Rudolf von Raumer (14 April 1815, Breslau – 30 August 1876,

Erlangen Erlangen (; , ) is a Middle Franconian city in Bavaria, Germany. It is the seat of the administrative district Erlangen-Höchstadt (former administrative district Erlangen), and with 119,810 inhabitants (as of 30 September 2024), it is the smalle ...

) was a German

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 ...

and

linguist 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 ...

, known for his extensive research of the

German language German (, ) is a West Germanic language in the Indo-European language family, mainly spoken in Western Europe, Western and Central Europe. It is the majority and Official language, official (or co-official) language in Germany, Austria, Switze ...

. He was the son of geologist Karl Georg von Raumer.

Biography

He studied classical and

Germanic philology Germanic philology is the philology, philological study of the Germanic languages, particularly from a Comparative method, comparative or historical perspective. The beginnings of research into the Germanic languages began in the 16th century, wi ...

at the universities of

and

Göttingen Göttingen (, ; ; ) is a college town, university city in Lower Saxony, central Germany, the Capital (political), capital of Göttingen (district), the eponymous district. The River Leine runs through it. According to the 2022 German census, t ...

, where his instructors were

Friedrich Christoph Dahlmann Friedrich Christoph Dahlmann (13 May 1785, Wismar5 December 1860, Bonn) was a German historian and politician. Biography He came of an old Hanseatic family of Wismar, then controlled by Sweden. His father, who was burgomaster of the town, int ...

and

Jacob Grimm Jacob Ludwig Karl Grimm (4 January 1785 – 20 September 1863), also known as Ludwig Karl, was a German author, linguist, philologist, jurist, and folklorist. He formulated Grimm's law of linguistics, and was the co-author of the ''Deutsch ...

. From 1840, he was ''

privatdocent ''Privatdozent'' (for men) or ''Privatdozentin'' (for women), abbreviated PD, P.D. or Priv.-Doz., is an academic title conferred at some European universities, especially in German-speaking countries, to someone who holds certain formal qualifi ...

'' at the University of Erlangen, where in 1846 he became an associate professor. In 1852, he became a full professor of German language and

literature Literature is any collection of Writing, written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially novels, Play (theatre), plays, and poetry, poems. It includes both print and Electroni ...

at Erlangen. In 1870, he wrote his major work, volume 9 of a series entitled Geschichte der Wissenschaften in Deutschland, which was entitled Geschichte der Germanischen Philologie vorzugsweise in Deutschland. He is cited in Konrad Duden's Die deutsche Rechtschreibung in the preface as a significant influence for this writing. In regards to historical and comparative

phonology Phonology (formerly also phonemics or phonematics: "phonemics ''n.'' 'obsolescent''1. Any procedure for identifying the phonemes of a language from a corpus of data. 2. (formerly also phonematics) A former synonym for phonology, often pre ...

, Raumer understood the need for more specific phonetic concepts and vocabulary, and he proposed numerous refinements and clarifications in that area. He stressed the basic role of Jacob Grimm's work and the need to advance beyond it. He also conducted comprehensive research on German

dialectology Dialectology (from Ancient Greek, Greek , ''dialektos'', "talk, dialect"; and , ''-logy, -logia'') is the scientific study of dialects: subsets of languages. Though in the 19th century a branch of historical linguistics, dialectology is often now c ...

and

orthography An orthography is a set of convention (norm), conventions for writing a language, including norms of spelling, punctuation, Word#Word boundaries, word boundaries, capitalization, hyphenation, and Emphasis (typography), emphasis. Most national ...

. In 1876, his ideas for spelling reform were partially carried out by the Prussian government.

Published works

He published ''Fortsetzung der untersuchungen über die urverwandtschaft der semitischen und indoeuropäischen sprachen'' (Investigations into the ancient relationship between the Semitic and

Indo-European languages The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the northern Indian subcontinent, most of Europe, and the Iranian plateau with additional native branches found in regions such as Sri Lanka, the Maldives, parts of Central Asia (e. ...

, 1867 et seq.). His other written efforts include: * ''Die Aspiration und die Lautverschiebung; eine sprachgeschichtliche Untersuchung'', 1837 – The aspiration and the

sound shift In historical linguistics, a sound change is a change in the pronunciation of a language. A sound change can involve the replacement of one speech sound (or, more generally, one phonetic feature value) by a different one (called phonetic cha ...

. * ''Die Einwirkung des Christenthums auf die althochdeutsche Sprache: ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der deutschen Kirche'', 1845 – The influence of Christianity on the

Old High German language Old High German (OHG; ) is the earliest stage of the German language, conventionally identified as the period from around 500/750 to 1050. Rather than representing a single supra-regional form of German, Old High German encompasses the numerous ...

. * ''Das deutsche Wörterbuch der Gebrüder Grimm und die Entwickelung der deutschen Schriftsprache'', 1858 – The German dictionary of the

Brothers Grimm The Brothers Grimm ( or ), Jacob Grimm, Jacob (1785–1863) and Wilhelm Grimm, Wilhelm (1786–1859), were Germans, German academics who together collected and published folklore. The brothers are among the best-known storytellers of Oral tradit ...

and the development of the written German language. * ''Gesammelte sprachwissenschaftliche Schriften'', 1863 – Collected linguistic writings. * ''Herr Professor Schleicher in Jena und Die Urverwandtschaft der semitischen und indoeuropäischen Sprachen. Ein kritisches Bedenken'', 1864 – Professor

August Schleicher August Schleicher (; 19 February 1821 – 6 December 1868) was a German linguist. Schleicher studied the Proto-Indo-European language and devised theories concerning historical linguistics. His great work was ''A Compendium of the Comparative Gr ...

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 ...

and the relationship of Semitic and Indo-European languages. * ''Geschichte der germanischen Philologie vorzugsweise in Deutschland'', 1870 – History of Germanic philology, especially in Germany. * ''Der Unterricht im Deutschen'', 1873 – Lessons in the German language.HathiTrust Digital Library
published works

References

* 1815 births 1876 deaths 19th-century German linguists German philologists University of Erlangen–Nuremberg alumni Academic staff of the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg University of Göttingen alumni Historical linguists Linguists of Indo-Semitic languages Scholars from the Kingdom of Prussia {{Germany-linguist-stub