Georg Curtius (April 16, 1820August 12, 1885) 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 especially strong ties to etymology). Philology is also defined ...
and distinguished comparativist.
Biography
Curtius was born in
Lübeck
Lübeck (; Low German also ), officially the Hanseatic City of Lübeck (german: Hansestadt Lübeck), is a city in Northern Germany. With around 217,000 inhabitants, Lübeck is the second-largest city on the German Baltic coast and in the state ...
, and was the brother of the historian and archeologist
Ernst Curtius. After an education 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-Ru ...
and
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 ...
, he was for three years a schoolmaster in
Dresden
Dresden (, ; Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; wen, label= Upper Sorbian, Drježdźany) is the capital city of the German state of Saxony and its second most populous city, after Leipzig. It is the 12th most populous city of Germany, the fourth ...
, until (in 1845) he returned to
Berlin University
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (german: Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, abbreviated HU Berlin) is a German public research university in the central borough of Mitte in Berlin. It was established by Frederick William III on the initiative o ...
as ''
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 qualific ...
''.
In 1849 he was placed in charge of the Philological Seminary at
Prague
Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 million people. The city has a temperate ...
, and two years later was appointed professor of classical philology in
Prague University
)
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, established =
, type = Public, Ancient
, budget = 8.9 billion CZK
, rector = Milena Králíčková
, faculty = 4,057
, administrative_staff = 4,026
, students = 51,438
, underg ...
. In 1854, he moved from Prague to a similar appointment at
Kiel
Kiel () is the capital and most populous city in the northern German state of Schleswig-Holstein, with a population of 246,243 (2021).
Kiel lies approximately north of Hamburg. Due to its geographic location in the southeast of the Jutland ...
, and again in 1862 from Kiel to
Leipzig
Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as ...
. He was teaching lndo-European and the historical grammar of the classical languages at Leipzig. His is contributions were focused "to bridge the gulf between classical philology and Aryan linguistics." As a professor he constantly attempted " to bring Classical Philology and the Science of Language into closer relation with each other." This clearly reflected in the works of his pupils, and that of his own.
His philological theories exercised a widespread influence. The more important of his publications are:
*''Die Sprachvergleichung in ihrem Verhältniss zur classischen Philologie'' (1845; Eng. trans. by FH Trithen, 1851)
*''Sprachvergleichende Beiträge zur griechischen und lateinischen Grammatik'' (1846)
*''Grundzüge der griechischen Etymologie'' (1858-1862, 5th ed. 1879)
*''Das Verbum der griechischen Sprache'' (1873).
The last two works were translated into English by
Augustus Samuel Wilkins and
Edwin Bourdieu England.
From 1878 until his death Curtius was general editor of the ''Leipziger Studien zur classischen Philologie''. His ''Griechische Schulgrammatik'', first published in 1852, passed through more than twenty editions, and was edited in English. In his last work, ''Zur Kritik der neuesten Sprachforschung'' (1885), he attacked the views of the emerging
Neogrammarian
The Neogrammarians (German: ''Junggrammatiker'', 'young grammarians') were a German school of linguists, originally at the University of Leipzig, in the late 19th century who proposed the Neogrammarian hypothesis of the regularity of sound chang ...
school of philology.
Curtius died in
Hermsdorf am Kynast, aged 65, and was succeeded at Leipzig by his student
Karl Brugmann. The ''Opuscula'' of Georg Curtius were edited after his death by
Ernst Windisch (''Kleine Schriften von E. C.'', 1886-1887). He was posthumously elected to the
American Philosophical Society
The American Philosophical Society (APS), founded in 1743 in Philadelphia, is a scholarly organization that promotes knowledge in the sciences and humanities through research, professional meetings, publications, library resources, and communit ...
in 1886.
Notes
References
* This work in turn cites:
**
**
Ernst Windisch in
Conrad Bursian
Conrad Bursian (; 14 November 1830 – 21 September 1883) was a German philologist and archaeologist.
Biography
He was born at Mutzschen in Saxony. When his parents moved to Leipzig, he received his early education at Thomasschule zu Leipzig ...
's ''Biographisches Jahrbuch für Alterthumskunde'' (1886)
External links
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Curtius, Georg
1820 births
1885 deaths
German philologists
Writers from Lübeck
Recipients of the Pour le Mérite (civil class)
Members of the American Philosophical Society