Georg Heinrich Ferdinand Nesselmann (February 14, 1811 in Fürstenau, near Tiegenhof, West Prussia (now Kmiecin, within

Nowy Dwór Gdański Nowy Dwor Gdanski (; ; formerly ) is a town in Poland on the Tuja river in the Żuławy Wiślane Żuławy Wiślane (plural from "żuława", meaning fen), in English known as the Vistula Fens, is the alluvial delta area of the river Vistula, in ...

) – January 7, 1881 in

Königsberg Königsberg (; ; ; ; ; ; , ) is the historic Germany, German and Prussian name of the city now called Kaliningrad, Russia. The city was founded in 1255 on the site of the small Old Prussians, Old Prussian settlement ''Twangste'' by the Teuton ...

) was a German orientalist, a

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 ...

with interests in

Baltic languages The Baltic languages are a branch of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family spoken natively or as a second language by a population of about 6.5–7.0 million people

, and a mathematics historian. At the

University of Königsberg The University of Königsberg () was the university of Königsberg in Duchy of Prussia, which was a fief of Poland. It was founded in 1544 as the world's second Protestant Reformation, Protestant academy (after the University of Marburg) by Duke A ...

he studied mathematics under

Carl Gustav Jacob Jacobi Carl Gustav Jacob Jacobi (; ; 10 December 1804 – 18 February 1851) was a German mathematician who made fundamental contributions to elliptic functions, dynamics, differential equations, determinants and number theory. Biography Jacobi was ...

and

Friedrich Julius Richelot Friedrich Julius Richelot (6 November 1808 – 31 March 1875) was a German mathematician, born in Königsberg. He was a student of Carl Gustav Jacob Jacobi. He was promoted in 1831 at the Philosophical Faculty of the University of Königsberg wi ...

, and oriental philology under

Peter von Bohlen Peter von Bohlen (9 March 1796 – 6 February 1840) was a German Orientalist and Indologist. He was a professor at the University of Königsberg. He spent the first 20 years of his life in strained circumstances. His talents and perseverance at ...

. In 1837 he received his PhD at Königsberg, where in 1859 he became a full professor of

Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...

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 ...

. In his book "''Die Sprache der alten Preußen''" (The language of the Old Prussians, 1845), he suggested the term "

".The Baltic
by Michael North

Works

*
Versuch einer kritischen Geschichte der Algebra
', G. Reimer, Berlin 1842 *
Wörterbuch der littauischen Sprache
', Gebrüder Bornträger, Königsberg 1851 *
Littauische Volkslieder, gesammelt, kritisch bearbeitet und metrisch übersetzt
', Dümmler, Berlin 1853 *''Thesaurus linguae prussicae'', 1873, Reprint 1969 *''Die Sprache der alten Preußen an ihren Überresten erläutert'', 1845 Berlin: Reimer *
Ein deutsch-preußisches Vocabularium aus dem Anfange des 15. Jahrhunderts
'. In: Altpreußische Monatsschrift Bd. 4, Heft 5, Königsberg 1868

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Nesselmann, Georg Heinrich Ferdinand 1811 births 1881 deaths People from Nowy Dwór Gdański County People from West Prussia Balticists 19th-century German mathematicians German philologists German orientalists 19th-century German writers 19th-century German male writers University of Königsberg alumni Academic staff of the University of Königsberg German male non-fiction writers Scholars from the Kingdom of Prussia