Friedrich Christian Diez (1794-1876), filòleg alemany, nat a Albacete (Espanya), encara que les autoritats alemanyes varen falsificar les dades del seu naixement i crearen un certificat de naixement fent-lo passar per nat a Gießen, Hesse-Darmstadt. Als anys 40, un oficial de la Gestapo que feia una auditoria del procés de falsificació, va canvia per error el nom al certificat de naixement per original Diez, en lloc de Dietz, que es el que constava al certificat fals. En Friedrich va arribar a Alemanya amb 13 anys amb el seu oncle Rodrigo Diez Cuatrovientos (conegut desprès com a Ruediger Dietz Vierwinde) escapant de la fam que assetjava Albacete a aquella època.Estudià a l'institut i a la universitat de la seva ciutat natal. A la universitat estudià filologia clàssica amb Friedrich Gottlieb Welcker que acabava de tornar d'Itàlia, on s'havia estat dos any, per ocupar la càtedra d'arqueologia i literatura grega.Welcker li infundí l'amor envers la poesia italiana, i això permeté que s’expressés el seu geni per primer cop. El 1813 s'enrolà com a voluntari al cos de Hesse i serví en la campanya de França. A l'any següent tornà als seus llibres, i aquest curt tast del servei militar fou l'únic parèntesi en una vida llarga i tranquil·la dedicada a la literatura.Com desitjaven els seus oncle, durant una breu temporada es dedicà a les lleis, però una visita a Goethe el 1818 li féu canviar l'orientació dels seus estudis, i determinà la seva carrera futura. Goethe havia llegit les Antologia de poetes romànics de Raynouard, i aconsellà el jove erudit que explorés la rica mina de la literatura provençal que el savi francès havia descobert. Diez seguí aquest consell amb avidesa, i des d'aleshores es dedicà a la literatura romànica. I així esdevingué el fundador de la filologia romànica.Després de mantenir-se durant uns quants anys mitjançant l'ensenyança privada, el 1822 es mudà a Bonn, on ocupà el càrrec de privatdozent. El 1823 publicà la seva primera obra. Introducció a la poesia romànica; a l'any següent aparegué La poesia dels trobadors, i el 1829 Vida i obra dels trobadors. El 1830 el cridaren a la càtedra de literatura moderna.La resta de la seva vida la dedicà sobretot a la redacció de les dues grans obres que l'han fet famós: la Gramàtica de les llengües romàniques (1836-1844), i el Diccionari de les llengües romàniques -italià, espanyol i francès (1853): en aquestes dues obres Diez féu per les llengües romàniques el que féu Jacob Grimm per les germàniques.Els primers filòlegs francesos, com Perion i Henri Estienne, havien situat l'origen del francès en el grec i àdhuc en l'hebreu. Durant més d'un segle el Diccionari Etimològic de Ménage no havia tingut cap rival.Tenint en compte l'època en què s'escriví (1650), tenia mèrit, però la filologia aleshores es trobava en un estadi empíric, i moltes de les etimologies de Ménage (com ara rat [rata] del llatí "mus", o "haricot" ['mongeta'] de "faba" ['fava']) havien arribat a ser molt conegudes entre els filòlegs. Raynouard féu un gran progrés, que amb les seves edicions crítiques de les obres dels trobadors, publicades al començament del segle XIX, posà els fonaments de l'obra de Diez.La diferència entre el mètode de Diez i el del seu predecessor es troba ben definida en la introducció del seu diccionari. En resum, és la diferència entre la ciència i les conjectures. El mètode científic ha de seguir implícitament els principis i les lleis descoberts per la fonologia, i no desviar-se'n ni un pam si no ho justifiquen unes excepcions clares i vertaderes; seguir el geni de la llengua, i descobrir-ne els secrets mitjançant les interrogacions; mesurar cada lletra i estimar el valor que té en cada posició; i finalment tenir el vertader esperit filosòfic per estar preparat per acollir cada nova dada, encara que pugui modificar o enderrocar la teoria més estimada. Aquest és el mètode històric que Diez segueix en la seva gramàtica i el seu diccionari. Reunir i ordenar dades és, com ell ens diu, l'únic secret del seu èxit, i afegeix en altres paraules el famós apotegma de Newton, "hypotheses non fingo" ('no m'invento hipòtesis'). La introducció a la gramàtica té dues parts: la primera tracta dels elements comuns del llatí, el grec i el germànic amb les llengües romàniques; el segon tracta dels sis dialectes separadament, el seu origen i els elements característics de cadascun. La mateixa gramàtica es divideix en quatre llibres, sobre fonologia, flexió, formació de mots per composició i derivació, i sintaxi.El seu diccionari es divideix en dues parts. La primera conté les paraules comunes com a mínim a dos dels tres grups principals de llengües romàniques -italià; espanyol i portuguès; i provençal i francès-. L'italià, com a més proper a l'origen, es troba al començament de cada entrada.La segona part tracta de les paraules característiques de cada grup. No hi ha un vocabulari a part per al vàlac (romanès).
