WEISGERBER, Johann Leo. Metz 25.2.1899 — Bonn 8.8.1985. German (of Lorraine) Linguist and Celtologist. Son of a village teacher, Nikolaus Ludwig W., and Maria Müller (died when he was 5), educated in Metz, Reifeprüfung 1917. Then participated in WW I in German army in Flanders, after war studies from 1918 at Bonn (also briefly at Munich and Leipzig). Ph.D. 1923 Bonn (in Celtology under Thurneysen). PD 1925 Bonn. Professor of General Linguistics at Rostock (1927), Marburg (1938) and Bonn (1942-67). As a catholic he had conflict with Nazis in the 1930s, but during the war collaborated working in propaganda in France (with his Pan-Celtic ideas he directed Radio Rennes Bretagne). Also his writings in 1933-45 reveal racist ideas. He was not a member of NSDAP.
As a linguist Weisgerber left traditional diachronic viewpoint and presented synchronic approach. In the after-war times his “energetische Sprachwissenschaft” was very influential in Germany, but he was critical towards the modern linguistics of the 1960s. For Indology his work is hardly important.
Publications: Sprache als gesellschaftliche Erkenntnisform. Manuscript 1925, publ. 224 p. Schriften der Brüder-Grimm-Gesellschaft N.F. 34. Kassel 2008.
– “Die Stellung der Sprache im Aufbau der Gesamtkultur”, W & S 15, 1933, 134-224 & 16, 1934, 97-236.
Sources: *H. Gipper, Lex. Gramm. 1996, 1004f.; Wikipedia with photo (also German version, with further references).
Last Updated on 1 month by Admin
