Helmut Rix (4 July 1926, in

Amberg Amberg () is a Town#Germany, town in Bavaria, Germany. It is located in the Upper Palatinate about halfway between Regensburg and Bayreuth. History The town was first mentioned in 1034 with the name Ammenberg. It became an important trading c ...

– 3 December 2004, in

Colmar Colmar (; ; or ) is a city and commune in the Haut-Rhin department and Alsace region of north-eastern France. The third-largest commune in Alsace (after Strasbourg and Mulhouse), it is the seat of the prefecture of the Haut-Rhin department ...

) was a German linguist and professor of the Sprachwissenschaftliches Seminar of Albert-Ludwigs-Universität,

Freiburg Freiburg im Breisgau or simply Freiburg is the List of cities in Baden-Württemberg by population, fourth-largest city of the German state of Baden-Württemberg after Stuttgart, Mannheim and Karlsruhe. Its built-up area has a population of abou ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

. He is best known for his research into

Indo-European The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the northern Indian subcontinent, most of Europe, and the Iranian plateau with additional native branches found in regions such as Sri Lanka, the Maldives, parts of Central Asia (e. ...

and Etruscan languages, as well as for being the author of the hypothesis of Tyrrhenian languages.

Biography

Helmut Rix was born in 1926 in Amberg to a family of teachers. Following high school and conscripted service in the

German navy The German Navy (, ) is part of the unified (Federal Defense), the German Armed Forces. The German Navy was originally known as the ''Bundesmarine'' (Federal Navy) from 1956 to 1995, when ''Deutsche Marine'' (German Navy) became the official ...

during

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, he studied Indo-European studies, classical philology, and history at Wurzburg in 1946 and

Heidelberg Heidelberg (; ; ) is the List of cities in Baden-Württemberg by population, fifth-largest city in the States of Germany, German state of Baden-Württemberg, and with a population of about 163,000, of which roughly a quarter consists of studen ...

from 1947. There he received his doctorate in 1950 with his dissertation ''Bausteine zu einer Hydronymie Alt-Italiens''. From 1951 he was assistant to Hans Krahe at

Tübingen Tübingen (; ) is a traditional college town, university city in central Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is situated south of the state capital, Stuttgart, and developed on both sides of the Neckar and Ammer (Neckar), Ammer rivers. about one in ...

and from 1955 lecturer in Latin and Greek at the Lutheran Augustana Divinity School in Neuendettelsau. In 1959 he qualified as a full professor at Tübingen with the

habilitation Habilitation is the highest university degree, or the procedure by which it is achieved, in Germany, France, Italy, Poland and some other European and non-English-speaking countries. The candidate fulfills a university's set criteria of excelle ...

thesis, ''Das etruskische Cognomen'' (published in 1963 by Harrassowitz). In 1966, Rix took a position at the newly established

University of Regensburg The University of Regensburg () is a public research university located in the city of Regensburg, Germany. The university was founded on 18 July 1962 by the Landtag of Bavaria as the fourth full-fledged university in Bavaria. Following groundbr ...

and in 1982 professorship at the

University of Freiburg The University of Freiburg (colloquially ), officially the Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg (), is a public university, public research university located in Freiburg im Breisgau, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. The university was founded in 1 ...

. He retired in 1993 and died in 2004 in

from a traffic accident.

Bibliography

Proto-Indo-European

* "Anlautender Laryngal vor Liquida oder Nasalis sonans im Griechischen", ''Münchener Studien zur Sprachwissenschaft'' 27 (1970): 79–110. ormulation of Rix's law">Rix's_law.html" ;"title="ormulation of Rix's law">ormulation of Rix's law* ''Historische Grammatik des Griechischen: Laut- und Formenlehre''. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1976 (2nd ed., 1992). * ''The Proto-Indo-European Middle: content, forms and origin''. Munich: R. Kitzinger, 1988. * ''Lexikon der indogermanischen Verben: Die Wurzeln und ihre Primärstammbildungen''. With contributions by Martin Kümmel, Thomas Zehnder, Reiner Lipp and Brigitte Schirmer. Wiesbaden: Dr. Ludwig Reichert, 1998, 754 p.; 2nd expanded and improved ed., edited by Martin Kümmel and Helmut Rix, 2001, 823 p. * ''Kleine Schriften: Festgabe für Helmut Rix zum 75. Geburtstag'', ed. Gerhard Meiser. Bremen: Hempen Verlag, 2001.

