Sprachforscher August Friedrich Pott (1802-1887): Letter Hall 1847 Over

You are bidding on oneHandwritten, signed letter of the linguist August Friedrich Pott (1802-1887).

DatedHall the 14th December 1847.

Regardsa magazine "ALZ" which through censorship is threatened. What is meant is the General literary newspaper, founded in Jena in 1785 and set up in Halle in 1849highest circulation and most influential German-language newspaper of its time.

August Friedrich Pott was one of the editors of this journal; also the natural scientist Hermann Burmeister (1807-1892) and the polymath and writer Johann Gottfried Gruber (1774-1851), who is also mentioned in the letter.

addressed to the private lecturer and later professor of philosophy at the University of Berlin Karl Heinrich Althaus (1806-1886).

With very interesting content!

Excerpts: "Dear friend! If I read your letter of the 7th october I am only now answering that you do not want to look for this long delay in my negligence but in the circumstances. I don't know whether you saw the ambiguous position in which our ALZ had been, basically still is, from the public papers for some time. This has enjoyed freedom from censorship since the days of Schützen - a circumstance that was a huge thorn in the side of many of our colleagues, such as Leo, Bernhardy, and above all [...] Pernice."

Note: are mentioned

-the historian and (reactionary) politician Heinrich Leo (1799-1878),

-the philologist Gottfried Bernhardy (1800-1875),

-the legal scholar Ludwig Pernice (1799-1861), Director of the Royal Schöppenstuhl and Curator and Extraordinary Government Plenipotentiary at the University of Halle.

"So a conspiracy was set up to overthrow them or at least to bring them under his, ie Herr Pernicens, censorship scissors. We don't want the latter, since [...] we, as honest people, don't want to expose ourselves to the drudgery{?} with such a mean Karl. So if you want to take away from us by force the freedom of censorship that has been practiced for many years, which the ministry is not too keen on doing, then the paper will stop, what with Censorship could only get sick and die a miserable death like the Berlin woman who has passed away. Nothing has really been decided yet, and there seems to be a certain fear of doing it to us academics as we once did to Ruge: – one fears him bill of violence [...]."

Note:What is meant is the liberal writer Arnold Ruge (1802-1880), whose "Hallische Jahrbucher für deutsche Kunst und Wissenschaft" was banned by the Prussian government in 1841, after which Ruge settled in Switzerland and had the journal published there.

"You see from this how, under such circumstances, we do not like to recruit new collaborators who may never find an opportunity to set pen for us: at least we can only conditionally. Incidentally, I presented your request to the assembly, and since they had no objection, the Privy Councilor explained itself Gruber happy to leave you with reviews. If he now wishes, you would like to make a few suggestions yourself, to which he will then give you an answer."

At the end about his personal situation: "[...] if I passed him books I had written, for example my Gypsies [...], and [...] demand a salary bonus, the Ministry is so stupid as not to even answer with a single syllable. Of course, a minister understands just as much about science as a Prussian non-commissioned officer, or rather even less - and therefore treats people in the same manner who are not as stupid as he is, or who do not wisely pretend to be so stupid and pious. So the money is bad for me too (800 Rthlr. all in all, that's all I have), but I try to keep my head up, and especially towards the rabble, whose hour will soon come. [...] Think Family consists in 2 boys of 6 and 3 years and [...] they make a great pleasure. My wife and I recommend ourselves to your wife in the most beautiful way, and your AF Pott hugs you with old, true love."

Scope: 2 ¼ written on 4 pages (28.3 x 23.3 cm); on the fourth page addressing.

format (folded): 8.8x11.7cm.

sent by post; with postmark and tax note in red. With a nice seal.

Condition: Pretty thin paper browned and somewhat creased, the address sheet with a tear. Bitte also note the pictures!

Internal note: Althaus 2023-3 folder Connor autograph autograph

About August Friedrich Pott and the Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung (Source: wikipedia) and the recipient (source: own research):

August Friedrich Pott (* 14. November 1802 in Nettelrede; † 5 July 1887 in Halle (Saale)) was a German linguist.

