The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Schleicher, August

SCHLEICHER, shlī' H êr, August, German philologist: b. Meiningen, 19 Feb. 1821; d. Jena, 6 Dec. 1868. He devoted himself to the study of theology and Oriental languages, first at Leipzig and afterward at Tübingen. In 1846 he took the degree of doctor of philosophy at Bonn, and soon after qualified himself as a teacher of philology, to which he ever after devoted himself. In 1850 he was called to Prague as extraordinary professor of philology, a chair soon exchanged for that of comparative philology. At Prague he made himself more fully acquainted with the Slavonic languages and undertook a several months' journey to Lithuania in order to learn the Lithuanian language. In 1857 he accepted the appointment of honorary professor of the science of language and Old German philology in the University of Jena, where he continued until his death. He published a work on the comparative history of languages, &lsquo;Zur vergleichenden Sprachengeschichte&rsquo; (1848), and another containing a systematic review of the European languages, &lsquo;Die Sprachen Europas&rsquo; (1850). Later works are &lsquo;Die Formenlehre der kirchenslawonischen Sprache, erklärend und vergleichend dargestellt&rsquo; (1853): &lsquo;Handbuch der litauischen Sprache&rsquo; (1856-57). &lsquo;Zur Morphologie der Sprache&rsquo;; &lsquo;Die deutsche Sprache&rsquo; (1860); &lsquo;Kompendium der vergleichenden Grammatik der indogermanischen Sprachen&rsquo;; &lsquo;Die Darwinische Theorie und die Sprachwissenschaft&rsquo;; &lsquo;Ueber die Bedeutung der Sprache für die Naturgeschichte des Menschen&rsquo; (1865).