Otto Schrader (philologist)
Encyclopedia
Otto Schrader was a German philologist best known for his work on the history of German and Proto-Indo-European
Proto-Indo-European language
The Proto-Indo-European language is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European languages, spoken by the Proto-Indo-Europeans...

 vocabulary dealing with various aspects of material culture
Archaeological culture
An archaeological culture is a recurring assemblage of artifacts from a specific time and place, which are thought to constitute the material culture remains of a particular past human society. The connection between the artifacts is based on archaeologists' understanding and interpretation and...

, such as the names of domesticated plants and animals, the names of the metals, etc.

Education and Early Life

Schrader came from a civil servant family in Thuringia
Thuringia
The Free State of Thuringia is a state of Germany, located in the central part of the country.It has an area of and 2.29 million inhabitants, making it the sixth smallest by area and the fifth smallest by population of Germany's sixteen states....

, attended Gymnasium in Weimar, and studied in Jena
Jena
Jena is a university city in central Germany on the river Saale. It has a population of approx. 103,000 and is the second largest city in the federal state of Thuringia, after Erfurt.-History:Jena was first mentioned in an 1182 document...

, Leipzig
Leipzig
Leipzig Leipzig has always been a trade city, situated during the time of the Holy Roman Empire at the intersection of the Via Regia and Via Imperii, two important trade routes. At one time, Leipzig was one of the major European centres of learning and culture in fields such as music and publishing...

, and Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

. When he received the Dr. phil. degree, in 1878 he received a teaching position at the Großherzogliches Gymnasium in Jena. There he received his habilitation
Habilitation
Habilitation is the highest academic qualification a scholar can achieve by his or her own pursuit in several European and Asian countries. Earned after obtaining a research doctorate, such as a PhD, habilitation requires the candidate to write a professorial thesis based on independent...

 in 1887 and in 1890 received the title of Professor. In 1909 moved to Breslau, where he was an "ordentlicher Professor". In 1879 Schrader married Marie von Wilms, with whom he had four children. He described himself as a national liberal
National liberalism
National liberalism is a variant of liberalism, combining nationalism with some liberal policies, especially regarding economic liberalism. The roots of it are to be found in the 19th century, when conservative liberalism was the ideology of the political classes in most European countries, then...

.

Support of Hehn's Theory

Schrader supported Victor Hehn's thesis that the Indo-Europeans
Proto-Indo-Europeans
The Proto-Indo-Europeans were the speakers of the Proto-Indo-European language , a reconstructed prehistoric language of Eurasia.Knowledge of them comes chiefly from the linguistic reconstruction, along with material evidence from archaeology and archaeogenetics...

 were originally nomads. According to this thesis, they domesticated only the horse, which they ate. Since there are no common Indo-European words for donkey or camel, Schrader assumed that the original homeland of the Indo-Europeans was in the steppes north of the Black Sea, on the Caspian Sea, and on the Aral Sea, an area referred to as the Pontic-Caspian steppe
Pontic-Caspian steppe
The Pontic-Caspian steppe is the vast steppeland stretching from the north of the Black Sea as far as the east of the Caspian Sea, from western Ukraine across the Southern Federal District and the Volga Federal District of Russia to western Kazakhstan,...

, where wild horses were a native species.

