Johannes Friedrich

Friedrich, Johannes 

Born Aug. 27, 1893, in Leipzig; died Aug. 12, 1972, in West Berlin. German linguist. Academician of the Saxon Academy of Sciences at Leipzig.

Friedrich studied at the University of Leipzig, where he became a professor in 1929. He became a professor at the Free University of Berlin in 1950. Friedrich’s main works dealt with Indo-European linguistics and Hittology; he continued the work of B. Hrozný, who had deciphered the Hittite language. Friedrich conducted research on the Hurrian, Urartian, and Phoenician languages and wrote a grammar of the language of the Quiche Indians, which belongs to the Maya family of languages. Friedrich also wrote several overall surveys of the history of writing and the deciphering of various writing systems.

WORKS

Hethitisches Wörterbuch, parts 1–3. Heidelberg, 1957–66.
Héthitisches Elementarbuch, 2nd ed., vols. 1–2. Heidelberg, 1960–67.
Geschichte der Schrift. Heidelberg, 1966.
In Russian translation:
Kratkaia grammatika khettskogo iazyka. Moscow, 1952.
Deshifrovka zabytykhpis’mennostei i iazykov. Moscow, 1961.

REFERENCE

Festschrift J. Friedrich zum 65. Geburtstag. Heidelberg, 1959. (Contains bibliography.)