Rudolf Thurneysen (1857-1940)


Life
b. Basel, Switzerland; studied philology under Windisch and Zimmer; examined the linguistic, literary, and legal history in Old Irish MSS according to principals of historical linguistics; doctorate [Habilitation] at Jena 1882, where he taught Latin, 1885-87; appt. to chair of Comparative Linguistics at Freiburg-im-Breisau, 1887, and afterwards at Bonn, 1913;
 
issued Handbuch des Altirischen, 2 vol. (1909), later trans. by Binchy and Bergin as A Grammar of Old Irish (1946); also Die irische Helden und Königssage bis zum 17.ten Jahrhundert (1921) and Das Keltische Recht (1935); acknowledge as world expert on Old Irish; retired from Freiburg U., 1923; d. in Bonn; D. A. Binchy [q.v.] studied under him and became the leading authority on ancient Irish jurisprudence.
 

[ top ]

Works
  • Handbuch des Altirischen, 2 vol. (Heidelberg: C. Winter 1909); trans. by D. A. Binchy & Osborn Bergin as A Grammar of Old Irish (1946); A supplement to same (1948), and Do. [rev. & enl. edn.] (1975; rep. & suppl. 1993), xxi, 717pp. [DIAS Cat. 1996; see extract.]
  • DDie irische Helden und Königssage bis zum 17.ten Jahrhundert (1921).
  • Das Keltische Recht (1935).
  • ed. Scéla Mucce Meic Dathó (Dublin 1935).

Also contribs. to Zeitschrift für celtische Philologie xvii [17] (1928), 263-76; 277–303 -see table of contents - infra].

[ top ]

Quotations

On Early Irish grammar tracts: ‘The Irishman sees the grammatical schemata as concrete realities. There are few documents that give us so deep an insight into the mind of the early Irish - so completely different from our own as these tracts, and yet they spring from the learned classes, acquainted with Latin grammarians. Only by comparison with them can we judge the powerful intellectual achievement a Johannes Eriugena has accomplished in the ninth century, schooled of course by the translation of Dionysius the Areopagite; he too erects a similar pyramidal construction, though it is logically built on a capacity for abstraction learned from the Greeks, without any loss of the Irish capacity for concreteness. Such a work in the Ireland of his day would have been impossible and remained incomprehensible. Apart from their piety the Irish certainly brought abroad with them their inclination to scholarship, which was not very widespread on the continent, and made them welcome as schoolmasters; but to develop their powers was something they could only do in closer proximity to the Mediterranean.’ (Zeitschrift für celtische Philologie xvii, [1928]279f.; quoted in Proinsias MacCana, ‘Early Irish Ideology and the Concept of Unity’, in The Irish Mind: Exploring Intellectual Traditions, ed. Richard Kearney, Dublin: Wolfhound 1984, p.62.)

Further (Mac Cana, 1984): ‘Thurneysen refers here to grammar and philosophy, but as Frank O’Connor remarks, “He might have said with equal truth that a book like Bede’s History of the English Church would in the Ireland of that time have been impossible and remained incomprehensible.”’ (O’Connor, The Backward Look, London, 1967, p.9; quoting O’Connor’s translation of Thurneysen’s German - as above.)

Reference

Zeitschrift für celtische Philologie 17 (1928) - Contents
    ...  
Ludwig Mühlhausen Neue Beiträge zum Perceval-Thema ... 1–30    

Holger Pedersen

Irisch miad

...

31–32   

Julius Pokorny

Irisch úr und molc

...

32        

Wolfgang Krause

Zur Erklärung des irischen Äquativs

...

33–44   

Roland M. Smith

The alphabet of Cuigne mac Emoin

...

45–72   

Joseph Vendryes

Sur les adverbes de manière du type v.-irl. in biucc, gall. yn fychan

...

73–78   

Rudolf Much

Arepennis

...

79–80   

John Lloyd-Jones

Some features of Middle Welsh syntax

...

81–101 

Wilhelm Schulze

Zu den altirischen Glossen

...

102–106

Henry Lewis

Y ferf a’r testun

...

107–110

Douglas Hyde

Trí gáire an domhain

...

111–112

J. Glyn Davies

The englyn trisectual long-line in early Welsh metrics

...

113–128

Julius Pokorny

Archaisch irisch óëc ‘jung’

...

128

Tomás Ó Máille

Medb Chruachna

...

129–146

Joseph Loth

Irlandais col, cuil; gallois cwl

...

147–152

E. J. Gwynn

Athirne’s mother

...

153–156

Charles Plummer

On the fragmentary state of the text of the Brehon laws

...

157–166

T. Gwynn Jones

Ein kymrisches Fluchgedicht

...

167–176

Vittorio Bertoldi

Keltische Wortprobleme: Irisch find-choll = gallisch *alisa

...

177–192

Julius Pokorny

Conle’s abenteuerliche Fahrt

...

193–205

Thomas F.O’Rahilly

Tuillim buide

...

206–212

William J. Watson

The Edinburgh version of Scel Mucci mic da Tho

...

213–222

Osborn Bergin

Notes on the Würzburg glosses

...

223–224

Vernam Hull

The Middle Irish version of Bede’s De locis sanctis

...

225–240

(A. G. van Hamel

Über die vorpatrizianischen irischen Annalen

...

241–260

Julius Pokorny

Zu den irischen Zahlwörtern in Südwales

...

261–262

Rudolf Thurneysen

Zu Verslehre II

...

263–276

Rudolf Thurneysen

Auraicept na n-éces

...

277–303

Julius Pokorny

Miszellen [1. Zum Scél mucce Maicc Dathó; 2. Air. ferbb ‘Kuh’; 3. Mir. idnae pl. ‘Waffen, Schlachtreihe, Heer, Banner’; 4. Air. híth, mkymr. iwt, bret. iôd ‘Brühe’; 5. Mir. eorna ‘Gerste’]

304–306

Myles Dillon

Nominal predicates in Irish II

...

307–346

Séamas Ó Duilearga

Tóruigheacht Duibhe Lacha Láimh-ghile

...

347–370

John J. Savage

An Old Irish gloss in Cod. Laur. XLV, 14

...

371–372

Julius Pokorny

Das nicht-indogermanische Substrat im Irischen [part 2]

...

373–388

R. I. Best

Notes on Rawlinson B. 512

...

389–402

Alan Orr Anderson

Varia [1. The dating passing in Gildas’s Excidium; 2. Gildas and Arthur]

...

403–406

Roland M. Smith

Morand and the Bretha Nemed

...

407–411

 
[ Source: CODECS: Collaborative Online Database and e-Resources for Celtic Studies - online; accessed 16.09.2023 ]

[ top ]