Heinz Kloss (30 October 1904, in
Halle, Saxony-Anhalt
Halle (Saale), or simply Halle (; from the 15th to the 17th century: ''Hall in Sachsen''; until the beginning of the 20th century: ''Halle an der Saale'' ; from 1965 to 1995: ''Halle/Saale'') is the largest city of the German state of Saxony-An ...
– 13 June 1987) was a German
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 internationally recognised authority on linguistic minorities.
He coined the terms "
Abstandsprache" and "
Ausbausprache" to try to describe the differences between what is commonly called a
dialect
The term dialect (from Latin , , from the Ancient Greek word , 'discourse', from , 'through' and , 'I speak') can refer to either of two distinctly different types of linguistic phenomena:
One usage refers to a variety of a language that is a ...
and what is commonly called a
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 ...
.
Kloss was also responsible for summing up previously publicly available statistical data on the North American Jewish population (without any stated political aim); one copy was found in Hitler's library. The book was entitled ''Statistics, Media, and Organizations of Jewry in the United States and Canada''. Hitler's personal copy of the book was obtained by
Library and Archives Canada in 2018 and was restored, digitized and made available to the public in 2019. However, the text of the book had already been available online from the Deutsche Nationale Bibliothek.
There is a Heinz Kloss
fonds
In archival science, a fonds is a group of documents that share the same origin and that have occurred naturally as an outgrowth of the daily workings of an agency, individual, or organization. An example of a fonds could be the writings of a poe ...
at
Library and Archives Canada.
The archival reference number is R11623.
Selected works
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References
Further reading
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1904 births
1987 deaths
People from Halle (Saale)
Linguists from Germany
People from the Province of Saxony
Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg alumni
Humboldt University of Berlin alumni
20th-century linguists
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