Marcus Zuerius van Boxhorn

Marcus Zuërius van Boxhorn ( Marcus Suerius Boxhorn; * August 28, 1612 or 1602 in Bergen op Zoom, † October 3, 1653 in Leiden ) was a Dutch scholar and professor of eloquence.

Boxhorn attended schools in Leiden. He wrote Latin poems and also wrote commentaries on Roman works. 1632 he was appointed to the chair of eloquence at Leiden University. 1636 he took over the management of the collegium oratorio in Leiden. In 1648 he was there as a successor to Daniel Heinsius professor of history.

Indo- Scythian theory

Boxhorn wrote numerous works, especially on the history of his homeland. The posterity he is remembered because of the discovery of the relationship of various European and Asian languages. He cited the Germanic, and the " Illyrian- Greek " and the Italic languages ​​and Persian; later the Slavic, Celtic and Baltic languages ​​. Marcus Zuërius van Boxhorn was one of the most important historical linguists. He lay with his Indo- Scythian theory laid the foundation for today's understanding of the Indo- European language family. In the 17th century, he first explored the genetic relationship of mainly European languages. In his opinion, could be traced back to a common original language languages ​​like Greek, Latin, Welsh, German, Slavic, Celtic, Baltic and later Indo- Iranian. His Indo- Scythian theory described van Boxhorn for the first time in 1637 in a letter to his friend Claudius Salmasius, which later Sanskrit added to the theory of van Boxhorn. 1647 published van Boxhorn his theory in three volumes.

At that time, many people believe that Hebrew was the original language of the people. This assumption was based mostly on biblical backgrounds. Two countrymen of van Boxhorn, John Goropius Becanus (1519-1572) and Adrianus Scrieckius (1560-1621), also known as Adriaen van Schrieck, were of the opinion that Flemish and Dutch was this proto-language. This theory rejected Boxhorn van and went from a common proto-language of Latin, Greek, Germanic, Slavic, Celtic, Baltic and Indo- Iranian, which he called Scythian. He concluded Other languages ​​of this language family. He did not think that all languages ​​are descended from a single language.

Van Boxhorn postulated his theory for the first time publicly in a book about the goddess Nehalennia. They found statues and altars of this goddess in the Dutch province of Zeeland in January 1647th Van Boxhorn dealt with the origin of the name of Nehalennia, which remains unsolved to this day. In the first part of this work van Boxhorn wrote in an open letter to the Countess Amalie of Solms- Braunfels. In the second part he explained his Indo- Scythian theory and in the third part, he sets out evidence for his theory

As inspiration for the Indo- Scythian theory he used, among other things, the Lexicon Symphonum, which was published in 1537 by the Basel born in Prague, Czech humanist Sigismund Gelenius. At the University of Leiden, we addressed before Boxhorn with the genetic relatedness of languages ​​and language groups. 1575 taught the professor of Hebrew at Leiden, Franciscus Raphelengius ( 1539-1597 ) his students about the similarities between Persian and the Germanic languages ​​, which could indicate a genetic relationship. This idea was later taken up in Leiden by Bonaventura Vulcanius de Smet and Johann Elichmann. In his friend Peter Scriverius the library, also known as Peter Schrijver, Boxhorn found next to the Lexicon Symphonum of Zikmund Gelenius the works of Agricola Rudolphus of Groningen, also known as Roelof Huisman, Johannes Aventinus ( Turmair ) and Hadrianus Junius of Hoorn, also known as Adriaen de Jonghe, which had examined the relationship of Greek, Latin and Germanic.

A century after Boxhorn had postulated his theory, the Frenchman Gaston- Laurent Cœurdoux was (1691-1779) the grammatical evidence for the relationship of Sanskrit to the Indo- Scythian or Indo- European languages. He found 'to be' in 1771 cognates of the verb in Sanskrit and Latin, who spoke for a relationship. In Germany, the theory of Boxhorn was previously propagated in 1686 in the dissertation of Sweden Andreas Jäger at the University of Wittenberg. In England, the theory was known at the beginning of the 18th century. It was spread by Lord Monboddo. Inspired by the writings of Monboddo also Sir William Jones employed (1746-1794) with the Indo- European theory. Due to its high reputation in the British colonial government and its status in the Asiatic Society, he won with his statement about the relationship of Sanskrit to Greek and Latin much fame. Although Jones himself was doing no studies on this relationship, Jones mentioned the work of Lord Monboddo, where he has experienced van Boxhorns findings secondary.

Methodology

To prove the common origin of languages, compared van Boxhorn etymologies, flexion and grammar of Greek, Latin, Persian, Old Saxon, Dutch and German, Gothic, Russian, Danish, Swedish, Lithuanian, Czech, Croatian and Welsh. He found similarities that suggest a genetic relationship of these languages. Van Boxhorn was the first to not only Greek, Germanic, Romance and Slavic languages ​​included in the language family, but also Persian, Sanskrit, Celtic and Baltic.

Marcus Zuërius van Boxhorn compared not only similar words in different languages ​​, but all of flexion and grammars. He felt the kinship of languages ​​must be assignable to the systematic grammatical similarities and are postulated not only on the basis of similar-looking word forms. He was the founder of the methodology for the study of language, which we call the comparative method today.

Van Boxhorn regarded the language as an organic system and warned of Lehn and hiking words which may affect the comparison of languages. Often, a kinship of languages ​​is falsely suspected on the basis of similar words, these have been taken over by a language and originally come from another language. These misinterpretations wanted van Boxhorn prevented by systematic comparison of inflectional morphology and other grammatical features.