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Concept
Carl Meinhof
Summary
Carl Friedrich Michael Meinhof (23 July 1857 – 11 February 1944) was a German linguist and one of the first linguists to study African languages.
Meinhof was born in Barzwitz near Rügenwalde in the Province of Pomerania, Kingdom of Prussia. He studied at the University of Tübingen and at the University of Greifswald. In 1905 he became professor at the School of Oriental Studies in Berlin. On 5 May 1933 he became a member of the Nazi Party.
His most notable work was developing comparative grammar studies of the Bantu languages, building on the pioneering work of Wilhelm Bleek. In his work, Meinhof looked at the common Bantu languages such as Swahili and Zulu to determine similarities and differences.
In his work, Meinhof looked at noun classes with all Bantu languages having at least 10 classes and with 22 classes of nouns existing throughout the Bantu languages, though his definition of noun class differs slightly from the accepted one, considering the plural form of a word as belonging to a different class from the singular form (thus leading, for example, to consider a language like French as having four classes instead of two). While no language has all 22 (later: 23) classes active, Venda has 20, Lozi has 18, and Ganda has 16 or 17 (depending on whether the locative class 23 e- is included). All Bantu languages have a noun class specifically for humans (sometimes including other animate beings).
Meinhof also examined other African languages, including groups classified at the time as Kordofanian, Bushman, Khoikhoi, and Hamitic.
Meinhof developed a comprehensive classification scheme for African languages. His classification was the standard one for many years (Greenberg 1955:3). It was replaced by those of Joseph Greenberg in 1955 and in 1963.
In 1902, Meinhof made recordings of East African music. These are among the first recordings made of traditional African music.
In 1912, Carl Meinhof published Die Sprachen der Hamiten (The Languages of the Hamites). He used the term Hamitic.
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