Georg Morgenstierne

Georg Valentin von Munthe af Morgenstierne ( born January 2, 1892 in Oslo, † 3 March 1978 in Oslo) was a Norwegian Indo- Iranist. He published under the name Georg Morgenstierne.

Life

Morgenstierne his doctorate in 1918 with a discussion about the relationship between Cārudatta and Mṛcchakaṭikā at the Friedrich Wilhelm University in Berlin. To Morgenstiernes teachers included Heinrich Lüders, Sten Konow and Wilhelm Schulze.

In 1930 he was appointed professor at the University of Gothenburg. From 1937 until his retirement in 1962 Morgenstierne was Professor of Indian language and literature at the University of Oslo.

From the 20s he undertook research trips to India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran and published Indology and iranistische studies. His first fieldwork trip took Morgenstierne 1924 to Afghanistan; it was founded in 1922 supported by the Norwegian Institutt for sammelignende kulturforskning. He explored the diversity of the languages ​​of the country, whose structure was known until then only a little. In 1929 he traveled to northwest India, Pakistan today. After the Second World War was followed by several smaller trips to Afghanistan, especially Nuristan.

To Morgenstiernes merits include the exploration of dardischen and kafirischen languages ​​had no written tradition tradition. Morgenstierne collected phonetically reliable records of these language groups, thus creating the basis for further research. He was an advocate of the historical phonology and the scientific linguistic comparison. He pointed out that the dardischen languages ​​are pure Indo-Aryan origin, the Nuristani languages ​​(then Kafiri languages) but can not be derived from the Indian, but constitute a separate branch of the Indo-Iranian. He thus became supporters of the hypothesis of the third branch of the Indo-Iranian language family of languages ​​, which was previously (1906 ), represented by GA Grierson. In the form of Morgenstierne this theory is now generally accepted, even if you initially met with skepticism some Indo-Europeanists. His assignment of the Indo-Aryan languages ​​dardischen is now widely accepted.

Morgenstiernes main work is a monumental collection, which appeared from 1929 to 1973 under the title of Indo -Iranian Frontier Languages ​​. Morgenstierne published at almost any Iranian language. On his 70th birthday, friends and colleagues was the commemorative Indo- Iranica.

Works

  • Indo- iranian languages ​​frontier. Oslo, Vol 1, 1929, Vol 2, 1938, Vol 3, 1967 to 1956, Volume 4, 2nd edition 1973
  • Etymological Vocabulary of Pashto. Oslo 1927 New edited by Josef Ivory as:. A new etymological vocabulary of Pashto, Wiesbaden 2003
  • Etymological Vocabulary of the Shughni Group. Wiesbaden 1974

Honors

  • Indo- Iranica. Mélanges presentes à Georg Morgenstierne à l' occasion de son anniversaire 70. [ Festschrift. ] Wiesbaden 1964
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