Konrad Alexander Friedrich Duden (3 January 1829 – 1 August 1911) was a Gymnasium (high school) teacher who became a

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 especially strong ties to etymology). Philology is also defined as th ...

. He founded the well-known German language dictionary bearing his name Duden.

Life

Duden was born in

Lackhausen Wesel () is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is the capital of the Wesel district. Geography Wesel is situated at the confluence of the Lippe River and the Rhine. Division of the city Suburbs of Wesel include Lackhausen, Obrigh ...

, Rhineland. After receiving his

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 yea ...

in 1846 in Wesel, Duden studied history,

Germanistics The asterisk ( ), from Late Latin , from Ancient Greek , ''asteriskos'', "little star", is a typographical symbol. It is so called because it resembles a conventional image of a heraldic star. Computer scientists and mathematicians often voc ...

, and classical philology at

Bonn The federal city of Bonn ( lat, Bonna) is a city on the banks of the Rhine in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, with a population of over 300,000. About south-southeast of Cologne, Bonn is in the southernmost part of the Rhine-Ruhr ...

. There he joined the ''Wingolfsbund'' student organization and took part in the political activities of the student societies during the revolutionary year 1848. He broke off his training phase in Soest and took a position as a home tutor in Genoa, Italy. There he met the daughter of the German Consul, Adeline Jakob, whom he married in 1861 and with whom he had six children. In 1859 he returned to Germany and worked as a teacher and rose to the position of Director of the ''Archigymnasium'' in Soest. In 1869 he was appointed "Gymnasium" (High-School) director in

Schleiz Schleiz is a town in the district of Saale-Orla-Kreis in Thuringia, Germany. The former municipality Crispendorf was merged into Schleiz in January 2019, and Burgk in December 2019. Location Schleiz is in the Thuringian Vogtland area, an a ...

and in 1876 became director of the Royal Gymnasium in Hersfeld. It was here he published his most important work, the "Complete Orthographic Dictionary of the German Language" (''Vollständiges Orthographisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache''). In 1905, he retired to Wiesbaden/Sonnenberg. He died in 1911 in

Sonnenberg Sonnenberg is a municipality in the Oberhavel district, in Brandenburg Brandenburg (; nds, Brannenborg; dsb, Bramborska ) is a state in the northeast of Germany bordering the states of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, a ...

and was buried in the family grave in Bad Hersfeld.

Significance

During his entire life he strove toward the unification and simplification of the German orthography. His 1880 dictionary represents the start of the Duden series and included 28,000 words on 187 pages. In 1902, the German parliamentary upper house ("Bundesrat") made his rules for orthography mandatory in official state documents.

Austria-Hungary Austria-Hungary, often referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire,, the Dual Monarchy, or Austria, was a constitutional monarchy and great power in Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. It was formed with the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1 ...

and Switzerland followed. One hundred years after his death, the Duden dictionary remains the authoritative source for German orthography.

Works

* ''Anleitung zur Rechtschreibung'', 18?? (Second Edition, 1878) * ''Die deutsche Rechtschreibung. Abhandlung, Regeln und Wörterverzeichnis'', Leipzig 1872 (so-called Schleizer Duden) * ''Vollständiges Orthographisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache'', 1880 * ''Etymologie der neuhochdeutschen Sprache'', 1893

References

* Wolfgang Ullrich Wurzel, ''Konrad Duden. Leben und Werk''. 1998.

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Duden, Konrad 1829 births 1911 deaths German philologists German lexicographers University of Bonn alumni People from the Rhine Province German male non-fiction writers People from Wesel