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Wilhelm Heinrich Immanuel Bleek (March 8, 1827 - August 17, 1875) was a German linguist. His great work was A Comparative Grammar of South African Languages.
Wilhelm Bleek was born in Berlin (Kingdom of Prussia).
From 1845 to 48 he studied theology in Bonn and then went to Berlin to study Hebrew. He was a student of Carl R. Lepsius. His doctoral thesis 1851 dealt with noun classes. 1853 he went to Africa to explore Khoisan- and Bantu languages. He wrote a grammar of isiZulu. In his major work Comparative Grammar he studies noun prefixes of the Bantu languages. He introduced a numbering system for the classes which is still used today. In age of 48 he died of an illness in a hospital of Cape Town (Cape Colony). After his death his daughter Dorothea together with his wife's sister Lucy Lloyd continued his work. His daughter died in 1948.
Bibliography
- Handbook of African, Australian and Polynesian Philology. (3vols.) Cape Town - London, (1858-63)
- A Comparative Grammar of South African Languages. London, Trübner & Co. (1862: Part I; 1869: Part II)
- Reynard the Fox in South Africa; or Hottentot Fables and Tales. (Chiefly translated from original manuscripts in the library of His Excellency Sir George Grey) London, Trübner & Co. (1864)
- Über den Ursprung der Sprache. (Herausgegeben mit einem Vorwort von Dr. Ernst Haeckel.) Weimar, H. Böhlau (1868)
- Specimens of Bushman Folklore. (by Wilhelm Bleek and Lucy Lloyd) London, G. Allen (1911)
Literature references
- Otto H. Spohr: Wilhelm Heinrich Immanuel Bleek, a bio-bibliographical sketch. Cape Town, University of Cape Town Libraries (1962)
- Walter Köppe: Philologie im südlichen Afrika: Wilhelm Heinrich Immanuel Bleek (1827-1875). Zeitschrift für Germanistik, Neue Folge 3 (1998)
- Konrad Körner: Linguistics and evolution theory. (Three essays by August Schleicher, Ernst Haeckel and Wilhelm Bleek) Amsterdam-Philadelphia, John Benjamins Publishing Company (1983)
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