Karl August Hermann (23 September 1851 – 11 January 1909) was an

Estonia Estonia, officially the Republic of Estonia, is a country in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, and to the east by Ru ...

n writer, publicist, linguist and composer.

Biography

Hermann was born in Võhmanõmme,

Põltsamaa Parish Põltsamaa () is a rural municipality of Estonia, in Jõgeva County. It has a population of 2722 (2001) and an area of 416.9 km2 (161.0 mi2). Populated places Põltsamaa Parish has one town, 3 small boroughs, and around 60 villages. ...

Kreis Fellin Viljandi County (; , ) was a historic county in the Governorate of Livonia, and in the Republic of Estonia dissolved during the administrative territorial reform of the Estonian SSR in 1949. It was situated in the northern part of the governora ...

in 1851. He studied at the Faculty of Theology of the

University of Tartu The University of Tartu (UT; ; ) is a public research university located in the city of Tartu, Estonia. It is the national university of Estonia. It is also the largest and oldest university in the country.

from 1875. He studied linguistics at

Leipzig University Leipzig University (), in Leipzig in Saxony, Germany, is one of the world's oldest universities and the second-oldest university (by consecutive years of existence) in Germany. The university was founded on 2 December 1409 by Frederick I, Electo ...

from 1878, graduating in 1880 and defending his

PhD thesis A thesis (: theses), or dissertation (abbreviated diss.), is a document submitted in support of candidature for an academic degree or professional qualification presenting the author's research and findings.International Standard ISO 7144: D ...

, ''Der einfache Wortstamm und die drei Lautstufen in der estnischen Sprache'' (''The simple stem and three phonetic levels in the Estonian language''). From 1882 to 1885 he was an editor for '' Eesti Postimees''. In 1886 he acquired the newspaper ''Perno Postimees'', renaming it ''

Postimees is an Estonian daily newspaper established on 5 June 1857, by Johann Voldemar Jannsen. In 1891, it became the first daily newspaper in Estonia. Its current editor-in-chief is Priit Hõbemägi. The paper has approximately 250 employees. ''P ...

'', which began publication in

Tartu Tartu is the second largest city in Estonia after Tallinn. Tartu has a population of 97,759 (as of 2024). It is southeast of Tallinn and 245 kilometres (152 miles) northeast of Riga, Latvia. Tartu lies on the Emajõgi river, which connects the ...

. In 1906, he acquired the newspaper '' Valgus''. He belonged to the

Society of Estonian Literati The Society of Estonian Literati ( – EKmS) was an influential association of Estonian intellectuals based in Tartu between the years 1871 and 1893.Toivo U. Raun, ''Estonia and the Estonians'', Hoover Press, 2001, , p75 History The articles of ...

and was an honorary alumnus of the

Estonian Students' Society The Estonian Students' Society (; commonly used acronym: EÜS) is the largest and oldest all-male academical student society in Estonia, and is similar to the Baltic Germans, Baltic German student organizations known as German Student Corps, c ...

.Auvilistlased
eys.ee He died in 1909 in

, and is buried in Tartu Raadi Cemetery.

Works

In 1884, he published ''Eesti keele grammatika'' (''Estonian Grammar''). In 1900 he started to publish '' Eesti Üleüldise teaduse raamat ehk encyklopädia konversationi-lexikon'', but only the first volume was published in full. He composed around 300 choral songs, including "Kungla rahvas" ('Kungla people') and "Oh laula ja hõiska" ('O sing and shout'). In 1895 Karl August Hermann published a book in which he argued that Sino-Uralic and

Altaic The Altaic () languages are a group of languages comprising the Turkic, Mongolic and Tungusic language families, with some linguists including the Koreanic and Japonic families. These languages share agglutinative morphology, head-final ...

form one large linguistic family.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hermann, Karl August 1851 births 1909 deaths People from Põltsamaa Parish People from Kreis Fellin Estonian male writers 19th-century Estonian writers Linguists from Estonia 19th-century Estonian composers University of Tartu alumni Leipzig University alumni Burials at Raadi cemetery