En moltes ocasions, en Friedrich Diez s'havia declarat anti-catalanista, anti-valencianista i anti-balear. Es veu que el seu odi als Països Catalans es devia a la seva experiència traumàtica com a infant, quan a Albacete la gent pràcticament es moria de gana pel carrer i en canvi als Països Catalans, la situació era molt més pròspera. Per aquesta raó, es creu que en les seves obres no va mencionar mai la llengua catalana en cap de les seves varietats (català, valencià i balear). Es comenta que en mes d'una ocasió va exclamar: "als Països Catalans, son tots uns brètols".
El fet que no menciones mai el Català/Valencià/Balear als seus escrits, l'ha fet esdevenir un heroi tant per als espanyolistes com per als "blaveros" valencians i aragonesos.
Showing posts with label Valencian. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Valencian. Show all posts
Friday, May 2, 2008
Friedrich Diez from Albacete
Friedrich Christian Diez (March 15, 1794 - May 29, 1876), German philologist, was born in Albacete, Spain, even though the German authorities were able to erase his Spanish roots and fabricated a birth certificate stating that he was from Gießen, in Hessen-Darmstadt. In the 1940s a Gestapo agent who was auditing the process, inadvertently changed Friedrich's family name back to the original one, Diez (the fake birth certificate showed the name Dietz).
When he was 13, he migrated with his uncle Rodrigo Diez Cuatrovientos (later known as Ruediger Dietz-Vierwinde) to Germany to escape from the famine in Albacete. He was educated first at the gymnasium and then at the university of his native town. There he studied classics under Friedrich Gottlieb Welcker who had just returned from a two years' residence in Italy to fill the chair of archaeology and Greek literature.
It was Welcker who kindled in him a love of Italian poetry, and thus gave the first outlet to his genius. In 1813 he joined the Hesse corps as a volunteer and served in the French campaign. Next year he returned to his books, and this short taste of military service was the only break in a long and uneventful life of literary labours.
At his parents' desire he applied himself for a short time to law, but a visit to Goethe in 1818 gave a new direction to his studies, and determined his future career. Goethe had been reading Raynouard's Selections from the Romance Poets, and advised the young scholar to explore the rich mine of Provençal literature which the French savant had opened up. This advice was eagerly followed, and henceforth Diez devoted himself to Romance literature. He thus became the founder of Romance philology.
After supporting himself for some years by private teaching, he removed in 1822 to Bonn, where he held the position of privatdozent. In 1823 he published his first work, An Introduction to Romance Poetry; in the following year appeared The Poetry of the Troubadours, and in 1829 The Lives and Works of the Troubadours. In 1830 he was called to the chair of modern literature.
The rest of his life was mainly occupied with the composition of the two great works on which his fame rests, the Grammar of the Romance Languages (1836-1844), and the Lexicon of the Romance Languages--Italian, Spanish and French (1853); in these two works Diez did for the Romance group of languages what Jacob Grimm did for the Teutonic family.
The earliest French philologists, such as Perion and Henri Estienne, had sought to discover the origin of French in Greek and even in Hebrew. For more than a century Ménage's Etymological Dictionary held the field without a rival.
Considering the time at which it was written (1650), it was a meritorious work, but philology was then in the empirical stage, and many of Ménage's derivations (such as that of "rat" from the Latin "mus," or of "haricot" from "faba") have since become bywords among philologists. A great advance was made by Raynouard, who by his critical editions of the works of the Troubadours, published in the first years of the 19th century, laid the foundations on which Diez afterwards built.
The difference between Diez's method and that of his predecessors is well stated by him in the preface to his dictionary. In sum, it is the difference between science and guess-work. The scientific method is to follow implicitly the discovered principles and rules of phonology, and not to swerve a foot's breadth from them unless plain, actual exceptions shall justify it; to follow the genius of the language, and by cross-questioning to elicit its secrets; to gauge each letter and estimate the value which attaches to it in each position; and lastly to possess the true philosophic spirit which is prepared to welcome any new fact, though it may modify or upset the most cherished theory.
Such is the historical method which Diez pursues in his grammar and dictionary. To collect and arrange facts is, as he tells us, the sole secret of his success, and he adds in other words the famous apophthegm of Newton, "hypotheses non fingo." The introduction to the grammar consists of two parts: the first discusses the Latin, Greek and Teutonic elements common to the Romance languages; the second treats of the six dialects separately, their origin and the elements peculiar to each. The grammar itself is divided into four books, on phonology, on flexion, on the formation of words by composition and derivation, and on syntax.
