Josua Maaler (also ''Maler, Mahler'', Latinized ''Pictorius''; 1529–1599) was a Swiss pastor and lexicographer. He was the author of the first dictionary which focused exclusively on the

German language German (, ) is a West Germanic language in the Indo-European language family, mainly spoken in Western Europe, Western and Central Europe. It is the majority and Official language, official (or co-official) language in Germany, Austria, Switze ...

, published in

Zürich Zurich (; ) is the list of cities in Switzerland, largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is in north-central Switzerland, at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich. , the municipality had 448,664 inhabitants. The ...

as ''Die Teütsch Spraach'' in 1561. Maaler followed the ''Dictionarium Latinogermanicum'' by Petrus Dasypodius (1536) in giving the German lemmas alphabetically, as opposed to the earlier ''Dictionarium Latino-Germanicum'' by Johannes Fries, which gave German glosses on Latin lemmas.

Works

* ''Die Teütsch spraach: alle wörter, namen, und arten zuo reden in Hochteütscher spraach: dem ABC nach ordenlich gestellt, unnd mit guotem Latein gantz fleissig unnd eigentlich vertolmetscht, dergleychen bishär nie gesähen. durch Josua Maaler … ='' ''Dictionarum Germanicolatinum novum: hoc est, Linguae Teutonicae, superioris praesentim, thesaurus: in quo omnes fere Germanicae dictiones atque locutiones ordine Alphabeti enumerantur, et Latine ex probatissimis authoribus, quam proprijsimè purissimeque redduntur. a Iosua Pictorio Tigurino confectus, et in lucem nunc primum editus. ''Preface by

Conrad Gesner Conrad Gessner (; ; 26 March 1516 – 13 December 1565) was a Old Swiss Confederacy, Swiss physician, natural history, naturalist, bibliographer, and philologist. Born into a poor family in Zürich, Switzerland, his father and teachers quickly ...

''.'' Froschouer, Tiguri 1561, reprint: Olms, Hildesheim 1971.

References

* * * Wilfried Kettler: ''Untersuchungen zur frühneuhochdeutschen Lexikographie in der Schweiz und im Elsass. Strukturen, Typen, Quellen und Wirkungen von Wörterbüchern am Beginn der Neuzeit.'' Peter Lang, Bern 2008, p. 594–625, . {{DEFAULTSORT:Maaler, Josua 1529 births 1599 deaths Swiss lexicographers Swiss Protestant ministers German dictionaries 16th-century Calvinist and Reformed ministers