Hans Georg Conon von der Gabelentz (16 March 1840 - 11 December 1893) was a German general linguist and sinologist. His Chinesische Grammatik (1881), according to a critic, "remains until today recognized as probably the finest overall grammatical survey of the Classical Chinese language to date." (Harbsmeier 1995:333)

Gabelentz was born in Poschwitz, near Altenburg, Saxe-Altenburg. His father was the more renowned minister and linguist Hans Conon von der Gabelentz, an authority of the Manchu language. Gabelentz taught himself Dutch, Italian and Chinese during his gymnasium years.

From 1860 to 1864, following his father's steps, he studied law, administration, and linguistics at Jena. In 1864 he entered the civil service of Saxony at Dresden. He continued his study of oriental languages at Leipzig. He married Alexandra von Rothkirch in 1872. His father Hans died at the family castle of Lemnitz in 1874.

Gabelentz earned his doctoral from Dresden in 1876 with a translation of Zhou Dunyi's Taiji Tushuo (太極圖說 "Explaining taiji"). In 1878, a Professorship of Far Eastern Languages, the first of its kind in the German-speaking world, was created at the University of Leipzig, and Gabelentz was invited to fill it. In 1889, he divorced, and switched to the University of Berlin. In 1891, he remarried, and published Die Sprachwissenschaft ("Linguistics"). His Handbuch zur Aufnahme fremder Sprachen followed one year later.

[edit] References

• Elffers, Els (2008). 'Georg von der Gabelentz and the rise of General Linguistics', in Ontheven aan de tijd. Linguïstisch-historische studies voor Jan Noordegraaf bij zijn zestigste verjaardag. Ed. by Lo van Driel & Theo Janssen. Stichting Neerlandistiek VU, Amsterdam & Nodus Publikationen, Münster, pp. 191-200.
• Harbsmeier, Christoph (1995). "John Webb and the Early History of the Study of the Classical Chinese Language in the West", in Ming Wilson & John Cayley (ed.s), Europe Studies China: Papers from an International Conference on the History of European Sinology, London: Han-Shan Tang Books, pp. 297-338.
• Honey, David B. (2001). Incense at the Altar: Pioneering Sinologists and the Development of Classical Chinese Philology. New Haven: American Oriental Society.

[edit] External links

• (German) Hans Georg Conon von der Gabelentz (1840-1893), Christina Leibfried, Universität Leipzig
• Sinologists: Georg von der Gabelentz, the University of Massachusetts Amherst