Diedrich Hermann Westermann (June 24, 1875 – May 31, 1956) was a German missionary, Africanist, and linguist. He substantially extended and revised the work of Carl Meinhof, his teacher, although he rejected some of Meinhof's theories only implicitly. Westermann is seen as one of the founders of modern African linguistics.
He carried out extensive linguistic and anthropological research in the area ranging from Senegal eastwards to the Upper Nile. His linguistic publications cover a wide range of African languages, including the Gbe languages, Nuer, Kpelle, Shilluk, Hausa, and Guang.
Westermann's comparative work, begun in 1911, initially brought together much of today's Niger–Congo and Nilo-Saharan language phyla under the name Sudanic languages. His most important later publication Die westlichen Sudansprachen 1927a divided these into East and West Sudanic languages and laid the basis for what would become Niger–Congo. In this book and a series of associated articles between 1925 and 1928, Westermann both identified a large number of roots that form the basis of our understanding of Niger–Congo and set out the evidence for the coherence of many of the families that constitute it. Much of the classification of African languages associated with Joseph Greenberg actually derives from the work of Westermann.
In 1927 Westermann published a Practical Orthography of African Languages, which became later known as the Westermann script. Subsequently, he published the influential and oft-reprinted Practical Phonetics for Students of African Languages in collaboration with Ida C. Ward (1933).
He was born in Baden near Bremen and also died there.
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DiedrichHermannWestermann (June 24, 1875 – May 31, 1956) was a German missionary, Africanist, and linguist. He substantially extended and revised the...
possible member of the Niger-Congo family. The German Africanist DiedrichHermannWestermann published many dictionaries and grammars of Ewe and several other...
Frederick Lugard was the first chairman (1926 to his death in 1945); DiedrichHermannWestermann (1926 to 1939) and Maurice Delafosse (1926) were the initial...
dealt with medicine. In 1947, together with Richard Hartmann and DiedrichWestermann, he founded the Institute for Oriental Research at the Berlin Academy...
century. The statements of de facto authorities like Meinhof, DiedrichHermannWestermann, and Ida C. Ward heavily affected the next three decades of linguistic...
published treatment of Logba was a short grammar by DiedrichHermannWestermann (1903). Westermann included Logba in his group of Togo Restsprachen (Togo...
Northern Songhay languages are sometimes viewed as mixed languages. DiedrichHermannWestermann, a missionary and linguist, hesitated between assigning it to...
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British Antarctic explorer and naval surgeon (b. 1876) May 31 – DiedrichHermannWestermann, German linguist (b. 1875) June 2 – Jean Hersholt, Danish-born...
studies, area studies, Professor at the University of Leipzig 1964 DiedrichHermannWestermann Missionary, Africanist, and linguist 1875-04-24 1956-05-31 Ivor...
the DDR, and as a student of Carl Meinhof and the successor of DiedrichHermannWestermann, was part of the "second wave" of German Africanists. A prodigious...
documents. The colonial authorities' choice in the 1930s to use DiedrichHermannWestermann's Africa Alphabet, based on the Latin script, for writing local...
available in 1913. The final design of the font was done by DiedrichHermannWestermann who, at the turn of the century, in the service of mission, developed...
languages: "West Atlantic" is the traditional term, following DiedrichHermannWestermann; "Atlantic" is more typical in recent work, particularly since...
Africa in Southern Africa). Building on the previous work of DiedrichHermannWestermann, Greenberg (1963) proposed West Atlantic, Mande, Gur, Kwa, Benue-Congo...
Champion. Westermann, DiedrichHermann (1911) Die Sudansprachen: eine sprachvergleichende Studie. Westermann, DiedrichHermann & Baumann, Hermann (1927)...
(ADB). Volume 47, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1903, pp. 480-483. DiedrichHermannWestermann: Christaller, Johann Gottlieb. In: Neue Deutsche Biographie (NDB)...
Niger–Congo languages. Lanham, MD: The University Press of America. Westermann, DiedrichHermann (1952) Languages of West Africa (Handbook of African Languages...
Language. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. ISBN 978-90-272-2946-5. Westermann, DiedrichHermann (1927). "Laut, Ton und Sinn in westafrikanischen Sudansprachen"...
(Abstract Archived 2020-06-17 at the Wayback Machine) Westerman, DiedrichHermann (1952) Languages of West Africa (Part II). London/New York/Toronto:...
from Sam Auinger, Roger Behrens, Diedrich Diederichsen, Florian Dombois, Wolfgang Ernst, Golo Föllmer, Thomas Hermann, Daniel Ott, Holger Schulze, Martin...
Seemuppen, Pewicken, Pelzen (all in Kurland). Dondangen was initially owned by Diedrich von Maydell, who was married to Anna Sibylla von der Osten-Sacken. As the...
Archived 2 December 2020 at the Wayback Machine Hamburger Abendblatt. Theo Westermann (22 January 2020), Karlsruher Bundestagsabgeordnete Kotting-Uhl tritt...
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