Heinrich Zimmer (Celticist)

Heinrich Friedrich room ( born December 11, 1851 in Kastellaun, † July 29, 1910 ) was a German Indologist and Keltologe. He was the first German professor of Celtic Studies.

Life

Room came from a farming family in the Hunsrück, which incidentally still operated some linen weaving in the market town of Kastellaun and had therefore brought to moderately prosperous despite the incipient decline of this rural textile crafts to the son on the German - French War 1870-1871 German and imperial become to send Strasbourg University. There should and he wanted to be a teacher. He studied classical philology, to Indology (Sanskrit ) and Celtic Studies. At the University of Tübingen, the eminent Indologist Rudolf von Roth was among his teachers.

In 1878, Zimmer completed his habilitation at the University of Berlin. In the winter semester 1878/1879, the young Ferdinand de Saussure studied with him. Room 1881 was appointed professor of Sanskrit and comparative linguistics at the University of Greifswald. In 1901 he took over at the former Friedrich -Wilhelms -Universität zu Berlin a chair of Celtic languages ​​, the first ever in Germany.

In 1878 and again in 1899 received the Award of the room Bopp Foundation. Since January 1902 he was a regular member of the Prussian Academy of Sciences, from 1906, a corresponding member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences. He was also awarded the title of Privy Councillor.

1910 committed suicide by drowning room because he was suffering from an incurable disease. He was in a "silent funeral " in Clausthal, Harz, buried. His son Henry Robert room was also Indologist. Successor at the Berlin Institute in 1911 Kuno Meyer.

Writings

• Celtic studies. Weidmann, Berlin, 1881.
• Language and Literature of the Celts in general. Teubner, Leipzig, 1909.
• William Dwight Whitney: Indian grammar: comprising the classical language, and the older dialects. Translated from English by Heinrich Zimmer. Leipzig, 1879. Reprint 1980.