Chair of Comparative Philology

The Subject

About half of the world's population speaks an Indo-European language. Now spread all over the globe, this language family has developed from a single pre-historic language spoken before the invention of writing.

Historical Indo-European Linguistics (also called Comparative Philology) studies the Indo-European daughter languages and reconstructs their common ancestor, called Proto-Indo-European (PIE), in various aspects (phonological system, morphology, syntax, lexicon). At the same time, many linguistic features of the individual daughter languages can be explained on the basis of PIE and its subsequent developments into the Germanic languages, Italic (including Romance), Balto-Slavic, Indo-Iranian, Celtic languages, Greek, Anatolian (Hittite, etc.), Albanian, and Tocharian. All this is possible because linguistic change is not arbitrary, but based on general principles best visible in phonology and morphology.

The philological treatment of Indo-European languages also leads to insights into the cultural background of the respective language community (history, social structure, religion, philosophy, poetry, etc.).

Indo-European Linguistics is an interdisciplinary subject, dealing with an area ranging from Northern Europe, the Mediterranean, Ancient Anatolia and Mesopotamiato India and West China and with language records going back as far as the 2nd millenium BC. As a branch of linguistics, it applies linguistic theory/theories to ancient, medieval and early modern language data and provides a wealth of information for theories of language change and language typology. In Würzburg, Indo-European Linguistics participates in the Master's program "General and Applied Linguistics" and collaborates closely with other philological disciplines.

Address

Institut für Altertumswissenschaften
Lehrstuhl für Vergleichende Sprachwissenschaft
Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg
Oswald-Külpe-Weg 84
97074 Würzburg
Phone: +49 (0)931 31 82826
Mail: vgsp@uni-wuerzburg.de

Opening hours

Office

Mon – Fr

8:15 to 12:15

The office will be closed from 19 to 29.09.2023.

Library

Monday	closed
Tuesday	13:00 to 16:30
Wednesday	closed
Thursday	12:00 to 16:00
Friday	closed

News

12–14.10.2023 — Conference “Synchronic and diachronic issues of Postclassical Greek”, mitorganisiert von Prof. Dr. Daniel Kölligan

Prof. Dr. Daniel Kölligan is co-organising the conference "Synchronic and diachronic issues of Postclassical Greek" (TCGLL1 - Trends in Classics - Greek & Latin Linguistics 1), which will take place at the University of Thessaloniki from 12 to 14 October 2023.

Conference page (VGSP Würzburg)

Conference page (University of Thessaloniki)

12-14.09.2023 - Würzburg Chair at the Cologne Working Conference of the Society for Indo-European Studies

The Würzburg Chair is well represented at the next working conference of the Society for Indo-European Studies from 12.09 to 14.09 at the University of Cologne: Prof. Dr. Daniel Kölligan on "The development of the Middle Armenian present tense marker kow", Jan-Niklas Linnemeier on " PIE analogies that just don't work" and Natalie Korobzow on "The significance of open data in Historical-Comparative Linguistics."

Conference page

Society for Indo-European Studies

04.09.2023 - Prof. Dr. Daniel Kölligan at the 26th International Conference on Historical Linguistics

At the 26th International Conference on Historical Linguistics at the University of Heidelberg (from 04 to 08.09.2023), Prof. Dr. Daniel Kölliganhosts a workshop on "Conceptual metaphors in a comparative and diachronic perspective" together with Dr. Lucien van Beek.

Conference page

01.09.2023 — Würzburg PhD student at Conference for Scandinavian Studies

On 01.09.2023 the Würzburg PhD student Gudrun Samberger will give a lecture at the 18th Interregional Conference for PhD students in Scandinavian Studies (from 01 to 02 Sept. 2023).

Conference page

30-31.08.2023 - Prof. Dr. Daniel Kölligan at the 56th annual meeting of the Societas Linguistica Europaea

At the 56th annual meeting of the SLE, Prof. Dr. Daniel Kölligan will speak on "Translation as diagnostics" on 30.08.2023 and on 31.08.2023 together with Prof. Dr. Martin Kümmel and Prof. Dr. Björn Wiemer on "Hypoanalysis as a distinct type of language change (and certain futures as paradigm cases)."

Conference page

Further news…

Lectures and Events

Oct 23

Herrscherliche Bankette der Spätantike – Symbolik, Tradition und Neuerung
Prof. Dr. Konrad Vössing (Universität Bonn)

Nov 06

Ein Haus und viele Gäste: Das Gelehrtenbankett des Athenaios als Modell des zeitgenössischen Imperiums
Prof. Dr. Ulrike Egelhaaf-Gaiser (Universität Göttingen)

Nov 20

Kommensalität von Peergroups im ‚klassischen‘ Altertum. Schrift- und Bildquellen im Vergleich
Prof. Dr. Jochen Griesbach-Scriba (Universität Würzburg)

Dec 04

The banquet in Celtic tradition
Dr. Mark Darling (Universität Oxford/Würzburg)

Recent publications

Dieu, Éric. 2023. Rezension zu Götz Keydana, Wolfgang Hock et Paul Widmer (éd.), Comparison and Gradation in Indo-European. Berlin - Boston, Mouton De Gruyter (The Mouton Handbooks of Indo-European Typology, 1), 2021. In: Bulletin de la Société de Linguistique de Paris, 117/2, 2022 [2023], 164-169.

Dieu, Éric. 2023. Rezension zu Bernhard Löschhorn, Probleme des Altattischen. Untersuchungen zur altattischen Schriftgeschichte, zur Laut- und Formenlehre, unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der poetischen ᾱ, Innsbrucker Beiträge zur Sprachwissenschaft 162 (IBS 162). Institut für Sprachen und Literaturen der Universität Innsbruck, Innsbruck, 2019. In: Kratylos, 67, 2022 [2023], 74-79.

Dieu, Éric. 2023. Rezension zu Juan Rodríguez Somolinos, Helena Rodríguez Somolinos, Elvira Gangutia Elícegui (coord.), Diccionario Griego-Español. Volumen VIII (ἔξαυρος - ἐπισκήνωσις), redactado bajo la direcciόn de Francisco R. Adrados, Madrid, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 2019. In: Revue de philologie, 95/2, 2021 [2023], 250-251.