Ferdinand Sommer (4 May 1875, inTrier – 3 April 1962, inMunich) was a Germanclassical andIndo-European philologist.

From 1893, he studied at the universities ofMarburg andFreiberg, where he was a pupil ofRudolf Thurneysen. In 1899, he obtained hishabilitation from theUniversity of Leipzig with the thesisDie Komparationssuffixe im Lateinischen (Comparative suffixes of Latin). In 1902, he was named professor of Indo-European linguistics,Sanskrit and classical philology at theUniversity of Basel, and later on in his career, he held professorships in Indo-European linguistics at the universities ofRostock (1909–13),Jena (1913–24) andBonn (1924–26). From 1926 to 1951, he was a professor ofcomparative linguistics at theUniversity of Munich.^[1][2]

He was a member of theSaxon Academy of Sciences (from 1922),Göttingen Academy of Sciences (from 1925),Bavarian Academy of Sciences (from 1927) andAcademy of Sciences in Berlin (from 1944).^[2]

• Handbuch der lateinischen Laut- und Formenlehre. Eine Einführung in das sprachwissenschaftliche Studium des Lateins. Heidelberg 1902, 3rd edition 1914 – Handbook of Latin phonetics and morphology; an introduction to the linguistic study of Latin.
• Griechische Lautstudien. Straßburg 1905 – Greek phonetic studies.
• Die indogermanischen iā- und io-Stämme im Baltischen. Leipzig 1914 – The Indo-European iā- and io-stems inBaltic.
• Sprachgeschichtliche Erläuterungen für den griechischen Unterricht. Laut- und Formenlehre. Leipzig 1917, 4th edition Darmstadt 1961 – Linguistic-historical explanations for teaching Greek;phonology andmorphology.
• Vergleichende Syntax der Schulsprachen (Deutsch, Englisch, Französisch, Griechisch, Lateinisch) Mit besonderer Berücksichtigung des Deutschen. Leipzig 1921, 6th edition Darmstadt 1989 – Comparative syntax of school languages (German, English, French, Greek, Latin) with special reference to German.
• Die Aḫḫijavā-Urkunden. Munich 1932. Nachdruck Hildesheim 1975 – The Aḫḫijavā documents.
• Aḫḫijavāfrage und Sprachwissenschaft, Verlag der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, München, 1934 (Digitalisat)
• Hethiter und Hethitisch. Stuttgart 1947 –Hittites andHittite.
• Schriften aus dem Nachlass (edited by Bernhard Forssmann) Munich 1977 – Writings from theNachlass.^[2]

• 1875 births
• 1962 deaths
• People from Trier
• Academic staff of the University of Basel
• Academic staff of the University of Rostock
• Academic staff of the University of Jena
• Academic staff of the University of Bonn
• Academic staff of the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich
• German classical philologists
• Hittitologists