HOFFMANN, JOHANN JOSEPH (1805-1878)

This article appears in Volume V13, Page 563 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: HIG-HOR

HOFFMANN, JOHANN JOSEPH (1805-1878) , German scholar, was born at Wurzburg on the 16th of February 18o5. After studying at Wurzburg he went on the stage in 1825; but owing to an accidental

meeting

MEETING (from " to meet," to come together, assemble, 0. Eng. metals ; cf. Du. moeten, Swed. mota, Goth. gamotjan, &c., derivatives of the Teut. word for a meeting, seen in O. Eng. Wit, moot, an assembly of the people; cf. witanagemot)

with the German traveller, Dr Philipp Franz von Siebold (1796-1866), in July 183o, his

interest

INTEREST

was diverted to Oriental philology. From Siebold he acquired the rudiments of Japanese, and in order to take advantage of the instructions of Ko-ching-chang, a Chinese teacher whom Siebold had brought

home

with him, he made himself acquainted with Malay, the only language except Chinese which the Chinaman could understand. In a few years he was able to

supply

SUPPLY (through Fr. from Lat. supplere, to fill up)

the translations for Siebold's Nippon; and the high character of his

work

WORK

soon attracted the attention of older scholars. Stanislas Julien invited him to Paris; and he would probably have accepted the invitation, as a disagreement had broken out between him and Siebold, had not M. Baud, the Dutch colonial minister, appointed him Japanese translator with a salary of 1800 florins (150). The Dutch authorities were slow in giving him further recognition; and he was too modest a man successfully to urge his claims. It was not till after he had received the offer of the professorship of Chinese in King's College, London, that the authorities made him professor at Leiden and the king allowed him a yearly pension. In 1875 he was decorated with the order of the

Netherlands

NETHERLANDS

Lion, and in 1877 he was elected corresponding member of the Berlin

Academy

ACADEMY, GREEK
ACADEMY, ROYAL

. He died at the Hague on the 23rd of January 1878.

Hoffmann

chief

CHIEF (from Fr. chef, head, Lat. caput)

work

WORK

was his unfinished Japanese Dictionary, begun in 1839 and afterwards continued by L. Serrurier. Unable at first to procure the necessary type, he set himself to the cutting of punches, and even when the proper founts were obtained he had to act as his own compositor as far as Chinese and Japanese were concerned. His Japanese grammar (Japanische Sprechlehre) was published in Dutch and English in 1867, and in English and German in 1876. Of his miscellaneous productions it is enough to mention " Japans Bezuge mit der koraischen Halbinsel and mit Schina " in Nippon, vii.; Yo-San fa-Rok, L'Art d'elever les versa soieau Japon, par Ouckaki Mourikouni (Paris, 1848) ; " Die Heilkunde in Japan" in Mittheil. d.

deutsch

DEUTSCH, IMMANUEL OSCAR MENAHEM (1829-1873)

. Gesellsch. far Natur- and Volkerk. Ost-Asiens (18731874); and Japanische Studien (1878).

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