Ferdinand Sommer


Ferdinand Sommer was a German classical and Indo-European philologist.
From 1893, he studied at the universities of Marburg and Freiberg, where he was a pupil of Rudolf Thurneysen. In 1899, he obtained his habilitation from the University of Leipzig with the thesis Die Komparationssuffixe im Lateinischen. In 1902, he was named professor of Indo-European linguistics, Sanskrit and classical philology at the University of Basel, and later on in his career, he held professorships in Indo-European linguistics at the universities of Rostock, Jena and Bonn. From 1926 to 1951, he was a professor of comparative linguistics at the University of Munich.
He was a member of the Saxon Academy of Sciences, Göttingen [Academy of Sciences and Humanities|Göttingen Academy of Sciences], Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Academy of Sciences in Berlin.

Selected works

  • Handbuch der lateinischen Laut- und Formenlehre. Eine Einführung in das sprachwissenschaftliche Studium des Lateins. Heidelberg 1902, 3rd edition 1914 - Handbook of Latin phonetics and morphology; an introduction to the linguistic study of Latin.
  • Griechische Lautstudien. Straßburg 1905 - Greek phonetic studies.
  • Die indogermanischen iā- und io-Stämme im Baltischen. Leipzig 1914 - The Indo-European iā- and io-stems in Baltic.
  • Sprachgeschichtliche Erläuterungen für den griechischen Unterricht. Laut- und Formenlehre. Leipzig 1917, 4th edition Darmstadt 1961 - Linguistic-historical explanations for teaching Greek; phonology and morphology.
  • Vergleichende Syntax der Schulsprachen Mit besonderer Berücksichtigung des Deutschen. Leipzig 1921, 6th edition Darmstadt 1989 - Comparative syntax of school languages with special reference to German.
  • Die Aḫḫijavā-Urkunden. Munich 1932. Nachdruck Hildesheim 1975 - The Aḫḫijavā documents.
  • Aḫḫijavāfrage und Sprachwissenschaft, Verlag der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, München, 1934
  • Hethiter und Hethitisch. Stuttgart 1947 - Hittites and Hittite.
  • Schriften aus dem Nachlass Munich 1977 - Writings from the Nachlass.