PENKA, Karl. Müglitz, Moravia (now Mohelnice, Czech) 26.10.1847 — Vienna 10.2.1912. Austrian Anthropologist, Linguist and Aryan Enthusiast. Educated Vienna, studies of anthropology and comparative linguistics. In 1873-1906 schoolteacher (professor) at Maximiliansgymnasium in Vienna. He connected linguistics with ethnology equating language groups with supposed human races. Propagated a theory of Scandinavian origin of the Aryan race (as the Hyperboreans of classical literature). His superior Aryan (IE) race was at purest among Germanic people, while other Indo-Europeans represented racial decadence. Thus he was among the forerunners of the direst ideas of the 20th century.
Publications: Die Nominalflexion der indogermanischen Sprachen. 12+205 p. Vienna 1878.
– Origines Ariacae. Linguistisch-ethnologische Untersuchungen zur ältesten Geschichte der arischen Völker und Sprachen. 7+214 p. Vienna 1883; Die Herkunft der Arier. Neue Beiträge zur historischen Anthropologie der europäischen Völker. 14+182 p. Vienna 1886; Neue Hypothesen über die Urheimat der Arier. Lp. 1906; Schraders Hypothese von der südrussischen Urheimat der Indogermanen. 41 p. Beiträge zur Rassenkunde 6. Lp. 1908.
– Further works and articles.
Sources: *G. Kraitschek, Mitt. Anthr. Ges. Wien 42, 1912, 222.226; P. Rabault, “From Language to Man? German Indology and Ethnology in the Epistemological Battlefield of the 19th Century”, McGetchin et al. 2004, 337-360 (on the different attitudes of Max Müller and K.P.); Wikipedia.
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