The work on the proper names (mainly place, field and family names) of Saxony and neighbouring areas began in the early 1950s under the direction of Rudolf Fischer and Theodor Frings, who also founded the book series "Deutsch-Slawische Forschungen zur Namenskunde und Siedlungsgeschichte". So far, the most important result of the editing of the extensive name material are the 38 volumes of the…
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…
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 aim of this research project is to work on the Reichstage from 1532 - 1555, i.e. to index and record, edit and publish the relevant, widely scattered archive material, in order to make a source of central importance for the German and European history of the epoch of Emperor Charles V and the Reformation usable. In addition to its value for the study of general and political history, the…
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),…
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.…
Through critical editions of authoritative commentaries and sermons on Old Testament texts as well as comparative studies, the Academy's project “Die alexandrinische und antiochenische Bibelexegese in der Spätantike” opens up a central part of the literature of ancient Christianity - namely the interpretation of that part of the Christian Holy Scripture which Christianity shares with its mother…
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.
For more than hundred years the major critical edition of the Old Testament in Greek, the so-called Septuagint, is being prepared in Göttingen: From 1908 to 2015, the „Septuaginta-Unternehmen” was responsible for this edition, and since 2016, a research commission, called „Kommission zur Edition und Erforschung der Septuaginta”.
In 2020, a new long-term Academy project is established: „Die Editio…
The aim of the project is a systematic analysis of the course and mechanisms of the so-called Alexandrian Schism (1159-1177), which is to be evaluated as a model and comparative case for overarching questions about scenarios of division and escalation with a large spatial extent, with a multi-causal background and with confrontational camp formations at the most diverse levels, as well as for…
The research project “Die frühbuddhistischen Handschriften aus Gandhāra: religiöse Literatur an der Schnittstelle von Indien, Zentralasien und China” was established in 2012. On the basis of philological and historical methods, it provides new insight into the early history of Buddhism on its way to becoming a world religion. The project studies manuscripts found in the 1990s in northern Pakistan…
Ancient, christian theologians such as Augustine (354 - 430 AD) or Origines (ca. 185 - 254 AD) shaped the culture of subsequent epochs with their rich oeuvre and often influence it until today. There are many reasons to deal with the effects of classical works. Elementary requirements for this proposition are good text editions. The research unit would like to work in close Cooperation with…
The Horus Temple of Edfu, built between 237 and 57 BC, is considered the best preserved temple of Egyptian antiquity and the entire ancient world. The aim of the project is the edition of the inscriptions of the Ptolemaic temple of Edfu, beginning with the securing of the text basis, translation, supplementation with philological comments up to the publication of extensive materials from the areas…
The School of Salamanca or “Spanish late scholasticism” of the 16th and early 17th centuries is one of the most influential epochs of early modern European thought because of its importance for jurisprudence and political philosophy. The project has two objectives: Firstly, to digitally record and present the central texts of the “School of Salamanca” in an overall corpus that follows uniform…
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.