August Ferdinand Bernhardi (24 June 1769 in 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...

 – 1 June 1820 in Berlin) was a German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 linguist

Linguistics

Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....

 and writer

Writer

A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....

.

After studying philosophy

Philosophy

Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...

 in Halle an der Saale, in 1791 Bernhardi became a teacher at the Friedrichwerderschen Gymnasium in Berlin and in 1808 became the institution's headmaster. In 1815 he joined the Consistory

Consistory

-Antiquity:Originally, the Latin word consistorium meant simply 'sitting together', just as the Greek synedrion ....

 and the Academic Examination Committee. Shortly before his death he was named the headmaster of the Friedrich Wilhelms Gymnasium.

In 1799 Bernhardi married Sophie Tieck, the younger sister of Ludwig Tieck

Ludwig Tieck

Johann Ludwig Tieck was a German poet, translator, editor, novelist, writer of Novellen, and critic, who was one of the founding fathers of the Romantic movement of the late 18th and early 19th centuries.-Early life:...

, however the marriage broke down in 1805. This relationship brought him into Romantic

Romanticism

Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...

 circles, associated with people such as Friedrich and August Wilhelm Schlegel, Ludwig Tieck and others. This prompted him to write and publish works on linguistics, as well as satirical writings about Berlin society and literary life. Bernhardi also contributed to literary journals and almanac

Almanac

An almanac is an annual publication that includes information such as weather forecasts, farmers' planting dates, and tide tables, containing tabular information in a particular field or fields often arranged according to the calendar etc...

s (such as Athenäum

Athenaeum (literary journal)

The Athenaeum was a literary journal started in 1798 by August Wilhelm and Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel. It is considered to be the founding publication of German Romanticism.-Contributors:...

and Europa), and wrote some stories and poems in the romantic style, the most well-known of which is Der Löwe in Florenz (The Lion in Florence).

Bernhardi, however, achieved renown and recognition first and foremost through his linguistic research and had significant influence on famous linguists such as Wilhelm von Humboldt

Wilhelm von Humboldt

Friedrich Wilhelm Christian Karl Ferdinand Freiherr von Humboldt was a German philosopher, government functionary, diplomat, and founder of Humboldt Universität. He is especially remembered as a linguist who made important contributions to the philosophy of language and to the theory and practice...

 and Franz Bopp

Franz Bopp

Franz Bopp was a German linguist known for extensive comparative work on Indo-European languages.-Biography:...

.

He was the father of the historian Theodor von Bernhardi and grandfather of the Prussian general Friedrich von Bernhardi

Friedrich von Bernhardi

Friedrich Adolf Julius von Bernhardi was a Prussian general and military historian. He was one of the best-selling authors prior to World War I. A militarist, he is perhaps best known for his bellicose book Deutschland und der Nächste Krieg , printed in 1911...

.

Works

• Vollständige lateinische Grammatik (Complete Latin Grammar) 1795-1797
• Vollständige griechische Grammatik (Complete Greek Grammar) 1797
• Bambocciaden (Bambocciatas) 1797-1800
• Sprachlehre (Grammar) 1801-1803
• Anfangsgründe der Sprachwissenschaft (Fundamentals of Linguistics) 1805
• Die Versuche und Hindernisse Karls (The Trials and Tribulations of Karl) 1808
• Ansichten über die Organisation der gelehrten Schulen (Observations on the Organisation of Academic Schools) 1818

Literature

• Bräuer, Joachim (1921): August Friedrich Bernhardi, der Sprachphilosoph der älteren Romantik (August Friedrich Bernhardi, the Linguistic Thinker of the Early Romantics)
• Blücher, Max (1923): A. F. Bernhardis Leben und Schriften (A. F. Bernhardi's Life and Works)
• Horstmann, Wilhelm (1926): August Ferdinand Bernhardi 1769-1820 als Pädagoge (August Ferdinand Bernhardi 1769-1820 as a Pedagogue)
• Fiesel, Eva (1927): Die Sprachphilosophie der deutschen Romantik (The Linguistics Thoughts of the German Romantics)
• Wild-Schedlbauer, Roswitha (1990): Einleitung zu A. F. Bernhardi (Introduction to A. F. Bernhardi) ISBN 3-7728-0786-0
• Hurch, Bernhard (2000): Bernhardi und Humboldt und die Asymmetrie der Prosodie (Bernhardi and Humboldt and the Asymmetry of Prosody)

External links

Text of Der Löwe in Florenz (The Lion in Florence)