In Mainz (Germany) Franz Bopp was born, German linguist, albanologist, the main founder of Indo-European historical comparative linguistics, professor at the University of Berlin. He also studied the Albanian language in the field of comparative Indo-European linguistics. Since 1843, in a statement at the Berlin Academy, he analyzed the numerals and pronouns of the Albanian language and showed their Indo-European character. In 1854 he published the study “Über das Albanesische in seinen verwandt-schaftlichen Beziehungen” (“On the Albanian language in its African connections”), where he made a more or less comprehensive historical analysis of the grammatical structure and some elements of the Albanian language lexicon. Franz Bopp discovered a number of common elements of Albanian with other Indo-European languages and conclusively proved that it belongs to the Indo-European language family, where it occupies a special place as a separate language. The work of Franz Bopp was a cornerstone in the study of the history of the Albanian language. (In the photo: Franz Bopp)
Text: Albanian encyclopedic dictionary – Vol. 1, Academy of Sciences of Albania, “Kristalina-KH”, Tirana, 2008, page 279.
Graphic processing: AHCF
