The First Two Hundred Years of Indogermanistik Melanie Malzahn

Indo-European and Indo-Europeanists – The First Two Hundred Years of Indogermanistik
Melanie Malzahn, University of Vienna
Exactly two hundred years after the publication of Franz Bopp’s basic Über das Conjugationssystem der Sanskritsprache in Vergleichung mit jenem der griechischen, lateinischen, persischen
und germanischen Sprache, it may seem appropriate for a German scholar to present a brief history
of Indo-European linguistics in German-speaking countries – the more so since the last one of this
kind appeared in 1948 and was penned by Nazi scholar Franz Specht. In my paper I will focus on
some lesser known aspects of the Neogrammarian movement, which flourished between 1876 and
1918, and the subsequent decline and long-lasting agony of Indogermanistik that endured until the
1960s, when the establishment of the Erlangen School of Indo-European linguistics triggered a revival which finally led to the foundation of two further schools, the Freiburg School and the Vienna
School of Indo-European linguistics.
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