Karl Vollers (March 19, 1857,

Hooksiel Wangerland is a municipality in the district of Friesland, Lower Saxony, Germany. It is situated on the North Sea coast, approximately 20 km northwest of Wilhelmshaven, and 10 km north of Jever Jever () is the capital of the district o ...

( Oldenburg) – January 5, 1909) was a German orientalist. Vollers went to school in

Hildesheim Hildesheim (; nds, Hilmessen, Hilmssen; la, Hildesia) is a city in Lower Saxony, Germany with 101,693 inhabitants. It is in the district of Hildesheim, about southeast of Hanover on the banks of the Innerste River, a small tributary of the ...

and

Jever Jever () is the capital of the district of Friesland in Lower Saxony, Germany. The name Jever is usually associated with a major brand of beer, Jever Pilsener, which is produced there. The city is also a popular holiday resort. Jever was granted c ...

where he received his high-school degree ''

Abitur ''Abitur'' (), often shortened colloquially to ''Abi'', is a qualification granted at the end of secondary education in Germany. It is conferred on students who pass their final exams at the end of ISCED 3, usually after twelve or thirteen ye ...

'' in 1875. Vollers studied Protestant theology and Oriental languages in

Tübingen Tübingen (, , Swabian: ''Dibenga'') is a traditional university city in central Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is situated south of the state capital, Stuttgart, and developed on both sides of the Neckar and Ammer rivers. about one in three ...

Halle Halle may refer to: Places Germany * Halle (Saale), also called Halle an der Saale, a city in Saxony-Anhalt ** Halle (region), a former administrative region in Saxony-Anhalt ** Bezirk Halle, a former administrative division of East Germany ** Hal ...

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 constitu ...

, and

Strassburg Strasbourg (, , ; german: Straßburg ; gsw, label= Bas Rhin Alsatian, Strossburi , gsw, label= Haut Rhin Alsatian, Strossburig ) is the prefecture and largest city of the Grand Est region of eastern France and the official seat of the E ...

. He graduated in 1879. From fall 1879 to July 1880 he worked as a private teacher in

Constantinople la, Constantinopolis ota, قسطنطينيه , alternate_name = Byzantion (earlier Greek name), Nova Roma ("New Rome"), Miklagard/Miklagarth (Old Norse), Tsargrad ( Slavic), Qustantiniya (Arabic), Basileuousa ("Queen of Cities"), Megalopolis (" ...

. In 1880 he received the

licentia docendi A licentiate (abbreviated Lic.) is an academic degree present in many countries, representing different educational levels. It may be similar to a master's degree when issued by pontifical universities and other universities in Europe, Latin Ame ...

for theology in

Jena Jena () is a German city 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 inhabitants, while the city itself has a po ...

. His first professional appointment as teacher at a local gymnasium (high-school) in

Fürstenwalde Fürstenwalde/Spree (; Lower Sorbian: ''Pśibor pśi Sprjewje'') is the most populous town in the Oder-Spree District of Brandenburg, Germany. Geography The town is situated in the glacial valley (''Urstromtal'') of the Spree river north of the ...

in Saxony, where he served between October 1881 to 1882. After the defense of his PhD thesis at Halle University he was appointed assistant at the Royal Library in Berlin in October 1882 under the directorship of Carl Lepsius. In 1886, he was appointed director of the Khedival Library in

Cairo Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the largest urban agglomeration in Africa, the Arab world and the Middle East: The Greater Cairo metr ...

, a position held by several German orientalists before

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

. He earned his reputation as dialectologist by writing one of the first studies on Egyptian contemporary language. Here he could gather the material for his later research. He served in Cairo until September 1896. In 1896 he returned to Germany and accepted a position as professor for Oriental languages at the School of Philosophy at

Jena University The University of Jena, officially the Friedrich Schiller University Jena (german: Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena, abbreviated FSU, shortened form ''Uni Jena''), is a public research university located in Jena, Thuringia, Germany. Th ...

and director of the "Grand Ducal Oriental Coin Cabinet Jena". After disputes which became personal over his book ''Volksprache und Schriftsprache im alten Arabien'' (1906), Vollers left the

Deutsche Morgenländische Gesellschaft The Deutsche Morgenländische Gesellschaft (, ''German Oriental Society''), abbreviated DMG, is a scholarly organization dedicated to Oriental studies, that is, to the study of the languages and cultures of the Near East and the Far East, the broa ...

in 1908. He died shortly afterwards.

Bibliography (selection)

* ''Das Dodekapropheton der Alexandriner'' (2 vols. 1880-82), * ''Pentateuchus Samaritanus'' III-V (1883–91), * ''Lehrbuch der aegypto-arabischen Umgangssprache'' (1890), * ''Fragmente aus dem Mugrib des Ibn Sa'id'' (1894), * ''Die Gedichte des Mutalammis arabisch und deutsch'' (1903), * ''Katalog der islamischen, christlich-orientalischen, jüdischen und samaritanìschen Handschriften der Universitätsbibliotek zu Leipzig'' (1906), * ''Volksprache und Schriftsprache im alten Arabien'' (1906).

References

* Anonymous: "Karl Vollers +", in: Herbert Koch (ed.): ''Altes und Neues aus der Heimat. Volks-Beiträge zum „Jenaer Volksblatt''“ (1909-1920), Neudruck der 1. und 2. Folge, Jena 1939. *

Stefan Heidemann Stefan Heidemann (born 1961 in Versmold in Westphalia) is a German orientalist at Hamburg University, Hamburg. Biography Islamic studies including Islamic Art and economics in Regensburg, Berlin, Damascus and Cairo 1982–1993; Ph.D. in I ...

: "Orientalistik und orientalische Numismatik in Jena", in: Stefan Heidemann (ed.): ''Islamische Numismatik in Deutschland - eine Bestandsaufnahme'' (Jenaer Beiträge zum Vorderen Orient 2), Wiesbaden 2000, pp. 87–106. * Bernd Landmann: "Auf Spurensuche nach einem Brückenbauer zwischen Orient und Okzident", in: ''Papyrus. Die Zeitschrift für alle deutschsprachigen in Ägypten'' vol. 33,2 (2012), pp. 37–39.

External links

Orientalisches Münzkabinett
German

German {{DEFAULTSORT:Vollers, Karl 1857 births 1909 deaths German orientalists German Arabists German numismatists Academic staff of the University of Jena German male non-fiction writers