Editing Franz Bopp (section)

==Career==
In 1812, he went to [[Paris]] at the expense of the Bavarian government, with a view to devoting himself vigorously to the study of [[Sanskrit]]. There he enjoyed the society of such eminent men as [[Antoine-Léonard de Chézy]] (his primary instructor), [[Silvestre de Sacy]], [[Louis Mathieu Langlès]], and, above all [[Alexander Hamilton (linguist)|Alexander Hamilton]] (1762–1824), cousin of the [[Alexander Hamilton|American statesman of the same name]], who had acquired an acquaintance with Sanskrit when in [[India]] and had brought out, along with Langlès, a descriptive catalogue of the Sanskrit [[manuscript]]s of the Imperial Library.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911|p=240}}

In the library, Bopp had access not only to the rich collection of Sanskrit manuscripts (mostly brought from India by [[Jean François Pons]] in the early 18th century), but also to the Sanskrit books that had been issued from the [[Kolkata|Calcutta]] and [[Serampore]] presses.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911|p=240}} He spent five years of laborious study, almost living in the libraries of Paris and unmoved by the turmoils that agitated the world around him, including [[Napoleon]]'s escape, the [[Battle of Waterloo|Waterloo]] campaign and the [[Bourbon Restoration in France|Restoration]].{{sfn|Rines|1920|p=261}}

The first paper from his years of study in Paris appeared in [[Frankfurt am Main]] in 1816, under the title of ''Über das Konjugationssystem der Sanskritsprache in Vergleichung mit jenem der griechischen, lateinischen, persischen und germanischen Sprache (On the Conjugation System of Sanskrit in comparison with that of Greek, Latin, Persian and Germanic)'', to which Windischmann contributed a preface. In this first book, Bopp entered at once the path on which he would focus the philological researches of his whole subsequent life. His task was not to point out the similarity of Sanskrit with [[Persian language|Persian]], [[Greek language|Greek]], [[Latin]] or [[German language|German]], for previous scholars had long established that, but he aimed to trace the postulated common origin of the languages' [[grammar|grammatical]] forms, of their [[inflection]]s from composition. This was something no predecessor had attempted. By a [[historical analysis]] of those forms, as applied to the verb, he furnished the first trustworthy materials for a [[historical linguistics|history of the languages]] compared.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911|p=240}}

After a brief sojourn in Germany, Bopp travelled to London where he made the acquaintance of [[Sir Charles Wilkins]] and [[Henry Thomas Colebrooke]]. He also became friends with [[Wilhelm von Humboldt]], the [[Prussia]]n ambassador at the [[Court of St. James's]], to whom he taught Sanskrit. He brought out, in the ''Annals of Oriental Literature'' (London, 1820), an essay entitled "Analytical Comparison of the Sanskrit, Greek, Latin and Teutonic Languages" in which he extended to all parts of grammar what he had done in his first book for the verb alone. He had previously published a critical edition, with a Latin translation and notes, of the story of Nala and Damayanti (London, 1819), the most beautiful episode of the ''[[Mahabharata]]''. Other episodes of the ''Mahabharata'', ''[[Indralokâgama]]'', and three others (Berlin, 1824); ''Diluvium'', and three others (Berlin, 1829); a new edition of Nala (Berlin, 1832) followed in due course, all of which, with [[August Wilhelm von Schlegel]]'s edition of the ''[[Bhagavad Gita]]'' (1823), proved excellent aids in initiating the early student into the reading of Sanskrit texts. On the publication, in Calcutta, of the whole ''Mahabharata'', Bopp discontinued editing Sanskrit texts and confined himself thenceforth exclusively to grammatical investigations.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911|p=240}}

After a short residence at [[University of Göttingen|Göttingen]], Bopp gained, on the recommendation of Humboldt, appointment to the chair of Sanskrit and [[comparative grammar]] at the [[University of Berlin]] in 1821, which he occupied for the rest of his life. He also became a member of the [[Prussian Academy of Sciences|Royal Prussian Academy]] the following year.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911|pp=240–241}}