Life and work: The son of a preacher was not at all satisfied with studying theology, so he devoted himself primarily to the subjects of philology, philosophy and history at the University of Göttingen. Pott studied Hebrew, Greek and Latin in particular, but also heard physics and chemistry. He took up a position as a collaborator at the Gymnasium Celle and received his doctorate in 1827 from the University of Göttingen with the dissertation De relationibus quae praepositionibus in Linguis denotantur. However, the lessons did not fulfill him, so he continued his linguistic studies (especially Sanskrit) at the University of Berlin. on the 1st Pott habilitated there on 1 May 1830, in 1833 he was appointed associate professor at the University of Halle for general linguistics and in 1838 promoted to full professor.

Pott mainly read general linguistics and philosophy of language as well as historical grammar. He also offered special lectures on Sanskrit, Chinese and hieroglyphics. In 1840 he coined the term "Iranian languages". In 1845 Pott founded the German Oriental Society together with other scholars. In the center of his research were problems of Indo-European Studies. Pott applied Grimm's method of etymological sound comparison to Indo-European questions and developed methods for the comparative analysis of stem formation. He expanded his Etymological Research, first published in 1833 (reprinted 1999), into a six-volume work on the Indo-European languages, particularly on Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, Lithuanian and Gothic (1859-1876). He published a three-volume work on personal and place names, several studies on numerals (1847-1859), which he summarized in 1868, and an unprejudiced two-volume work on the Gypsies in Europe and Asia, taking into account the "crook language" of the time (1844/ 45). Pott's Introduction to General Linguistics (1884) provides an overview of the state of linguistics at that time.

Again and again Pott turned against the instrumentalization of linguistics and mystical interpretations (including Anti-Kaulen: Or mystical ideas about the origin of peoples and languages, 1863). He also rejected Arthur de Gobineau's racially motivated attempt on the inequality of the human races as insufficiently justified (The inequality of human races mainly from the linguistic point of view, with special consideration of the works of the Count von Gobineau of the same name: with an overview of the language conditions of the peoples, an ethnological attempt, 1856). Pott's pioneering work in linguistics was recognized; he received the Red Eagle Order II. Class, the Russian Order of Saint Stanislaus First Class with Ribbon and Star and the Order Pour le mérite for Sciences and Arts. From 1850 he was a corresponding and from 1877 a foreign member of the Prussian Academy of Sciences. The Russian Academy of Sciences accepted him in 1855 as a corresponding member. In 1870 the Bavarian Academy of Sciences appointed him a foreign member. In 1876 he was elected a foreign member of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences.

In 1870 Pott received a medal together with his colleagues Hermann Brockhaus, Heinrich Leberecht Fleischer and Emil Rödiger on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the German Oriental Society, whose first managing directors were the honorees.

His son Hermann Richard Pott (1844-1903) made a name for himself as a doctor.

His guardian and uncle was Georg Heinrich Deicke, to whom he dedicated his work Etymological Research in the Fields of Indo-European Languages ​​in 1833.

The General Literature Newspaper was a literary journal founded in Jena in 1785 and discontinued in Halle in 1849, which was launched with the aim of reviewing and critically accompanying the entire current literary production of that time. It became the highest-circulation and most influential German-language newspaper of its time.

History: Founded by the publisher and patron Friedrich Justin Bertuch together with the Jena literature professor Christian Gottfried Schütz and the Weimar poet and writer Christoph Martin Wieland, the newspaper was able to book a good 2000 subscribers two years later with a daily publication. The best-known employees included Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Friedrich Schiller, Immanuel Kant, Johann Gottlieb Fichte and Alexander von Humboldt. The works discussed in the Allgemeines Literatur-Zeitung between 1785 and 1800 were indexed in the Allgemeines Repertorium der Literatur (Weimar 1793–1807).

In 1804 Schütz accepted a professorship in the history of literature and eloquence in Halle, in 1803 he moved the publication of the Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung to Halle and continued publishing the newspaper there together with the professor and librarian Johann Samuel Ersch.

Already on 31. On January 1, 1804, the Jenaische Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung appeared, also at the instigation of Goethe, which had begun in August 1803. Goethe felt compelled to take this step because he feared that the university in Jena would collapse. He won over the Jena classical philologist Heinrich Karl Abraham Eichstädt as the responsible editor. Both literary newspapers, the Jenaische and the Hallesche, initially faced each other as competitors. However, the Jenaische Literaturzeitung opened up more and more to the new political and philosophical directions and also regularly contained articles from the fields of medicine, anthropology and natural sciences, whereas the Hallesche Zeitung remained true to the Kantian philosophy with Schütz and lost more and more importance over the years .

