Heinrich Hübschmann

Johann Heinrich Hübschmann (1 July 1848 – 20 January 1908) was a German philologist.

Heinrich Hübschmann
Born	1 July 1848 Erfurt, Prussia
Died	20 January 1908(1908-01-20) (aged 59) Freiburg im Breisgau, German Empire
Nationality	German
Occupation	Philologist
Known for	Research on the Armenian language

Life

Hübschmann was born on 1 July 1848 at Erfurt. He studied Oriental philology at Jena, Tübingen, Leipzig, and Munich; in 1876 he became professor of Iranian languages at Leipzig, and in 1877 professor of comparative philology at Strasbourg. Hübschmann died on 20 January 1908 in Freiburg im Breisgau.^[1]

Research on the Armenian language

Hübschmann was the first to show in 1875 that the Armenian language was not a branch of the Iranian languages (earlier assumed so because of the immense amount of Iranian influence on Armenian throughout its history) but an entirely separate Indo-European branch in its own right.^[2] He used the comparative method to separate the Iranian loanwords, which make up the majority of the Armenian loanwords, from an older layer of native Armenian words.^[3]

Works

• "Ueber die Stellung des Armenischen im Kreise der indogermanischen Sprachen" (1875)
• Armenische Studien (1883)
• Das indogermanische Vokalsystem (1885)
• Etymologie und Lautlehre der ossetischen Sprache (1887)
• Persische Studien (1895)
• Armenische Grammatik. I. Theil. Armenische Etymologie. I. Abtheilung: Die persischen und arabischen Lehnwörter im Altarmenischen. Leipzig, 1895
  • Armenische Grammatik. I. Theil. Armenische Etymologie (Bibliothek indogermanischer Grammatiken. Band VI), Leipzig, 1897
• Altarmenische Ortsnamen (1904)