Publications

No complete list of Schrader's works has been compiled up to now, so the list below is incomplete.
  • Quaestionum dialectologicarum Graecarum particula, Dissertation, Leipzig 1877
  • Die älteste Zeittheilung des indogermanischen Volkes, Berlin 1878
  • Aus der Geschichte der Hausthiere. Eine linguistische Studie, in: Nord und Süd 15 (1880), pp. 335–348.
  • Sprachvergleichung und Urgeschichte. Linguistisch-historische Beiträge zur Erforschung des indogermanischen Altertums, 1st edn. Jena 1883, 2nd edn. Jena 1890, 3rd edn. Jena 1906.
  • Thier- und Pflanzengeographie im Lichte der Sprachforschung. Sammlung gemeinverständlicher wissenschaftlicher Vorträge, Heft 427 (1883), Berlin 1884.
  • Victor Hehn, Kulturpflanzen und Hausthiere in ihrem Übergang aus Asien nach Griechenland und Italien sowie in das übrige Europa. Historisch-linguistische Skizzen, new edition by Otto Schrader. With botanical contributions by Adolf Engler, 6th edn. Berlin 1884, 7th edn. 1902, 8th edn. 1911
  • Linguistisch-historische Forschungen zur Handelsgeschichte und Warenkunde, vol. 1, Jena 1886
  • Über den Gedanken einer Kulturgeschichte der Indogermanen auf sprachwissenschaftlicher Grundlage, Jena 1887. Probevorlesung vom 7. Februar 1887
  • Etymologisches und Kulturhistorisches. In: ZVS 30 / N.F. 10 (1890) pp. 461–485
  • Linguistisch-historisches, in: Gustav Richter, Symbola doctorum Ienensis gymnasii in honorem gymnasii Isenacensis collecta, Jena 1895
  • Etymologisch-Kulturhistorisches. In: Philologische Studien, Festgabe für Eduard Sievers zum 1. Oktober 1896, Halle 1896, pp. 1–11
  • Vom neuen Reich ("Deutsches Reich und Deutscher Kaiser", "Die Deutschen und das Meer"), zwei sprachlich-geschichtliche Vorträge. Allgemeiner Deutscher Sprachverein, Berlin 1897
  • Reallexikon der indogermanischen Altertumskunde. Grundzüge einer Kultur- und Völkergeschichte Alteuropas. 1st edn. Strassburg 1901, 2nd edn., edited by Alfons Nehring, Berlin, Leipzig, 1917–1929
  • Nachwort, in: Victor Hehn, Das Salz, eine kulturhistorische Studie, 2nd edn., Berlin 1901
  • Die Schwiegermutter und der Hagestolz. Eine Studie aus der Geschichte unserer Familie, Braunschweig 1904
  • Totenhochzeit. Ein Vortrag gehalten in der Gesellschaft für Urgeschichte zu Jena, Jena 1904
  • Über Bezeichnungen der Heiratsverwandtschaft bei den indogermanischen Völkern. In: IF 17 (1904)
  • Johannes Hoops, Waldbäume und Kulturpflanzen im germanischen Altertum, Straßburg 1905, review, in: Deutsche Literaturzeitung 1906
  • Hermann Hirt, Die Indogermanen, ihre Verbreitung, ihre Urheimat und ihre Kultur, vol. 1. Strassburg 1905, review, in: Deutsche Literatur-Zeitung 7/1906
  • Hermann Hirt, Die Indogermanen, ihre Verbreitung, ihre Urheimat und ihre Kultur, vol. 2. Strassburg 1907, review, in: Deutsche Literatur-Zeitung [...]/1907
  • Zu nhd. „buche“, in: Zeitschrift für deutsche Wortforschung 11 (1909)
  • Bilder aus dem russischen Dorfleben, in: Westermanns Monatshefte 53. Jahrgang, Jan.-März 1909, with eight black and white illustrations
  • Der Hammelsonntag. Eine Reisestudie aus dem Gouvernement Olonetz. In: IF 26 (1909)
  • (Stichworte) Aryan Religion; Blood-Feud; Charms and Amulets; Chastity; Crimes and Punishments; Death and Disposal of the Death; Divination; Family; Hospitality; Kingship, in: James Hastings, Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, vols. 2-7, Edinburgh 1909-1914
  • Begraben und Verbrennen im Lichte der Religions- und Kulturgeschichte. Ein Vortrag in der Schlesischen Gesellschaft für Volkskunde, Breslau 1910
  • Neuhochdeutsch „Wirt“ (hospes), in: Wissenschaftliche Beihefte zur Zeitschrift des Allgemeinen deutschen Sprachvereins, V. Reihe, Heft 32, 1910.
  • Die Indogermanen. Wissenschaft und Bildung 77, Leipzig 1911, new edition by Hans Krahe, Leipzig 1935
  • Die Anschauungen Viktor Hehns von der Herkunft unserer Kulturpflanzen und Haustiere im Lichte neuerer Forschung, Berlin 1912
  • Germanen und Indogermanen. In: Die Geisteswissenschaften 8/1913, sowie in: Korrespondenzblatt des Gesamtvereins der deutschen Geschichts- und Altertumsvereine, 1914.
  • „Vaterland“. Gedächtnisrede zur hundertsten Wiederkehr des Geburtstages des Fürsten Bismarck, gehalten am 10. Mai 1915, Breslau 1915
  • (Nachruf) Alfons Nehring, Otto Schrader, in: Indogermanisches Jahrbuch 6 (1918), pp. 152–160, Berlin 1920
  • (Nachruf) Wilhelm Streitberg, Otto Schrader, in: Frankfurter Zeitung, 11. April 1919
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