The Jenaische Literaturzeitung very quickly surpassed the Hallesche in type and scope. In a preface to the 1812 edition, it was mentioned that more than 600 people were already working for the newspaper. Articles about the "fine arts" often contain the author abbreviation "WKF", an abbreviation for the "Weimarer Kunstfreunde". Heinrich Meyer was often the author, but Goethe and Schiller also used this signet. During the years 1804 to 1837 the newspaper appeared three times a week. The frequency of publication was then gradually reduced until it finally appeared only monthly and ceased publication in 1841.

After the Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung in Halle ceased publication in 1849, the Literary Central Journal for Germany was founded by Friedrich Zarncke in Leipzig in 1850 and was published until 1944.

Karl Heinrich Althaus was on 1 January 1806 in Hanover as the son of Karl Philipp Christian Althaus (* 6. April 1775 in Gehmen, died. 28. March 1869 in Hanover), from 1805 to 1869 Protestant pastor in Hanover, and Friederike, b. born limp.

He received his doctorate in Halle in 1837 (dissertation: "Prolegomena de summo in literarum studio fine et de disciplinarum nexu. Particula I"; i.e. about the introduction to the end of the literature studies and the connection of the disciplines) and completed his habilitation in Berlin in 1838. From 1837 he was a private lecturer at the University of Berlin, in 1859 he became a professor there.

From 1837 Althaus in Berlin was also a member of the so-called Doctor Club ("Doctorklubb") of the Left Hegelians, which united the criticism of religion and the Prussian state. The young Karl Marx (1818-1883), Karl Friedrich Köppen (1808-1863), Bruno Bauer (1809-1882) and Adolf Friedrich Rutenberg (1808-1869) also hung out there.

on the 8th On April 1, 1843, he married Angelika Luise (Angelica Louise) Schüler, b. at the 14th. January 1808 in Berlin as the only daughter of the merchant Johann Benjamin Schüler; died on the 25th. August 1880 at the age of 72 in Berlin. On March 3, her father had December 1794 married Carolina Sophia Tornow, eldest daughter of the Spandau merchant Carl Friedrich Tornow (died 18. March 1823 in Berlin).

She was the widow of the professor of philosophy in Halle Johann Georg Mußmann (1795-1833), whom she married on 23. September 1830 (son of the master blacksmith in Reichenberg near Danzig Johann Friedrich David Mußmann). This marriage remained childless.

Althaus died on 22. October 1886 at the age of 80 in Berlin.

From the marriage between Karl Heinrich Althaus and Angelika Luise, b. Pupils gave birth to five children:

- Karl Hermann Althaus (* 9. February 1844 in Berlin, died. 25. March 1898 in Berka), Dr. of philosophy and high school teacher, who died on 1. March 1875 in Berlin Marie Louise Charlotte Anna Schrader von Beauvryé had married, b. 29. December 1852 in Schöneberg near Berlin as the daughter of the Royal Board of Auditors and retired Firstleutnant Albin Schrader von Beauvryé. Children were Elisabeth Althaus (* 17. December 1875), who married Alfred Scheel, and Marta Althaus (* 9. March 1883)

- Heinrich Georg Althaus (* 25. February 1845 in Berlin, died. on the 31st October 1894 in Berlin), Royal District judge and district court councilor in Berlin, who died on 2. April 1884 in Berlin Marie Adelgunde Auguste von Dechend had married, b. on the 22nd November 1855 in Berlin as the daughter of Reichsbank President Hermann von Dechend (1814-1890) and Adelgunde, b. Wilke, died on the 30th March 1917 in Teupitz

- Adelheid Althaus (* 17. October 1846 in Berlin, died. 20. August 1923 in Wittstock / Dosse)

-Ernst Ludwig Althaus (* 9. May 1848 in Berlin, died. 5. April 1933 in Brunswick), Dr. of philosophy (Diss. Berlin 1874 "Quaestionum de Iulii Pollucis fontibus specimen") and teacher at the Ascanian Gymnasium in Berlin. on the 15th On April 18, 1884 he married the teacher Anna Elisabeth Schmiel (* 19. April 1857 or 1858 in Berlin), daughter of the full teacher at the teachers' seminar at the Augusta School Wilhelm Ottomar Schmiel and Julie Luise Anna, born. stepf. One of their sons was Ernst Althaus (* 19. February 1889 in Berlin; † 21 April 1977 in Herford), German lawyer and mayor of the cities of Minden and Herford.

- Conrad Althaus