Gustav Meyer (25 November 1850 – 28 August 1900) was aGermanlinguist andIndo-European scholar, considered to be one of the most importantAlbanologists of his time,[1] most importantly by proving that theAlbanian language belongs to theIndo-European family.[2]
Meyer was born inGroß Strehlitz in thePrussianProvince of Silesia (present-day Strzelce Opolskie in modernPoland). In 1867 he enrolled in theBreslau University (now University of Wrocław) to studyclassical philology, Indo-European languages,Modern Greek, andSanskrit. He was there influenced by philologistsMartin Hertz andAdolf Friedrich Stenzler. In 1871 he defended his dissertationDe nominibus graecis copositus. In the same year he was named assistant professor at theUniversity of Göttingen, and a year later professor of ancient languages in the same university.
He went on to work as agymnasium teacher inGotha, from 1874 inMalá Strana,Prague at the intercession ofWilhelm von Hartel, and was appointed outside lecturer (Privatdozent) at theCharles University in 1876. The next year he was named professor of Sanskrit andcomparative linguistics at theUniversity of Graz, where he pursued studies ofAncient Greek,Turkish, andAlbanian. During this period he published his studyContribution on the theory of word-formation in Greek and Latin (1872).[3]
Full professor at the University of Graz from 1881, Meyer started to focus his studies onalbanology, and prepared the foundations of the discipline by publishing the following works:[3]
Meyer is considered to be the linguist who proved scientifically that the Albanian language belongs to theIndo-European family.[2] He is known to have held a long correspondence withJeronim de Rada, a leading Albanian figure of theAlbanian National Awakening.[4]
Gustav Meyer died on August 27, 1900, inStraßgang nearGraz. In honour of his contributions to Albanology, a grammar school inTirana,Albania bears his name.
founder of modern albanology, Gustav Meyer
In fact, Albanian was not established definitively Indo-European until the latter part of the nineteenth century, when certain structural and lexical correspondences that demonstrated the Indo-European character of the language were noted (especially by Gustav Meyer)
