Georg von der Gabelentz

Who was Georg von der Gabelentz?

Hans Georg Conon von der Gabelentz was a German general linguist and sinologist. His Chinesische Grammatik, according to a critic, "remains until today recognized as probably the finest overall grammatical survey of the Classical Chinese language to date."

Gabelentz was born in Poschwitz, near Altenburg, Saxe-Altenburg. His father was the more renowned minister and linguist Hans Conon von der Gabelentz, an authority of the Manchu language. Gabelentz taught himself Dutch, Italian and Chinese during his gymnasium years.

From 1860 to 1864, following his father's steps, he studied law, administration, and linguistics at Jena. In 1864 he entered the civil service of Saxony at Dresden. He continued his study of oriental languages at Leipzig. He married Alexandra von Rothkirch in 1872. His father Hans died at the family castle of Lemnitz in 1874.

Gabelentz earned his doctoral from Dresden in 1876 with a translation of Zhou Dunyi's Taiji Tushuo. In 1878, a Professorship of Far Eastern Languages, the first of its kind in the German-speaking world, was created at the University of Leipzig, and Gabelentz was invited to fill it.