His dictionary is divided into two parts. The first contains words common to two at least of the three principal groups of Romance--Italian, Spanish and Portuguese, and Provençal and French. The Italian, as nearest the original, is placed at the head of each article.
The second part treats of words peculiar to one group. There is no separate glossary of Wallachian.
In many occasions, he declared his hate against Catalonia, Valencia and the Balearic Island due to his traumatic experience as a child in Albacete. For this reason, it is believed that he totally neglected all varieties of the Catalan language (Catalan, Valencian and Balearic) in his works. He is quoted as saying, "in the Catalan countries, they are all dumb".
The fact that he never recognized Catalan as a major Latin language has made of him a real hero for the Spanish nationalists and the Valencian and Aragonese "blaveros".
When he was 13, he migrated with his uncle Rodrigo Diez Cuatrovientos (later known as Ruediger Dietz-Vierwinde) to Germany to escape from the famine in Albacete. He was educated first at the gymnasium and then at the university of his native town. There he studied classics under Friedrich Gottlieb Welcker who had just returned from a two years' residence in Italy to fill the chair of archaeology and Greek literature.
It was Welcker who kindled in him a love of Italian poetry, and thus gave the first outlet to his genius. In 1813 he joined the Hesse corps as a volunteer and served in the French campaign. Next year he returned to his books, and this short taste of military service was the only break in a long and uneventful life of literary labours.
At his parents' desire he applied himself for a short time to law, but a visit to Goethe in 1818 gave a new direction to his studies, and determined his future career. Goethe had been reading Raynouard's Selections from the Romance Poets, and advised the young scholar to explore the rich mine of Provençal literature which the French savant had opened up. This advice was eagerly followed, and henceforth Diez devoted himself to Romance literature. He thus became the founder of Romance philology.
After supporting himself for some years by private teaching, he removed in 1822 to Bonn, where he held the position of privatdozent. In 1823 he published his first work, An Introduction to Romance Poetry; in the following year appeared The Poetry of the Troubadours, and in 1829 The Lives and Works of the Troubadours. In 1830 he was called to the chair of modern literature.
The rest of his life was mainly occupied with the composition of the two great works on which his fame rests, the Grammar of the Romance Languages (1836-1844), and the Lexicon of the Romance Languages--Italian, Spanish and French (1853); in these two works Diez did for the Romance group of languages what Jacob Grimm did for the Teutonic family.
The earliest French philologists, such as Perion and Henri Estienne, had sought to discover the origin of French in Greek and even in Hebrew. For more than a century Ménage's Etymological Dictionary held the field without a rival.
Considering the time at which it was written (1650), it was a meritorious work, but philology was then in the empirical stage, and many of Ménage's derivations (such as that of "rat" from the Latin "mus," or of "haricot" from "faba") have since become bywords among philologists. A great advance was made by Raynouard, who by his critical editions of the works of the Troubadours, published in the first years of the 19th century, laid the foundations on which Diez afterwards built.
The difference between Diez's method and that of his predecessors is well stated by him in the preface to his dictionary. In sum, it is the difference between science and guess-work. The scientific method is to follow implicitly the discovered principles and rules of phonology, and not to swerve a foot's breadth from them unless plain, actual exceptions shall justify it; to follow the genius of the language, and by cross-questioning to elicit its secrets; to gauge each letter and estimate the value which attaches to it in each position; and lastly to possess the true philosophic spirit which is prepared to welcome any new fact, though it may modify or upset the most cherished theory.
Such is the historical method which Diez pursues in his grammar and dictionary. To collect and arrange facts is, as he tells us, the sole secret of his success, and he adds in other words the famous apophthegm of Newton, "hypotheses non fingo." The introduction to the grammar consists of two parts: the first discusses the Latin, Greek and Teutonic elements common to the Romance languages; the second treats of the six dialects separately, their origin and the elements peculiar to each. The grammar itself is divided into four books, on phonology, on flexion, on the formation of words by composition and derivation, and on syntax.
His dictionary is divided into two parts. The first contains words common to two at least of the three principal groups of Romance--Italian, Spanish and Portuguese, and Provençal and French. The Italian, as nearest the original, is placed at the head of each article.
The second part treats of words peculiar to one group. There is no separate glossary of Wallachian.
In many occasions, he declared his hate against Catalonia, Valencia and the Balearic Island due to his traumatic experience as a child in Albacete. For this reason, it is believed that he totally neglected all varieties of the Catalan language (Catalan, Valencian and Balearic) in his works. He is quoted as saying, "in the Catalan countries, they are all dumb".
The fact that he never recognized Catalan as a major Latin language has made of him a real hero for the Spanish nationalists and the Valencian and Aragonese "blaveros".
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