Wilhelm Meyer-Lübke (; 30 January 1861 – 4 October 1936) was a Swiss

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 strong ties to etymology. Philology is also defined as the study of ...

of the

Neogrammarian The Neogrammarians (, , ) were a German school of linguists, originally at the University of Leipzig, in the late 19th century who proposed the Neogrammarian hypothesis of the regularity of sound change. Overview According to the Neogrammarian ...

school of

linguistics Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ...

Biography

Meyer-Lübke, a nephew of Conrad Ferdinand Meyer, was born in

Dübendorf Dübendorf is a Municipalities of Switzerland, municipality in the district of Uster (district), Uster in the Cantons of Switzerland, canton of Zürich (canton), Zürich in Switzerland. It is a suburb of Zürich in Switzerland with a population o ...

, Switzerland. He studied Indo-European philology at

Zürich Zurich (; ) is the list of cities in Switzerland, largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is in north-central Switzerland, at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich. , the municipality had 448,664 inhabitants. The ...

(with Heinrich Schweizer-Sidler) and at

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

(with Johannes Schmidt). He obtained his PhD in Romance philology with a dissertation on ''Die Schicksale des lateinischen Neutrums im Romanischen'' (1883). After a stay in Italy, he qualified to lecture at Zürich and then attended lectures by

Gaston Paris Bruno Paulin Gaston Paris (; 9 August 1839 – 5 March 1903) was a French literary historian, philologist, and scholar specialized in Romance studies and medieval French literature. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1901, ...

in Paris.Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm
In: Neue Deutsche Biographie (NDB). Band 17, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1994, , S. 303 f. While lecturing at Zürich in 1887, he was appointed associate professor of

comparative linguistics Comparative linguistics is a branch of historical linguistics that is concerned with comparing languages to establish their historical relatedness. Genetic relatedness implies a common origin or proto-language and comparative linguistics aim ...

Jena Jena (; ) is a List of cities and towns in Germany, city in Germany 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 in ...

. From there he was called in 1890 to

Vienna Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...

, where he was from 1892 to 1915 professor of Romance philology, as well as serving as dean and rector (1906/07). He then went to

Bonn Bonn () is a federal city in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, located on the banks of the Rhine. With a population exceeding 300,000, it lies about south-southeast of Cologne, in the southernmost part of the Rhine-Ruhr region. This ...

, where he was appointed to the professorship formerly held by Friedrich Diez. However, Meyer-Lübke soon felt the difference between the cosmopolitan Vienna and provincial Bonn. He consoled himself with lecture tours and visiting professorships abroad. Meyer-Lübke was a leading Romance linguist of his time.

Key published works

* ''Grammatik der romanischen Sprachen'' ("Grammar of the Romance Languages") published in 4 volumes between 1890 and 1902. * ''Einführung in das Studium der romanischen Sprachwissenschaft'' ("Introduction to the Study of Romance Linguistics"), 1901. * ''Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch'' ("Etymological Dictionary of Romance"), Heidelberg, C. Winter, 1911.

Notes

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Meyer-Lubke, Wilhelm Linguists from Switzerland Swiss Hispanists Romance philologists 1861 births 1936 deaths Academic staff of the University of Bonn University of Zurich alumni Academic staff of the University of Vienna People from Dübendorf Members of the Institute for Catalan Studies Corresponding Fellows of the Medieval Academy of America