Ancient Italian culture and language (except Etruscan)

* "Zum Ursprung des römisch-mittelitalischen Gentilnamensystems", in ''Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt: Geschichte und Kultur Roms im Spiegel der neueren Forschung'' (ANRW), vol. 1: ''Von den Anfängen Roms bis zum Ausgang der Republik''. Berlin–NY:

Walter de Gruyter Walter de Gruyter GmbH, known as De Gruyter (), is a German scholarly publishing house specializing in academic literature. History The roots of the company go back to 1749 when Frederick the Great granted the Königliche Realschule in Be ...

, 1972, 700–758. * "Die lateinische Synkope als historisches und phonologisches Problem", ''Kratylos'' 11 (1966): 156–165. Republished in: Klaus Strunk, ed., ''Probleme der lateinischen Grammatik''. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1973, 90–102. * ''Die Termini der Unfreiheit in den Sprachen Altitaliens''. Stuttgart 1994. * ''Sabellische Texte: Die Texte des Oskischen, Umbrischen und Südpikenischen''. Heidelberg: Carl Winter University Press, 2002 Sabellic (Osco-Umbrian) inscriptions">Osco-Umbrian languages">Sabellic (Osco-Umbrian) inscriptions

Etruscan

* ''Das etruskische Cognomen: Untersuchungen zu System, Morphologie und Verwendung der Personennamen auf den jüngeren Inschriften Nordetruriens''. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1963, + 410 p. * "La scrittura e la lingua", in ''Gli Etruschi: una nuova immagine'', ed. M. Cristofani. Florence: Giunti Martello, 1984, 210–238. hort Etruscan grammar* "Etruskisch ''culs'' ‘Tor’ und der Abschnitt VIII 1–2 des Zagreber ''liber linteus''", ''Vjesnik Arheološkog Muzeja u Zagrebu'', 3rd series, 19 (1986): 17–40. * "Etrusco ''un, une, unuc'' ‘te, tibi, vos’ e le preghiere dei rituali paralleli nel ''liber linteus''", ''Archeologia Classica'' 43 (1991): 665–691. * ''Etruskische Texte'', 2 vols., co-edited by Gerhard Meiser. Tübingen: G. Narr, 1991, vol. 1: 320 p., 2: 370 p. * "Les prières du ''liber linteus'' de Zagreb", in ''Les Étrusques, les plus religieux des hommes'', eds. Françoise Gaultier & Dominique Briquel. Paris: La Documentation française, 1997, 391–397. * ''Rätisch und Etruskisch''. Innsbruck: Institut für Sprachwissenschaft der Universität Innsbruck, 1998, 67 p. Innsbrucker Beiträge zur Sprachwissenschaft, Vorträge und Kleinere Schriften, No. 68.

Edited volumes

* ''Flexion und Wortbildung: Akten der V. Fachtagung der Indogermanischen Gesellschaft, Regensburg, 9. bis 14. September 1973''. Wiesbaden: Dr. Ludwig Reichert Verlag, 1990. * ''Sprachwissenschaft und Philologie. Jacob Wackernagel und die Indogermanistik heute: Kolloquium der Indogermanischen Gesellschaft vom 13. bis 15. Oktober 1988 in Basel'', co-edited by Heiner Eichner. Wiesbaden: Dr. Ludwig Reichert Verlag, 1990. * ''Oskisch – Umbrisch: Texte und Grammatik. Arbeitstagung der Indogermanischen Gesellschaft und der Società Italiana di Glottologia vom 25. bis 28. September 1991 in Freiburg''. Wiesbaden: Dr. Ludwig Reichert Verlag, 1994.

External links

In memoriam Helmut Rix

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rix, Helmut Linguists from Germany Linguists of Indo-European languages Linguists of Tyrsenian languages Linguists of Etruscan Historical linguists 1926 births 2004 deaths 20th-century German linguists Kriegsmarine personnel of World War II