Hans Conon von der Gabelentz


Hans Conon von der Gabelentz was a German linguistic researcher and authority on the Manchu language. He was prime minister of the Duchy of Saxe-Altenburg from 1848 to 1849.

Life

Born at Altenburg, Hans Conon von der Gabelentz studied finance, law and oriental languages at Leipzig University and the University of Göttingen. He entered the civil service in Saxe-Altenburg in 1830 and was promoted to parliamentary and government councillor in 1831. As the Landmarschall in the Grand Duchy of Weimar since 1847, he was present at the preliminary parliament for Frankfurt and then became one of the for the Saxon Duchies.
Later, he was interim parliamentary envoy until the dissolution of the parliament in July 1848. At the end of November, 1848, he was named Prime Minister of the Duchy of Altenburg and resigned in August 1849. In 1850, he went to the parliament in Erfurt as a member of the Staatenhaus. In 1851, the Landschaft of Saxe-Altenburg elected him President. Gabelentz died on 3 September 1874 at his family home at Lemnitz, near Triptis. His son Georg von der Gabelentz also became a famous sinologist.

Work

The fruits of his many years of study are his Eléments de la grammaire mandchoue. In the Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes, which he co-founded. He provided essays about Mongolian and then with Julius Loebe published a new critical edition of Ulfilas' Gothic translation of the Bible, together with grammar, a Greek-Gothic dictionary and a Latin translation.
He later devoted himself to the Finnish language family, as Germany was working on rational principles for the German language at that time. He published a Mordvin grammar in Vol. 2 of his Journal, Vergleichung der beiden tscheremissischen Dialekte in Vol. 4, and Grundzüge der syrjänischen Grammatik soon afterwards.
His work covered nearly new linguistic territory for Germany, with his Kurze Grammatik der tscherokesischen Sprache in Höfer's Zeitschrift für die Wissenschaft der Sprache , Beiträge zur Sprachenkunde, the first three issues of which contained grammars of the Dayak, Dakota and Kiriri languages, as well as his Grammatik mit Wörterbuch der Kassiasprache .
Furthermore, the Abhandlungen of the Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften in Leipzig contained: Die melanesischen Sprachen nach ihrem grammatischen Bau etc. , followed by the second part in 1873, and Über das Passivum . Finally, he published the Manchu translation of the Chinese work: Sse-schu, Schu-king, Schi-king, with a Manchu-German lexicon.
The Mitteilungen of the Geschichts- und Altertumsforschenden Gesellschaft des Osterlandes contained many valuable articles by him on knowledge of the history of his closer homeland. After his death, Geschichte des großen Liao, aus dem Mandschu übersetzt appeared. The number of languages which Gabelentz more-or-less thoroughly researched—and which he was the first to have scientifically worked on—numbers over 80. He was a full member of the Academy of Sciences in Leipzig.

Selected literature