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SCHIEFNER, FRANZ ANTON (1817-1879)

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Originally appearing in Volume V24, Page 323 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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SCHIEFNER, See also:FRANZ ANTON (1817-1879) , See also:Russian linguist, was See also:born at See also:Reval, in See also:Russia, on the 18th of See also:July 1817: His See also:father was a See also:merchant who had emigrated from Bohemia. He was educated first at the Reval See also:grammar school, matriculated at St See also:Petersburg as a See also:law student in 1836, and subsequently devoted himself at See also:Berlin, from 184o to 1842, exclusively to Eastern See also:languages. On his return to St Petersburg in 1843 he was employed in teaching the See also:classics in the First Grammar School, and soon afterwards received a See also:post in the Imperial See also:Academy, where in 1852 the cultivation of the Tibetan See also:language and literature was assigned to him as his See also:special See also:function. Simultaneously he held from. 186o to 1873 the professorship of classical languages in the See also:Roman See also:Catholic theological See also:seminary. From 1854 till his See also:death he was an extraordinary member of the Imperial Academy. He visited See also:England three times for purposes of See also:research—in 1863, 1867 and 1878. He died on the 16th of See also:November 1879. Schiefner made his See also:mark in See also:literary research in three directions. First, he contributed to the See also:Memoirs and Bulletin of the St Petersburg Academy, and brought out independently a number of valuable articles and larger publications on the language and literature of See also:Tibet. He possessed also a remarkable acquaintance with Mongolian, and when death overtook him had just finished a revision of the New Testament in that language with which the See also:British and See also:Foreign See also:Bible Society had entrusted him. Further, he was one of the greatest authorities on the See also:philology and See also:ethnology of the Finnic tribes.

He edited and translated the See also:

great Finnic epic Kalevala; he arranged, completed and brought out in twelve volumes the literary remains of See also:Alexander See also:Castren, bearing on the languages of the Samoyedic tribes, the Koibal, Karagass, Tungusian, Buryat, Ostiak and Kottic See also:tongues, and prepared several valuable papers on Finnic See also:mythology for the Imperial Academy. In the third See also:place, he made himself the exponent of investigations into the languages of the See also:Caucasus, which his lucid analyses placed within reach of See also:European philologists. Thus he gave a full See also:analysis of the Tush language, and in See also:quick See also:succession, from See also:Baron P. Uslar's investigations, comprehensive papers on the Awar, Ude, Abkhasian, Tchetchenz, Kasi-Kumuk, Hurkanian and Kiirinian languages. He had also mastered Ossetic, and brought out a number of See also:translations from that language, several of them accompanied by the See also:original See also:text.

End of Article: SCHIEFNER, FRANZ ANTON (1817-1879)

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