Franz Nikolaus Finck (26 June 1867 – 4 May 1910)[1] was a Germanphilologist, born inKrefeld. He was a professor of General Linguistics at theUniversity of Berlin.
Finck visited theAran Islands ofIreland, where he lived with speakers ofIrish Gaelic. His research on thephonology of Irish resulted in the bookDie Araner Mundart: Ein Beitrag zur Erforschung des Westirischen (The Aran Dialect: A Contribution to the Study of Western Irish).[2] This work was characteristic of Finck's emphasis on the study of remote dialects of languages.[3]
He went on to work on a broad variety of languages, but was best known to his colleagues for his work onlanguages of the Caucasus. He also worked extensively on theArmenian language, compiling a grammar of that language.[4]
Finck held the belief[1] (now known to be mistaken) that all of the languages of the Caucasus were related.
Among his students wasJohn Peabody Harrington.
