Heinrich Julius Klaproth (11 October 1783 – 28 August 1835) was a German

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 ...

, historian,

ethnographer Ethnography is a branch of anthropology and the systematic study of individual cultures. It explores cultural phenomena from the point of view of the subject of the study. Ethnography is also a type of social research that involves examining ...

, author, orientalist and explorer. As a scholar, he is credited along with

Jean-Pierre Abel-Rémusat Jean-Pierre Abel-Rémusat (; 5 September 1788 – 2 June 1832) was a French sinologist best known as the first Chair of Sinology at the Collège de France. Rémusat studied medicine as a young man, but his discovery of a Chinese herbal treati ...

with being instrumental in turning East Asian Studies into scientific disciplines with critical methods.

Name

H. J. Klaproth was usually known as Julius or Julius von Klaproth. His name also erroneously appears as "Julius Heinrich Klaproth".

Life

Klaproth was born in

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

on 11 October 1783, the son of the chemist

Martin Heinrich Klaproth Martin Heinrich Klaproth (1 December 1743 – 1 January 1817) was a German chemist. He trained and worked for much of his life as an apothecary, moving in later life to the university. His shop became the second-largest apothecary in Berlin, and ...

, who is credited with the discovery of four elements including

uranium Uranium is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol U and atomic number 92. It is a silvery-grey metal in the actinide series of the periodic table. A uranium atom has 92 protons and 92 electrons, of which 6 are valence electrons. Ura ...

.Walravens
p. 178.
/ref> Young Klaproth devoted his energies in quite early life to the study of Asiatic languages, and published in 1802 his ''Asiatisches Magazin'' (Weimar 1802–1803). He was in consequence called to

Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...

and given an appointment in the academy there. In 1805 he was a member of Count Golovkin's embassy to China. On his return he was despatched by the academy to the

Caucasus The Caucasus () or Caucasia (), is a region spanning Eastern Europe and Western Asia. It is situated between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, comprising parts of Southern Russia, Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. The Caucasus Mountains, i ...

on an ethnographical and linguistic exploration (1807–1808), and was afterwards employed for several years in connection with the academy's Oriental publications. In 1812 he moved to Berlin.Screech
p. 70.
/ref> In 1815 he settled in Paris, and in 1816 Humboldt procured him from the king of

Prussia Prussia (; ; Old Prussian: ''Prūsija'') was a Germans, German state centred on the North European Plain that originated from the 1525 secularization of the Prussia (region), Prussian part of the State of the Teutonic Order. For centuries, ...

the title and salary of professor of Asiatic languages and literature, with permission to remain in Paris as long as was requisite for the publication of his works. He died in Paris on 28 August 1835. Klaproth was an orientalist, or an "Asiatologist", in that he had a good command not only of

Chinese Chinese may refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people identified with China, through nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **Han Chinese, East Asian ethnic group native to China. **'' Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic ...

, but also

Manchu The Manchus (; ) are a Tungusic peoples, Tungusic East Asian people, East Asian ethnic group native to Manchuria in Northeast Asia. They are an officially recognized Ethnic minorities in China, ethnic minority in China and the people from wh ...

Mongolian Mongolian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Mongolia, a country in Asia * Mongolian people, or Mongols * Bogd Khanate of Mongolia, the government of Mongolia, 1911–1919 and 1921–1924 * Mongolian language * Mongolian alphabet * ...

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 ...

Turkish Turkish may refer to: * Something related to Turkey ** Turkish language *** Turkish alphabet ** Turkish people, a Turkic ethnic group and nation *** Turkish citizen, a citizen of Turkey *** Turkish communities in the former Ottoman Empire * The w ...

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 ...

Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...

, and even

Caucasian Caucasian may refer to: Common meanings *Anything from the Caucasus region or related to it ** Ethnic groups in the Caucasus ** ''Caucasian Exarchate'' (1917–1920), an ecclesiastical exarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church in the Caucasus re ...

languages. His wide range of interests encompassed the study of the development of individual countries in their Asian context, which contrast with the 21st century focus on specialization. Klaproth's 1812 ''Dissertation on language and script of the Uighurs'' (''Abhandlung über die Sprache und Schrift der Uiguren'') was disputed by

Isaak Jakob Schmidt Isaac Jacob Schmidt (; — ) was an Orientalism, Orientalist specialising in Mongolian language, Mongolian and Standard Tibetan, Tibetan studies. Schmidt was a Moravian church, Moravian missionary to the Kalmyks and devoted much of his labour to ...

, who is considered the founder of Mongolian Studies. Klaproth asserted that the

Uighur language Uyghur or Uighur (; , , or , , ), formerly known as Turki or Eastern Turki, is a Turkic languages, Turkic language with 8 to 13 million speakers (), spoken primarily by the Uyghur people in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of Western ...

was a Turkic language, which today is undisputed, while Schmidt was persuaded that Uighur should be classified as a "

Tangut Tangut may refer to: *Tangut people, an ancient ethnic group in Northwest China *Tangut language, the extinct language spoken by the Tangut people *Tangut script, the writing system used to write the Tangut language *Tangut (Unicode block) *Wester ...

