- Gustav Weigand
Gustav Weigand (
1 February 1860 –8 July 1930 ), was a German linguist and specialist forBalkan languages, especially Rumanian and Aromanian. He is known for his seminal contributions to the dialectology of the Rumanian language and to the study of the relationships between the languages of theBalkan sprachbund .Weigand was born in
Duisburg ,Germany . He studiedRomance languages inLeipzig and wrote a doctoral thesis about the language of theAromanians in the region ofMount Olympus in 1888, followed by ahabilitation thesis on theMegleno-Romanians in 1892. In 1893 he founded the Rumanian Institute at theUniversity of Leipzig , the first such institution outside Rumania. During the following years he continued to conduct extensive personal field studies in the Balkans. In 1908 he published a "Linguistic Atlas of the Daco-Rumanian speech area", the first work of its kind in the field of Romance linguistics. During theFirst World War he was sent by the German authorities to conduct ethnographic studies in Macedonia, then under German occupation. The results were published in 1923.In recognition of his research on the Rumanian language, Gustav Weigand was elected as a foreign member of the
Romanian Academy in 1892. He died inBelgershain .Major works
*(1888): "Die Sprache der Olympo-Walachen". PhD thesis, University of Leipzig.
*(1892): "Vlacho-Meglen. Eine ethnographisch-philologische Untersuchung". Leipzig.
*(1908): "Linguistischer Atlas des dacorumänischen Sprachgebiets". Leipzig: Barth.
*(1923): "Ethnographie Makedoniens". Leipzig.References
*Bochmann, Klaus (2005): "Gustav Weigand: Zum 75. Todestag am 8. Juli 2005". University of Leipzig. [http://www.uni-leipzig.de/campus2009/jubilaeen/2005/2005.pdf]
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.