The task of the Research Centre is to select the edition of the manuscript estate of the important explorer Alexander von Humboldt (1769 - 1859), the complete edition of his dependent publications, and the historical analysis of the scientific heritage. Extensive collections of copies of letters from and to Humboldt as well as of his travel diaries have been created for this purpose. These and…
The task is the complete indexing and scientific processing of the Old High German vocabulary of all over-deliveries, with documentation of all variants and document locations, as basis for further philological research of vocabulary in literary history, linguistic and cultural history.
The document archive contains a quarter of a million glossy documents from 1250 manuscripts, one of which a…
The Berliner Klassik project will examine whether an interdisciplinary reconstruction of Berlin's unusual cultural heyday between 1786 and 1815 can provide an alternative to the Weimar-Jenaic Classicism. To this end, known and less known works and events of this epoch will be related to their internal and external correspondence and oppositions, their socio-cultural prerequisites and their…
The WMU makes available the vocabulary of the German language of documents which came into use in the 13th century. The dictionary supplements the lexica and grammars of Middle High German for an excerpt of 13th-century prose, which were predominantly compiled on the basis of poetic texts.
The editions of the German texts of the Middle Ages are compiled partly by staff of the Berlin office and partly by authors from all over the world. The current editions deal with medieval verse epics (Albrecht's Jüngerer Titurel), verse or prose chronicles (Christherre-Chronik, Weltchronik Heinrichs von München, Eisenacher Stadtchronik und Thüringische Landeschronik von Johannes Rothe),…
The German Dictionary is a historical dictionary of the meaning of the New High German language. It contains the common German vocabulary from the middle of the 15th century to the present in alphabetical order. It was planned and started by the brothers Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, who are regarded as the founders of German studies. According to their imagination and model, the dictionary presents…
The DWDS dictionary is based on the six-volume “Wörterbuch der deutschen Gegenwartssprache” and on other sources, such as on parts of the “Großes Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache” published by the Dudenverlag. It provides the user with state-of-the-art spelling, pronunciation in form of audio files and a wide range of information on the form, usage and meaning of approximately 210,000 keywords.…
The aim of the project is to produce a critical, annotated edition of the scientific writings of the Göttingen physicist and philosopher Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742 - 1799). Lichtenberg was one of the most respected experimental physicists of his time and was also active in many other scientific disciplines. His writings are highly significant testimonies and sources for the history of the…
The Encyclopedia of Fairy Tales (EM) is a handbook on historical and comparative narrative research. It comprehensively presents the results of one and a half centuries of international research work in the field of folk narrative traditions in the past and present. The work focuses on the oral and literary narrative forms of Europe and the cultures influenced by Europe, but also endeavours to…
The "ground plan" of the history of German poetry from its sources is the basic work of German literary historical research that was simultaneously developed and grown with the subject. The aim is to explore and process all the essential historical facts and data on the development of German literature from its beginning to the end of the 19th century. The chronological presentation of the…
Based on a contractual agreement, the historical-critical Hegel edition of the Academy will be produced in the Hegel Archive, an institution of the Ruhr-Universität Bochum. The edition has three sections: the first section has been the subject of the work of the last three decades. Eighteen of the twenty-two volumes planned for the first section, containing Hegel's publications and manuscripts,…
The project Hethitische Forschungen has been based in Mainz for more than 20 years. The project has grown out of fifty years of collecting and editing and of participating in the excavations of the German Archaeological Institute in Bogazköy-Hattuša (Turkey).
The task has existed since the beginning of the research project in:
1. the archival collection of cuneiform tablets found during…
Documentary handbook on the tradition of ancient and medieval literature in the early modern period. A bibliographical and at the same time documentary repertory is being compiled, which covers the entire field of the literary reception history of antiquity and the Middle Ages for the period between 1500 and 1630, including later reprints (up to the 19th century). In accordance with the…
Moritz Schlick is one of the most influential figures in 20th century philosophy. As a representative of scientific philosophy and founder of the "Vienna Circle" of logical empiricism, he gave decisive impetus to modern philosophy of language and theory of science.
The Academy's long-term goal is to make Moritz Schlick's scientific legacy and correspondence accessible in a scientifically sound…
The Old High German Dictionary (Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch) fully describes the vocabulary of the earliest stage of the German language, supported by illustrative citations from corpus material. Designed to be edited in ten volumes, it provides a comprehensive analysis of the entire lexical material preserved in texts, glosses, and glossaries, covering a period of eight centuries from the…
As part of a new project, the BBAW has been devoting itself since January 2004 to "Prussia as a Cultural State" and thus to the ambiguous image of Prussia in history. The range of interpretations extends from the militarily organized authoritarian state to the tolerant enlightenment state to the multi-ethnic integration state. The BBAW's approach to Prussian history not only corresponds to its…
The aim of the project is the lexicographical recording and indexing of the sacred writings of the Buddhists in the Sanskrit dictionary of Buddhist texts from the Turfan finds (SWTF), which mainly belong to the literature of the Sarvastivada school and were discovered on the "Silk Road".
The SWTF is of fundamental importance for Sanskrit philology and an important tool for Buddhist research. The…
The Diccionario del espanol medieval (DEM) aims to provide a complete inventory, lexicographical editing and linguistically and historically annotated presentation of the entire Old Spanish vocabulary from the first records in the 10th century to around 1400. It is the first comprehensive period dictionary of the Spanish language. In addition to Hispanic Studies and Romance Linguistics, the…
The Egyptian-Coptic language is the human language with the longest documented lifetime, clocking at 4,500 years prior to its extinction. Its vocabulary reflects the knowledge and worldviews of one of the formative cultures of the ancient world. In order to explore the linguistic and cultural evidence of this historical episteme, the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities (BBAW) and…
The numerous philosophical, theological and homiletic writings of the Saxon pastor Valentin Weigel (1533-1588) circulated initially in handwriting and were - to some extent - only printed at the beginning and end of the 17th century. On the basis of Lutheran-reformational piety, they combine, among other things, neoplatonic and medieval mystical influences with ideas of Renaissance humanism,…