August Leskien
August Leskien | |
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| Born | 8 July 1840 |
| Died | 20 September 1916 (aged 76) |
| School | Neogrammarian |
Main interests | Indo-European studies, Baltic and Slavic languages |
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August Leskien (German: [lɛsˈkiːn]; 8 July 1840 – 20 September 1916) was a German linguist who studied comparative linguistics, particularly relating to the Baltic and Slavic languages.
Biography
Leskien was born in
Thomasschule zu Leipzig from 1864 to 1866. In 1866, he began studying comparative linguistics under August Schleicher at the University of Jena. He completed his habilitation in 1867 and then lectured at the University of Göttingen
.
He was appointed as extraordinary professor (
ordentlicher Professor
) in 1876 and retained the job until 1915.
In 1884 he became an editor of Ersch and Gruber's Realencyklopädie. Leskien was a founding member of the journal Archiv für slavische Philologie. He died in Leipzig.
Research, writings and thought
Leskien was one of the most important of the group of linguists at Leipzig who became known later as the
Jan Niecisław Baudouin de Courtenay, Ferdinand de Saussure, Leonard Bloomfield, Nikolai Trubetzkoy, Karl Verner and Adolf Noreen
. Thus Leskien can be seen as a major developer of modern comparative linguistics, particularly with respect to the Baltic and Slavic languages.
In his 1881 essay 'Die Quantitätsverhältnisse im Auslaut des Litauischen', Leskien formulated
sound law devised to describe a particular aspect of sound change in Lithuanian. According to this principle long vowels, along with the diphthongs ie and uo, with an acute intonation are shortened in the final syllable of a word. Leskien is also the author of Handbuch der altbulgarischen Sprache, a guide to the language Old Church Slavonic (3rd ed. 1898; 8th, revised and enlarged edition 1962). Although superseded partly by more recent studies, the book is still in print and remains in use by scholars presently. With Karl Brugmann
, he edited Litauische Volkslieder und Märchen (“Lithuanian Folk Songs and Tales”; 1882).
Other works include:
- Indogermanische Chrestomathie, with Ebel, Schleicher, and Schmidt (1869)
- Die Deklination im Slawisch-Litauischen und Germanischen (1876)
- Untersuchungen über Quantität und Betonung in den slawischen Sprachen (1885–93)
- Die Bildung der Nomina im Litauischen (1891)
Notes
 | This article includes a improve this article by introducing more precise citations. (July 2014) ) |
References
- Walther Killy and Rudolf Vierhaus (eds.) (1997). Deutsche Biographische Enzyklopädie (DBE). Volume 6: Kogel – Maxsein. München (u. a.): K.G. Saur. p. 342.
- Wilhelm Streitberg: "August Leskien". In: Indogermanisches Jahrbuch I (1913). p. 216–218.
- Wilhelm Streitberg: "August Leskien". In: Indogermanisches Jahrbuch VII (1919). p. 138–143.
- Harald Wiese: Eine Zeitreise zu den Ursprüngen unserer Sprache. Wie die Indogermanistik unsere Wörter erklärt, Logos Verlag Berlin, 2007.
- New International Encyclopedia(1st ed.). New York: Dodd, Mead.
External links
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