CURTIUS, GEORG

born April 16, 1820, Free City of Lbeck died Aug. 12, 1885, Hermsdorf, Pol., Russian Empire German language scholar, whose writings were fundamental to the study of the Greek language. He was the brother of the archaeologist Ernst Curtius. In 1845 Georg Curtius became a Privatdozent (student-paid lecturer) at Berlin and in that year published one of his first important works, Die Sprachvergleichung in ihrem Verhltnis zur classischen Philologie (Comparative Philology in Its Relationship to Classical Philology). It was followed by a work on the comparative grammar of Latin and Greek (1846). During his academic appointment at Prague (184954), he first published his Griechische Schulgrammatik (1852; Textbook of Greek Grammar), which went into its 23rd edition in 1902. While a professor at Kiel, (185461/62), he prepared his most influential work, Grundzge der griechischen Etymologie (185862; Fundamentals of Greek Etymology). In the later years of his professorship at the University of Leipzig (1861/621885), he spent much time attacking the newly ascendant Neogrammarian school of linguistics, which one of his most noted students, Karl Brugmann, helped to establish.