August Conrady (Chi. 孔好古) (28 April 1864,
Wiesbaden
Wiesbaden (; ) is the capital of the German state of Hesse, and the second-largest Hessian city after Frankfurt am Main. With around 283,000 inhabitants, it is List of cities in Germany by population, Germany's 24th-largest city. Wiesbaden form ...
– 4 June 1925,
Leipzig
Leipzig (, ; ; Upper Saxon: ; ) is the most populous city in the States of Germany, German state of Saxony. The city has a population of 628,718 inhabitants as of 2023. It is the List of cities in Germany by population, eighth-largest city in Ge ...
) was a German
sinologist and linguist. From 1897 he was professor at the
University of Leipzig
Leipzig University (), 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 1409 by Frederick I, Electo ...
.
Conrady first studied classical philology,
comparative linguistics
Comparative linguistics is a branch of historical linguistics that is concerned with comparing languages to establish their historical relatedness.
Genetic relatedness implies a common origin or proto-language and comparative linguistics aim ...
and
Sanskrit
Sanskrit (; stem form ; nominal singular , ,) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in northwest South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural ...
; he continued with
Tibetan and
Chinese language
Chinese ( or ) is a group of languages spoken natively by the ethnic Han Chinese majority and List of ethnic groups in China, many minority ethnic groups in China, as well as by various communities of the Chinese diaspora. Approximately 1.39& ...
. He put forward his research findings in 1896 on the relationship between the prefix and tones in the
Sino-Tibetan languages
Sino-Tibetan (also referred to as Trans-Himalayan) is a family of more than 400 languages, second only to Indo-European in number of native speakers. Around 1.4 billion people speak a Sino-Tibetan language. The vast majority of these are the 1.3 ...
, in the work ''Eine Indo-Chinesische causative-Denominativ-Bildung und ihr Zusammenhang mit den Tonaccenten'' (1896).
He worked with
Sven Hedin, translating the roughly 150 3rd century manuscripts Hedin had found in the ruins of
Loulan in 1901. Conrady purchased a part of the castle ''Mildenburg'' in
Miltenberg, Bavaria, when it was auctioned off after the death of his uncle, to exhibit his art collection.
He became extraordinary professor of sinology in Leipzig in 1896, that had among its students as future sinologist leaders
Gustav Haloun,
Otto Maenchen-Helfen,
Lin Yutang, Bruno Schindler and his nephew and successor in Leipzig,
Eduard Erkes. In 1916 he put forward the theory of an original relationship between
Austric and Sino-Tibetan languages. He became a full professor of Sinology in 1920. Materials from the Danish
orientalist Kurt Wulff concluded partially in Conrady's development of the theory, and Wulff continued Conrady's work in this field.
Works (selected)
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References
*
Johannes Hertel: «Nekrolog auf August Conrady», i: ''Berichte über die Verhandlungen der Sächsischen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Leipzig'', Philologisch-historische Klasse, v 77 #4 (1926) 7-14
*
Bruno Schindler: ''Der Wissenschaftliche Nachlass August Conradys''. AM 3 (1926) 104-115
*
Eduard Erkes: «Georg von der Gabelentz und August Conrady», i: Ernst Engelberg (red.): ''Beiträge zu Universitätsgeschichte 1405-1959'', Karl-Marx-Universität Leipzig v1 (1959) 439-463
* David B Honey: ''Incense at the Altar''. AOS 2001, 132f
* Christina Leibfried: «Sinologie an der Universität Leipzig: Entstehung und Wirken des Ostasiatischen Seminars 1878 bis 1947», i: ''Beiträge zur Leipziger Universitäts- und Wissenschaftsgeschichte'', ser B v1 (2003)
External links
Prof. Dr. phil. habil. ''August'' Conrady Professorenkatalog der Universität Leipzig.
''Deutsche Biographie''.
German sinologists
Linguists from Germany
1864 births
1925 deaths
German male non-fiction writers
German philologists
Linguists of Sino-Tibetan languages
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