Kārlis Mīlenbahs
Kārlis Mīlenbahs (his surname was formerly also written as
Mühlenbach,
Mühlenbachs,
Mǖlenbachs or
Mīlenbachs) (18 January 1853 in
Courland,
Russian Empire – 27 March 1916 in
Võru,
Livonia,
Russian Empire) was the first native speaker of
Latvian to devote his career to linguistics. Mīlenbahs studied classical
philology at the
University of Dorpat (he did not remain at the university because of his poverty). He was the author of over a hundred scholarly articles on the language in Latvian,
Russian, and
German, but his main achievement was the Latvian-German dictionary that remains the most important lexicographical work on Latvian (the first four volumes were printed posthumously between 1923 and 1932 in
Riga; the dictionary was completed and expanded by
Jānis Endzelīns, with whom Mīlenbahs co-wrote other works, including a major Latvian grammar). His polemics with the poet
Rainis led to an important essay on literary Latvian published in 1909, and he was also a translator of the ''
Odyssey'' (1890–95).
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