In 1827, he published his ''Ausführliches Lehrgebäude der Sanskritsprache'' (''Detailed System of the Sanskrit Language''), on which he had worked since 1821. Bopp started work on a new edition in Latin, for the following year, completed in 1832; a shorter grammar appeared in 1834. At the same time he compiled a ''Sanskrit and Latin Glossary'' (1830), in which, more especially in the second and third editions (1847 and 1868–71), he also took account of the cognate languages. His chief activity, however, centered on the elaboration of his ''Comparative Grammar'', which appeared in six parts at considerable intervals (Berlin, 1833, 1835, 1842, 1847, 1849, 1852), under the title ''Vergleichende Grammatik des Sanskrit, Zend, Griechischen, Lateinischen, Litthauischen, Altslawischen, Gotischen und Deutschen'' (''Comparative Grammar of Sanskrit, Zend [Avestan], Greek, Latin, Lithuanian, Old Slavonic, Gothic and German'').{{sfn|Chisholm|1911|p=241}}

How carefully Bopp matured this work emerges from the series of monographs printed in the ''Transactions of the Berlin Academy'' (1824–1831), which preceded it.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911|p=241}} They bear the general title ''Vergleichende Zergliederung des Sanskrits und der mit ihm verwandten Sprachen (Comparative Analysis of Sanskrit and its related Languages)''.{{sfn|Rines|1920|p=262}} Two other essays (on the ''Numerals'', 1835) followed the publication of the first part of the ''Comparative Grammar''. [[Proto-Slavic|Old Slavonian]] began to take its stand among the languages compared from the second part onwards. [[Edward Backhouse Eastwick|E. B. Eastwick]] translated the work into English in 1845. A second German edition, thoroughly revised (1856–1861), also covered Old [[Armenian language|Armenian]].{{sfn|Chisholm|1911|p=241}}

In his ''Comparative Grammar'' Bopp set himself a threefold task:
#to give a description of the original grammatical structure of the languages as deduced from their inter-comparison.
#to trace their [[phonetic]] laws.
#to investigate the origin of their grammatical forms.

The first and second points remained dependent upon the third. As Bopp based his research on the best available sources and incorporated every new item of information that came to light, his work continued to widen and deepen in the making, as can be witnessed from his monographs on the vowel system in the [[Teutonic languages]] (1836), on the [[Celtic language]]s (1839), on the [[Old Prussian language|Old Prussian]] (1853) and [[Albanian language]]s (''Über das Albanesische in seinen verwandtschaftlichen Beziehungen'', Vienna, 1854), on the [[stress (phonology)|accent]] in Sanskrit and Greek (1854), on the relationship of the [[Malayo-Polynesian languages|Malayo-Polynesian]] to the Indo-European languages (1840), and on the [[Caucasian language]]s (1846). In the last two, the impetus of his genius led him on a wrong track.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911|p=241}} He is the first philologist to prove [[Albanian language|Albanian]] as a separate branch of [[Indo-European languages|Indo-European]].<ref>{{cite web| publisher=Dielli| location=New York| language=sq| url=http://gazetadielli.com/histori-cfare-ka-ndodhur-me-22-tetor/| title=Histori: Çfarë ka ndodhur më 22 tetor?|trans-title=History: what happened on 22 October?| first=Astrit| last=Lulushi|date=22 October 2013}}</ref> Bopp was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the [[American Academy of Arts and Sciences]] in 1855<ref name=AAAS>{{cite web|title=Book of Members, 1780–2010: Chapter B|url=http://www.amacad.org/publications/BookofMembers/ChapterB.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060618085806/http://amacad.org/publications/BookofMembers/ChapterB.pdf |archive-date=2006-06-18 |url-status=live|publisher=American Academy of Arts and Sciences|access-date=15 September 2016}}</ref> and an international member of the [[American Philosophical Society]] in 1863.<ref>{{cite web |title=Franz Bopp |url=https://search.amphilsoc.org/memhist/search?creator=bopp+franz&title=&subject=&subdiv=&mem=&year=&year-max=&dead=&keyword=&smode=advanced |website=American Philosophical Society Member History Database |access-date=16 February 2021}}</ref>