Jens Peter Broch (November 6, 1819 – March 15, 1886) was a Norwegian orientalist and linguist that specialized in Semitic languages.''Store norske leksikon'': Jens Peter Broch
''Norsk biografisk leksikon'': Jens Peter Broch

Personal life

Broch was born in

Kristiansand Kristiansand is a city and Municipalities of Norway, municipality in Agder county, Norway. The city is the fifth-largest and the municipality is the sixth-largest in Norway, with a population of around 116,000 as of January 2020, following th ...

. He was the son of Johan Jørgen Broch (1791–1860), a lieutenant colonel, a war commissioner, and parliamentarian, and Jensine Laurentze Bentzen (1790–1877). His brother

Ole Jacob Broch Ole Jacob Broch (14 January 1818 – 5 February 1889) was a Norwegian mathematician, physicist, economist and government minister. Biography Broch was born at Fredrikstad in Østfold, Norway. He was the son of war commissary Johan Jørgen Broc ...

(1818–1889) was a mathematician at the university in Oslo, and they built their own homes in the neighborhood known as "Professor Town" (); Jens' house was named ''Fridarheim'' and Ole's ''Fagerheim''. Jens married Louise Joachime Müller (1827–1913) in 1847; she was the daughter of Captain Otto Fredrik Müller (1782–1854) and Vilhelmine Hedevig Bech (1796–1880). They had no children, but a foster daughter Hedvig Bie (born Solberg), who was his wife's sister's daughter.

Education and career

Together with his brother Ole, Jens attended the

Kristiansand Cathedral School Kristiansand Cathedral School (''Kristiansand katedralskole Gimle''), known in Latin as ''Schola Christiansandensis'', is a high school in Kristiansand, Agder, Norway. It is the oldest high school on the southern coast of Norway, having been f ...

for three years before the family moved to Christiania (now

Oslo Oslo ( or ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality. The municipality of Oslo had a population of in 2022, while the city's greater urban area had a population of 1,064,235 in 2022 ...

) in 1833. There they attended the private Headmaster Møller Institute (), which Ulrik Wilhelm Møller (1791–1853) had founded in 1822. Jens studied there until he received his '' candidatus theologiæ'' degree in 1843, and then he became a teacher at the Nissen Latin and Secondary School (), which his brother Ole had also just started teaching at. In 1845 he became a research fellow at the Royal Frederik University (now the

University of Oslo The University of Oslo (; ) is a public university, public research university located in Oslo, Norway. It is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation#Europe, oldest university in Norway. Originally named the Royal Frederick Univ ...

), and was its second teacher in oriental studies and oriental languages, especially Arabic. He studied abroad and was hosted, among others, by

Heinrich Leberecht Fleischer Heinrich Leberecht Fleischer (21 February 1801 – 10 February 1888) was a German Orientalist. Biography He was born at Schandau, Saxony. From 1819 to 1824, he studied theology and Oriental languages at Leipzig, subsequently continuing his stud ...

(1801–1888) in Leipzig, the same place where the prominent theologian Carl Paul Caspari (1814–1892) stayed from 1834 to 1838 and received his doctorate in 1842. It was the experience of Broch and Caspari in Leipzig that later inspired the theologian Elias Blix (1836–1902) to stay in the city from 1871 to 1872. Broch also had a long stay abroad from 1853 to 1855. In 1859 he published the first Arabic text in Norway and he translated many poems from Arabic. He was elected to the newly established Christiania Science Society (now the

Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters (, DNVA) is a learned society based in Oslo, Norway. Its purpose is to support the advancement of science and scholarship in Norway. History The Royal Frederick University in Christiania was establis ...

) in 1859, and to the

Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences and Letters The Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences and Letters (, DKNVS) is a Norway, Norwegian learned society based in Trondheim. It was founded in 1760 and is Norway's oldest scientific and scholarly institution. The society's Protector is King Harald V of ...

in 1877. He became an associate lecturer in 1865 and a full professor in 1876. His main work is a very careful edition of

Al-Zamakhshari Abu al-Qasim Mahmud ibn Umar al-Zamakhshari (; 1074 –1143) was a medieval Muslim scholar of Iranian descent. He travelled to Mecca and settled there for five years and has been known since then as 'Jar Allah' (God's Neighbor). He was a Mu'tazi ...

's grammatical work ''Al-Mufassal'' (1879).

References

External links

BIBSYS: Publications by Jens Peter Broch
{{DEFAULTSORT:Broch, Jens Peter Linguists from Norway Members of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters People from Kristiansand 1819 births 1886 deaths Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences and Letters