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Diedrich Hermann Westermann (24 June 1875 – 31 May 1956) was a German missionary, Africanist, 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 ...
. He substantially extended and revised the work of
Carl Meinhof Carl Friedrich Michael Meinhof (23 July 1857 – 11 February 1944) was a German linguist and one of the first linguists to study African languages. Early years and career Meinhof was born in Barzwitz near Rügenwalde in the Province of Po ...
, his teacher, although he rejected some of Meinhof's theories only implicitly. Westermann is seen as one of the founders of modern
Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent after Asia. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surfac ...
n linguistics. He carried out extensive linguistic and anthropological research in the area ranging from Senegal eastwards to the Upper Nile. His linguistic publications cover a wide range of African languages, including the
Gbe languages The Gbe languages (pronounced ) form a cluster of about twenty related languages stretching across the area between eastern Ghana and western Nigeria. The total number of speakers of Gbe languages is between four and eight million. The most widel ...
, Nuer, Kpelle, Shilluk, Hausa, and Guang. Westermann's comparative work, begun in 1911, initially brought together much of today's Niger–Congo and
Nilo-Saharan The Nilo-Saharan languages are a proposed family of around 210 African languages spoken by somewhere around 70 million speakers, mainly in the upper parts of the Chari and Nile rivers, including historic Nubia, north of where the two tributari ...
language phyla under the name Sudanic languages. His most important later publication ''Die westlichen Sudansprachen'' 1927a divided these into East and West Sudanic languages and laid the basis for what would become Niger–Congo. In this book and a series of associated articles between 1925 and 1928, Westermann both identified a large number of roots that form the basis of our understanding of Niger–Congo and set out the evidence for the coherence of many of the families that constitute it. Much of the classification of African languages associated with Joseph Greenberg actually derives from the work of Westermann. In 1927 Westermann published a '' Practical Orthography of
African Languages The number of languages natively spoken in Africa is variously estimated (depending on the delineation of language vs. dialect) at between 1,250 and 2,100, and by some counts at over 3,000. Nigeria alone has over 500 languages (according to SI ...
'', which became later known as the ''Westermann script''. Subsequently, he published the influential and oft-reprinted '' Practical Phonetics for Students of African Languages'' in collaboration with Ida C. Ward (1933). He was born in
Baden Baden (; ) is a historical territory in southern Germany. In earlier times it was considered to be on both sides of the Upper Rhine, but since the Napoleonic Wars, it has been considered only East of the Rhine. History The margraves of Ba ...
near
Bremen Bremen (Low German also: ''Breem'' or ''Bräm''), officially the City Municipality of Bremen (, ), is the capital of the States of Germany, German state of the Bremen (state), Free Hanseatic City of Bremen (), a two-city-state consisting of the c ...
and also died there.


Bibliography

*Westermann, Diedrich H. (1911) ''Die Sudansprachen'' he Sudanic languages *Westermann, Diedrich H. (1912) ''The Shilluk People.'' Berlin. *Westermann, Diedrich H. (1925) Das Tschi und Guang. Ihre Stellung innerhalb der Ewe-Tschi Gruppe. MSOS, 28:1-85. *Westermann, Diedrich H. (1926a) Das Ibo in Nigerien. Seine Stellung innerhalb der Kwa-Sprachen. MSOS, 29:32-60. *Westermann, Diedrich H. (1926b) Das Edo in Nigerien. Seine Stellung innerhalb der Kwa-Sprachen. MSOS, 29:1-31. *Westermann, Diedrich H. (1927a) 'Die westlichen Sudansprachen und ihre Beziehungen zum Bantu' Berlin: de Gruyter. *Westermann, Diedrich H. (1927b) Das Nupe in Nigerien. Seine Stellung innerhalb der Kwa-Sprachen. MSOS, 30:173-207. *Westermann, Diedrich H. (1928) Die westatlantische Gruppe der Sudansprachen. MSOS, 31:63-86. *Westermann, Diedrich Hermann & Ward, Ida C. (1933) ''Practical phonetics for students of African languages''. London: Oxford University Press for the International African Institute. *Westermann, Diedrich H. (1940) Africans recount their lives. Eleven self-portraits (Afrikaner erzählen ihr Leben. Elf Selbstdarstellungen), Essener Verlagsanstalt * Westermann, Diedrich H. (1948). ''The missionary and anthropological research''. Oxford University Press for the International African Institute. * Westermann, Diedrich H. (1949). ''Sprachbeziehungen und Sprachverwandtschaft in Afrika''. Sitzungsberichte der Deutschen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin, Philosophisch-Historische Klasse, 1948 (Nr. 1). Berlin: Akademie-Verlag. * Westermann, Diedrich H. (1952). ''The languages of West Africa''. Oxford: Oxford University Press. * Westermann, Diedrich H. (1964). ''Practical phonetics for students of African languages'' (4th improvement). Oxford: Oxford University Press.


Further reading

*Kallaway, Peter. Diedrich Westermann and the Ambiguities of Colonial Science in the Inter-War Era. The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 2017 vol. 45 no. 6, p. 871–893


External links

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Westermann, Diedrich Hermann 1875 births 1956 deaths Creators of writing systems Linguists of Niger–Congo languages Historical linguists Linguists of Nilo-Saharan languages German missionary linguists 20th-century German linguists