ADELUNG, JOHANN CHRISTOPH (1732-1806)

This article appears in Volume V01, Page 190 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: ADA-AIZ

ADELUNG, JOHANN CHRISTOPH (1732-1806) , German grammarian and philologist, was born at Spantekow, in

Pomerania

POMERANIA (German, Pommern)

, on the 8th of August 1732, and educated at the public schools of Anklam and Klosterbergen, and the university of

Halle

. In 1759 he was appointed professor at the gymnasium of

Erfurt

ERFURT

, but relinquished this situation two years later and went to reside in a private capacity at

Leipzig

LEIPZIG

, where he devoted him-self to philological researches. In 1787 he received the appointment of

principal

PRINCIPAL

librarian to the elector of Saxony at Dresden, where he continued to reside until his death on the loth of September 1806.
The writings of Adelung are very voluminous, and there is not one of them, perhaps, which does not exhibit some proofs of the genius, industry and erudition of the author. By means of his excellent gramplars, dictionary and various works on German style, he contributed greatly towards rectifying the orthography, refining the

idiom

IDIOM (Gr. t&%wµa, something peculiar and personal; lbws, one's own, personal)

and fixing the standard of his native tongue. His German dictionaryGrammatisch-kritisches W Oster-bud: der hochdeutschen Mundart (17741786)-bears

witness

WITNESS
WITNESS (from O. Eng. witan, to know)

to the patient spirit of investigation which Adelung possessed in so remarkable a degree, and to his intimate knowledge of the history of the different dialects on which modern German is based. No man before

Jakob

JAKOB, LUDWIG HEINRICH VON (1759—1827)

Grimm (q.v.) did so much for the language of Germany. Shortly before his death he issued Mithridates, oder aligemeine Sprachenkunde (1806). The hint of this ,

work

WORK

appears to have been taken from a publication, with a similar title, published by Konrad von Gesner (151&-156.5) in 1555; but the plan of Adelung is much more extensive. Unfortunately he did not live to finish what he had undertaken. The first volume, which contains the Asiatic languages, was published immediately after his death; the other two were issued under the superintendence of Johann Severin Vater (17711826). Of the very numerous works by Adelung the following may be noted: Directorium diplomaticum (Meissen, 1802); Deutsche Sprachlehre fib- Schulen (Berlin, 1781), and the periodical, Magazin fur die deutsche Sprache (

Leipzig

LEIPZIG

, 17821784).

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