FRACHTENBERG, Leo Joachim. Czernowitz (now Chernivtsi in Ukraina) 24.2.1883 — Waterloo, Iowa 26.11.1930. U.S. (Austrian-born) Linguist and Anthropologist. Son of Abraham Fr. and Jeanette Rottenstreich, a Jewish family. Gymnasium in Przemyśl (now in Poland), in 1904 immigrated to the U.S.A. Studies at Cornell, then at Columbia University (M.A. 1906, Ph.D. 1910). He was student of Franz Boas, but apparently also of A. V. Williams Jackson. In 1910-12 lectured anthropology at Columbia, then Ethnologist at Bureau of American Ethnology, worked in Salem, Oregon until 1917. Because of his Austrian background he was fired from the Bureau, but accepted in the army and rose into Lieutenant-Colonel. From 1920 General Secretary of Young Men’s Hebrew Association in Troy, NY. Died of pneumonia when only 47. Married Claudia E. MacDonald, two children. Did fieldwork on Amerindian languages.
Publications: M.A. diss. on Richard Wagner, 1904, dr. diss. on Coosan languages of coastal Oregon. Manuscript 1910.
– “Etymologian studies in Ormazdian and Ahrimanian words in Avestan”, Spiegel Mem. Vol. Bombay 1908, 269-289.
– Wrote on Amerindian languages, edited many texts in them.
Sources: Wikipedia and some stray notes, but nothing about his Iranian studies.
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