Joachim Heinrich Campe 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...

 writer, 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....

, educator and publisher.

Life

The son of a merchant, Campe was educated at Helmstedt

University of Helmstedt

The University of Helmstedt, official Latin name: Academia Julia , was a university in Helmstedt in the Duchy of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel that existed from 1576 until 1810....

 and Halle

University of Halle-Wittenberg

The Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg , also referred to as MLU, is a public, research-oriented university in the cities of Halle and Wittenberg within Saxony-Anhalt, Germany...

. He was tutor to the von Humboldt family, and briefly tutored Alexander

Alexander von Humboldt

Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich Alexander Freiherr von Humboldt was a German naturalist and explorer, and the younger brother of the Prussian minister, philosopher and linguist Wilhelm von Humboldt...

 and 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...

 from 1775. In 1776 he joined Johann Bernhard Basedow

Johann Bernhard Basedow

Johann Bernhard Basedow was a German educational reformer, teacher and writer. He founded the Philanthropinum, a short-lived but influential progressive school in Dessau, and was the author of "Elementarwerk", a popular illustrated textbook for children.-Early years:Basedow was born in Hamburg,...

's Dessau Philanthropinum

Philanthropinum

The Philanthropinum was a reformist, progressive school in Dessau, Germany from 1774–93.-History:...

, though after disagreements left before a year was up. Opening his own institute in Hamburg

Hamburg

-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...

 in 1777, he retired from it in 1782. His proposals for reform of the Braunschweig

Braunschweig

Braunschweig , is a city of 247,400 people, located in the federal-state of Lower Saxony, Germany. It is located north of the Harz mountains at the farthest navigable point of the Oker river, which connects to the North Sea via the rivers Aller and Weser....

school system were defeated through conservative opposition.

Language purism

Campe developed approx. 11,500 translations for foreign words, of which about 300 survived. They include:

• altertümlich (for antik)
• Erdgeschoss (Parterre)
• Esslust (Appetit)
• Feingefühl (Takt)
• fortschrittlich (progressiv)
• herkömmlich (konventionell)
• Hochschule (Universität)
• Lehrgang (Kursus)
• Randbemerkung (Glosse)
• Streitgespräch (Debatte)
• tatsächlich (faktisch)
• Voraussage (Prophezeiung)
• Wust (Chaos)
• Zerrbild (Karikatur)

Among the translations that did not survive are:

• Zwangsgläubiger (Katholik)
• Freigläubiger (Protestant)
• Heiltümelei (Reliquie)
• Menschenschlachter (Soldat)
• Meuchelpuffer (Pistole)

Works

• Philosophische Gespräche über die unmittelbare Bekanntmachung der Religion und über einige unzulängliche Beweisarten derselben (1773)
• Allgemeine Revision des gesamten Schul- und Erziehungswesens von einer Gesellschaft praktischer Erzieher (1785)
• Väterlicher Rath für meine Tochter (1789)
• Briefe aus Paris (1790)
• Geschichte der französischen Staatsumwälzung (1792)
• Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache (1807 ff.)
• Die Entdeckung von Amerika (1808)
• Robinson der Jüngere (1808)

External links

• Texts by Joachim Heinrich Campe (Gutenberg-DE Project)