AMELUNG, Arthur Julius Heinrich. Catharina, Livonia (now Võisiku, Estonia) 15.7./27.7.1840 — Montreux 6.4.1874. (Baltic) German Linguist (Germanic and IE). Son of a glass factory owner, Carl Georg A. (d. 1851) and Julie Koeler (d. 1846). Studied first history and chemistry at Dorpat (Tartu) in 1862-63, then comparative linguistics at Berlin and other German universities in 1863-68. Ph.D. 1868 Halle, in Germanistics. In 1870 returned to Dorpat, 1871 Mag.gramm.comp. there. In 1871-72 PD der deutschen Sprache at Dorpat. From 1873 in Breslau. In 1874 he was invited to a chair at Freiburg i.Br., but died. Even before the Junggrammarians he understood that the Western e/o/a vocalism is more original than Indo-Iranian a.
Publications: Diss. Prolegomena ad Ortnitum carmen theodiscum saec. XIII. Halle 1868.
– Die Bildung der Tempusstämme durch Vocalsteigung im Deutschen. 95 p. B. 1871; “Der Ursprung der deutschen a-Vocale”, Haupt’s Zeitschrift für deutsches Altertum 18, 1871, 161-220; a few further publications on German.
Sources: Deutsch-Balt. Biogr. Lex.; Windisch 438f.; geni.com with photo; briefly in Estonian Wikipedia.
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