" language.

Works

Klaproth's bibliography extends to more than 300 published items. His great work ''Asia Polyglotta'' (Paris, 1823 and 1831, with Sprachatlas) not only served as a résumé of all that was known on the subject, but formed a new departure for the classification of the Eastern languages, especially those of the Russian Empire. The ''Itinerary of a Chinese Traveller'' (1821), a series of documents in the military archives of St. Petersburg purporting to be the travels of "George Ludwig von —", and a similar series obtained from him in the London foreign office, are all regarded as spurious. Klaproth's other works include: * ''Reise in den Kaukasus und Georgien in den Jahren 1807 und 1808'' (Halle, 1812–1814; French translation, Paris, 1823) * ''Geographisch-historische Beschreibung des ostlichen Kaukasus'' (Weimar 1814) * ''Tableaux historiques de l'Asie'' (Paris, 1826) * ''Memoires relatifs a l'Asie'' (Paris, 1824–1828) * ''Tableau historique, geographique, ethnographique et politique de Caucase'' (Paris, 1827) * ''Vocabulaire et grammaire de la langue georgienne'' (Paris, 1827) Klaproth was also the first to publish a translation of '' Taika'' era Japanese poetry in the West.

Donald Keene Donald Lawrence Keene (June 18, 1922 – February 24, 2019) was an American-born Japanese scholar, historian, teacher, writer and translator of Japanese literature. Keene was University Professor emeritus and Shincho Professor Emeritus of Japane ...

explained in a preface to the Nippon Gakujutsu Shinkōkai edition of the ''

Man'yōshū The is the oldest extant collection of Japanese (poetry in Classical Japanese), compiled sometime after AD 759 during the Nara period. The anthology is one of the most revered of Japan's poetic compilations. The compiler, or the last in ...

:'' : "One '

envoy Envoy or Envoys may refer to: Diplomacy * Diplomacy, in general * Envoy (title) * Special envoy, a type of Diplomatic rank#Special envoy, diplomatic rank Brands *Airspeed Envoy, a 1930s British light transport aircraft *Envoy (automobile), an au ...

' (''hanka'') to a long poem was translated as early as 1834 by the celebrated German orientalist Heinrich Julius Klaproth (1783–1835). Klaproth, having journeyed to Siberia in pursuit of strange languages, encountered some Japanese castaways, fisherman, hardly ideal mentors for the study of 8th century poetry. Not surprisingly, his translation was anything but accurate." Other works on Japan include: * 1832 – ''

Sangoku Tsūran Zusetsu __NOTOC__ by Hayashi Shihei (1738–1793) was published in Japan in 1786. This book represents one of the earliest attempts to define Japan in terms of its outer boundaries. It represented a modern effort to distinguish Japan from the neighbo ...

''
''San kokf tsou ran to sets'' or ''Aperçu général des trois royaumes''
Paris:

Oriental Translation Fund The Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, commonly known as the Royal Asiatic Society, was established, according to its royal charter of 11 August 1824, to further "the investigation of subjects connected with and for the encourag ...

br>San kokf tsou ran to sets: ou, Aperqu géneral des trois royaumes
* 1834 – ''

Nihon Ōdai Ichiran , ', is a 17th-century chronicle of the serial reigns of Japanese emperors with brief notes about some of the noteworthy events or other happenings. According to the 1871 edition of the ''American Cyclopaedia'', the 1834 French translation of ...

''
''Nipon O daï itsi ran'' or ''Annales des empereurs du Japon''
, tr. par M.

Isaac Titsingh Isaac Titsingh FRS ( January 1745 – 2 February 1812) was a Dutch diplomat, historian, Japanologist, and merchant.Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005). "Isaak Titsingh" in . During a long career in East Asia, Titsingh was a senior official of the ...

avec l'aide de plusieurs interprètes attachés au comptoir hollandais de Nangasaki; ouvrage re., complété et cor. sur l'original japonais-chinois, accompagné de notes et précédé d'un Aperçu d'histoire mythologique du Japon, par M.J. Klaproth. Paris: Oriental Translation Fund.Pouillon, François. (2008)
''Dictionnaire des orientalistes de langue française,'' p. 542

Notes

References

* ''Nippon Gakujutsu Shinkokai'' (Japanese Classics Translation Committee). (1965)
''The Man'yōshū: One Thousand Poems.''
New York:

Columbia University Press Columbia University Press is a university press based in New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's la ...

OCLC 220930639
* Screech, Timon. (2006)
''Secret Memoirs of the Shoguns: Isaac Titsingh and Japan, 1779–1822.''
London:

RoutledgeCurzon Routledge ( ) is a British multinational publisher. It was founded in 1836 by George Routledge, and specialises in providing academic books, journals and online resources in the fields of the humanities, behavioural science, education, law, a ...

. * Walravens, Hartmut
"Julius Klaproth. His Life and Works with Special Emphasis on Japan"
''Japonica Humboldtiana'' 10 (2006). * * Klaproth, Julius (1823)
''Asia Polyglotta''

Name

Life

Works

See also

Notes

References

Further reading