Paul Kretschmer

Paul Kretschmer ( born 2 May 1866 in Berlin, † March 9, 1956 in Vienna ) was a German linguist who studied the early history and the interrelationship of the Indo-European languages ​​and showed how they were influenced by non- Indo-European languages ​​, such as Etruscan.

Life

Paul Kretschmer was the son of the genre painter and costume Kund Jewellers Albert Kretschmer ( 1825-1891 ) and brother of the historical geographer Konrad Kretschmer (1864 to 1945).

Kretschmer studied Classical Philology and Indo. In Berlin, he was a pupil of Hermann Diels. Following an extraordinary professorship at the University of Marburg (1897-1899) Kretschmer occupied a chair in comparative linguistics at the University of Vienna, where he remained until 1936. Together with Franz Skutsch he founded in 1908 the journal Glotta.

Among his pupils were the Greek linguist and Neogräzist Nikolaos P. Andriotis and classical philologist and educator Richard Meister.

In justified by Friedrich von der Leyen book series Tales of the world literature Kretschmer published in 1917 a book of Greek folk tales. He had already used fairy tales as examples with which he explored the islands of Lesbos and Corfu Modern Greek dialects.

Awards

Writings

• Introduction to the History of the Greek Language ( 1896)
• Greek folk tales (1917 )
• Word geography of the High German vernacular (1918 )