Ferdinand Sommer (4 May 1875, in

Trier Trier ( , ; lb, Tréier ), formerly known in English as Trèves ( ;) and Triers (see also names in other languages), is a city on the banks of the Moselle in Germany. It lies in a valley between low vine-covered hills of red sandstone in the ...

– 3 April 1962, in

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and ...

) was a German classical and Indo-European philologist. From 1893 he studied at the universities of

Marburg Marburg ( or ) is a university town in the German federal state (''Bundesland'') of Hesse, capital of the Marburg-Biedenkopf district (''Landkreis''). The town area spreads along the valley of the river Lahn and has a population of approximat ...

and

Freiberg Freiberg is a university and former mining town in Saxony, Germany. It is a so-called ''Große Kreisstadt'' (large county town) and the administrative centre of Mittelsachsen district. Its historic town centre has been placed under heritage c ...

, where he was a pupil of

Rudolf Thurneysen Eduard Rudolf Thurneysen (March 14, 1857 – 9 August 1940) was a Swiss linguist and Celticist. Biography Born in Basel, Thurneysen studied classical philology in Basel, Leipzig, Berlin and Paris. His teachers included Ernst Windisch and H ...

. In 1899 he obtained his

habilitation Habilitation is the highest university degree, or the procedure by which it is achieved, in many European countries. The candidate fulfills a university's set criteria of excellence in research, teaching and further education, usually including ...

from the

University of Leipzig Leipzig University (german: Universität Leipzig), in Leipzig in Saxony, Germany, is one of the world's oldest universities and the second-oldest university (by consecutive years of existence) in Germany. The university was founded on 2 December ...

with the thesis ''Die Komparationssuffixe im Lateinischen'' (Comparative suffixes of Latin). In 1902 he was named professor of Indo-European linguistics,

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural diffusion ...

and classical philology at the

University of Basel The University of Basel (Latin: ''Universitas Basiliensis'', German: ''Universität Basel'') is a university in Basel, Switzerland. Founded on 4 April 1460, it is Switzerland's oldest university and among the world's oldest surviving universiti ...

, and later on in his career, he held professorships in Indo-European linguistics at the universities of

Rostock Rostock (), officially the Hanseatic and University City of Rostock (german: link=no, Hanse- und Universitätsstadt Rostock), is the largest city in the German state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and lies in the Mecklenburgian part of the state ...

(1909–13),

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 ...

(1913–24) and

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-Ru ...

(1924–26). From 1926 to 1951 he was a professor of

comparative linguistics Comparative linguistics, or comparative-historical linguistics (formerly comparative philology) is a branch of historical linguistics that is concerned with comparing languages to establish their historical relatedness. Genetic relatedness ...

at the

University of Munich The Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (simply University of Munich or LMU; german: Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München) is a public research university in Munich, Germany. It is Germany's sixth-oldest university in continuous operatio ...

.Sommer, Johann Ferdinand
at Neue Deutsche BiographieSommer, Ferdinand
Catalogus Professorum Rostochiensium He was a member of the

Saxon Academy of Sciences The Saxon Academy of Sciences and Humanities in Leipzig (german: Sächsische Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Leipzig) is an institute which was founded in 1846 under the name ''Royal Saxon Society for the Sciences'' (german: Königlich Sächsische G ...

(from 1922),

Göttingen Academy of Sciences Göttingen (, , ; nds, Chöttingen) is a university city in Lower Saxony, central Germany, the capital of the eponymous district. The River Leine runs through it. At the end of 2019, the population was 118,911. General information The or ...

(from 1925),

Bavarian Academy of Sciences The Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities (german: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften) is an independent public institution, located in Munich. It appoints scholars whose research has contributed considerably to the increase of knowledg ...

(from 1927) and Academy of Sciences in Berlin (from 1944).

Selected works

* ''Handbuch der lateinischen Laut- und Formenlehre. Eine Einführung in das sprachwissenschaftliche Studium des Lateins''. Heidelberg 1902, 3rd edition 1914 – Handbook of Latin phonetics and morphology; an introduction to the linguistic study of Latin. * ''Griechische Lautstudien''. Straßburg 1905 – Greek phonetic studies. * ''Die indogermanischen iā- und io-Stämme im Baltischen''. Leipzig 1914 – The Indo-European iā- and io-stems in

Baltic Baltic may refer to: Peoples and languages *Baltic languages, a subfamily of Indo-European languages, including Lithuanian, Latvian and extinct Old Prussian *Balts (or Baltic peoples), ethnic groups speaking the Baltic languages and/or originatin ...

. * ''Sprachgeschichtliche Erläuterungen für den griechischen Unterricht. Laut- und Formenlehre''. Leipzig 1917, 4th edition Darmstadt 1961 – Linguistic-historical explanations for teaching Greek;

phonology Phonology is the branch of linguistics that studies how languages or dialects systematically organize their sounds or, for sign languages, their constituent parts of signs. The term can also refer specifically to the sound or sign system of a ...

and morphology. * ''Vergleichende Syntax der Schulsprachen (Deutsch, Englisch, Französisch, Griechisch, Lateinisch) Mit besonderer Berücksichtigung des Deutschen''. Leipzig 1921, 6th edition Darmstadt 1989 – Comparative syntax of school languages (German, English, French, Greek, Latin) with special reference to German. * ''Die Aḫḫijavā-Urkunden''. Munich 1932. Nachdruck Hildesheim 1975 – The Aḫḫijavā documents. * ''Aḫḫijavāfrage und Sprachwissenschaft,'' Verlag der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, München, 1934
Digitalisat
* ''Hethiter und Hethitisch''. Stuttgart 1947 –

Hittites The Hittites () were an Anatolian people who played an important role in establishing first a kingdom in Kussara (before 1750 BC), then the Kanesh or Nesha kingdom (c. 1750–1650 BC), and next an empire centered on Hattusa in north-cent ...

and Hittite. * ''Schriften aus dem Nachlass'' (edited by Bernhard Forssmann) Munich 1977 – Writings from the

Nachlass ''Nachlass'' (, older spelling ''Nachlaß'') is a German word, used in academia to describe the collection of manuscripts, notes, correspondence, and so on left behind when a scholar dies. The word is a compound in German: ''nach'' means "after ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sommer, Ferdinand 1875 births 1962 deaths People from Trier University of Basel faculty University of Rostock faculty University of Jena faculty University of Bonn faculty Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich faculty German classical philologists Hittitologists