s in

Tatar Tatar may refer to: Peoples * Tatars, an umbrella term for different Turkic ethnic groups bearing the name "Tatar" * Volga Tatars, a people from the Volga-Ural region of western Russia * Crimean Tatars, a people from the Crimea peninsula by the B ...

. In 1995 he obtained a German ''

Habilitation Habilitation is the highest university degree, or the procedure by which it is achieved, in Germany, France, Italy, Poland and some other European and non-English-speaking countries. The candidate fulfills a university's set criteria of excelle ...

'' at the

Free University of Berlin The Free University of Berlin (, often abbreviated as FU Berlin or simply FU) is a public university, public research university in Berlin, Germany. It was founded in West Berlin in 1948 with American support during the early Cold War period a ...

with a dissertation on finite predications and text structure in the

Baburnama The ''Bāburnāma'' (; ) is the memoirs of Babur, Ẓahīr-ud-Dīn Muhammad Bābur (1483–1530), founder of the Mughal Empire and a great-great-great-grandson of Timur. It is written in the Chagatai language, known to Babur as ''Türki'' "Turkic ...

. Schönig held academic positions at a variety of institutions, including the

Goethe University Frankfurt Goethe University Frankfurt () is a public research university located in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. It was founded in 1914 as a citizens' university, which means it was founded and funded by the wealthy and active liberal citizenry of Frankfurt ...

, the

University of Duisburg-Essen The University of Duisburg-Essen () is a public research university in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. In the 2019 ''Times Higher Education World University Rankings'', the university was awarded 194th place in the world. It was originally ...

, and the

University of Giessen University of Giessen, official name Justus Liebig University Giessen (), is a large public research university in Giessen, Hesse, Germany. It is one of the oldest institutions of higher education in the German-speaking world. It is named afte ...

. From 1993 to 1996 and from 2001 to 2007 he served as the director of the

Orient-Institut Istanbul The Orient-Institut Istanbul is a research institute of the Max Weber Foundation based in Istanbul Istanbul is the List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, largest city in Turkey, constituting the country's economic, cultural, and histor ...

. From 2007 until 2019, he held the appointed position of Turkology at the Free University of Berlin as the successor of Barbara Kellner-Heinkele. During this time he served as the director of the university's Institute for Turkology.

Awards and honors

* 2006. Member,

Academia Europaea The Academia Europaea is a pan-European Academy of humanities, letters, law, and sciences. The Academia was founded in 1988 as a functioning Europe-wide Academy that encompasses all fields of scholarly inquiry. It acts as co-ordinator of Europe ...

* 2009. Member, Göttingen Academy of Sciences

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Schonig, Claus Turkologists Academic staff of the Free University of Berlin Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz alumni 1955 births 2019 deaths