Wilhelm Bleek
Wilhelm Heinrich Immanuel Bleek ( born March 8, 1827 in Berlin, † August 17, 1875 in Cape Town) was a German linguist. His main work is a comparative grammar of South African languages .
Life
Wilhelm Bleek was born in Berlin, the capital of the Kingdom of Prussia, the eldest son of the theologian Friedrich Bleek. When William was two years old, the family moved to Bonn because his father had there obtained a professorship. They lived only two houses in the Cologne road and then a house near the cathedral, situated on the city wall. After attending grammar school William matriculated in 1845 at Bonn University for the study of theology. It was in 1845 as a member of the fraternity Konkneipant Fridericia Bonn. He completed four semesters and moved in 1848 for two semesters to Berlin, where he heard in Lepsius. He returned to Bonn and received his PhD in 1851 at the Rheinische -Friedrich- Wilhelms University with a thesis on the noun classes of African languages. As the official voice of science is not interested in African languages and they even kept the scientific investigation unworthy Bleek saw no way to establish itself in the academic field. Instead habilitate he went for two years after his graduation to Cape Town, where he took a job as a librarian. Here he was able to continue his research and dedicated to the study of the Bantu and Khoisan languages and the collection of African tales and legends. In 1859 he returned for a short time once again returned to Germany.
Bleeks publications are in addition to the work of the African explorer Heinrich Barth to the central African languages the most important contributions to African studies in the mid-19th century, because they were not yet distorted by Christian missionary prejudices by racial ideology considerations. He was with Ernst Haeckel, the leading German Darwinists, by marriage, who commented on the question of whether one can reconstruct the history of language with the borrowed from biology instruments of Darwinism. Great importance was his grammar of the Zulu and the launch of its numbering system for the noun classes, which is still used today. His work on Bushman folklore holds Elias Canetti for the most precious document in early human (mass and power ).
1875 died Wilhelm Heinrich Immanuel Bleek at age 48 from an illness in a Cape Town hospital. After his death in 1875 his sister in law Lucy Lloyd and his daughter Dorothea led his research further. The daughter died in 1948.
By Wilhelm Bleek Bonn that - beside Berlin by Heinrich Barth - can be the home of the German African, but both researchers failed in Germany the resistance of established linguists who held a job with the African languages beneath their dignity. Only with the entry of Germany into the circle of the colonial powers flourished science again, though primarily for the purpose of forming said competent administrators and colonial officers.
Works
- Handbook of African, Australian and Polynesian Philology. ( 3 vols ) Cape Town - London, ( 1858-63 )
- A Comparative Grammar of South African Languages . London, Trübner & Co. (1862: Part I, 1869: Part II)
- Reynard the Fox in South Africa; or Hottentot Fables and Tales. ( Mainly translated from original manuscripts from the Library of His Excellency Sir George Grey ) London, Trübner & Co. (1864 )
- About the origin of language. ( Edited with an introduction by Dr. Ernst Haeckel. ) Weimar, H. Böhlau (1868 )
- Specimens of Bushman Folklore. (of Wilhelm Bleek and Lucy Lloyd) London, G. Allen (1911 ) ( Online)