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 “Dictionnaire étymologique de l’ancien français” (DEAF) is a fundamental dictionary of Old French, encompassing the timespan between 842 (date of the Strasbourg Oath between Louis the German and Charles the Bald against Lothair I transmitted in the Old High German and Old French languages) until the mid-14th century (the epochal boundary with Middle French on philological and social grounds).
This project focuses upon the publication of dictionaries on the medieval language of Southern France. In addition to the “Dictionnaire onomasiologique de l’ancien gascon” (DAG), a thematically ordered dictionary of the Gascon linguistic sphere, equally conceived “Dictionnaire onomasiologique de l’ancien occitan” (DAO) encompassing the entire Old Occitan linguistic sphere, supplemented by means of…
In the Middle Ages, Old Occitan (formerly “Old Provençal”) was a literary and cultural language, the influence of which extended far beyond the frontiers of Southern France. It was also the language of the troubadours, whose songs had a decisive impact on the love poetry of the European literatures during the Middle Ages.
The only comprehensive portrayal of the Old Occitan vocabulary to have…
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 aim of the project described below is to develop two fundamental desiderata of Koranic research: an edition of the Koranic text that meets critical standards and a comprehensive commentary on the Koran that consistently interprets it in the context of its historical context of origin. In contrast to the Kairen Koran edition of 1923, which is currently widespread, the project presented here is…
The Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum contains the Latin inscriptions from the entire space of the former Roman Empire in a geographical and systematic order; since its foundation by Theodor Mommsen, it has been the authoritative documentation of the epigraphic heritage of Roman antiquity. Today, the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum has about 180,000 inscriptions and supplementary volumes with plates…
In addition to Roman and canonical law, the Sachsenspiegel (reported in the Eastern Harz foreland between 1220 and 1235) and the famous town charter of Magdeburg (developed in the town of Magdeburg and decisively shaped by the spellings of the local court chair between the 13th and 15th centuries) form the common foundations of Central and Eastern European legal systems. Simultaneously with the…
In the course of the project the works of the so called “Austrian Bible translator”, who created a comprehensive bible-translation and commenting about 200 years before Luther, are edited and made accessible. Since the 14th century, the “century of the layman-bible”, large parts of the Latin Vulgate and the accompanying exegetic and catechetic explanations have been increasingly translated into…
Medieval and early modern inscriptions crafted before 1650, in Latin and German language, situated in German-speaking areas are at the heart of this project. Inscriptions are significant and unique historical sources because they are often preserved in an authentic state and in their original setting. For the premodern era, script which was affixed to stone, wood, metal, glass as well as textiles…
The Verfasserlexikon represents a fundamental and encompassing work of reference on German literature of the Middle Ages as well as a selection of German, Latin writing authors of the period. It contains more than 5000 articles by numerous scholars from Germany and abroad, arranged alphabetically by author and anonymous work title.
All German-language authors and works from the beginning of…
While other European cultural nations have comprehensive etymological dictionaries, German, one of the world’s most common languages in quantitative terms, lacks a large scientific etymological dictionary. For this reason, the “German etymology of semantic fields in a European Context (DWEE)” wants to close this gap on the one hand: This applies particularly to words that have only appeared since…
The comprehensive Dictionary of historical German (and West Germanic) Legal Language explains and illustrates legally relevant vocabulary from the beginning of German written tradition (around AD 400) to 1815. Its basis is formed by an archive of roughly 2.5 million word quotations.
A volume of the Dictionary comprises 5 double fascicles of 320 columns each. The fascicles appear on a yearly…
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…
In light of the rapid decline of the dialectal linguistic competence especially in the north of the German language area it is the goal of the DMW, by means of a first systematic survey of current data, to document and analyse the still tangible stocks of the dialects or the manner of speaking with the maximal variation from standard of two generations of speakers in the Midwest of Germany.…
The research and edition project on the Fruitbearing Society (1617-1680; 890 members) is dedicated to an organisation that, as a comprehensive German Academy of the 17th century, was linked to a variety of linguistic, literary, scholarly, and (educational) political ambitions. Their work is inherent in national and European perspectives, which remained productive until the Enlightenment.
The Coptic-Sahidic Bible is one of the most important literary witnesses of Christianity in the eastern Mediterranean. The Coptic Old Testament, which essentially dates back to the 4th century, is one of the earliest and most extensive versions of the Greek Septuagint (LXX). The translation of the Bible into Coptic was source and inspiration for the entire Coptic-Christian literature of Egypt. In…
At the Academy of Sciences and Literature in Mainz and in cooperation with the Technical University of Darmstadt, a digital dictionary of surnames is being developed. For the first time, this dictionary records all currently existing family names Germany (also foreign names) lexicographically, maps them and etymologizes them with the help of maps.
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…