Nöldeke, Theodor (1836–1930)

Influential German Syriac scholar.brief

German Semitist. Nöldeke was born in Harburg (near Hamburg) on 2 March 1836 and died in Karlsruhe on 25 Dec. 1930. In 1853, he began the study of classical and Near Eastern languages in Göttingen, where he earned his doctoral degree in 1856. Starting in 1856, he undertook trips to Leipzig, Vienna, Leiden, Gotha, and Berlin, mainly to study Arabic and Turkish mss. Between 1858 and 1860, he was an assistant at the Königliche Bibliothek (Royal Library) in Berlin, and from 1860 at the University Library in Göttingen. In 1861, he became a Privatdozent (university lecturer) for Semitic languages at Göttingen. In 1864 followed his appointment as professor of Near Eastern languages at the University of Kiel, and in 1872 at the newly founded German University of Strasbourg in the Alsace. After his retirement, in 1906, he first stayed in Strasbourg, until 1920, and then moved to Karlsruhe.

In his earliest writings, Nöldeke dealt with the Qurʾān. His main publication in this field Geschichte des Qorans (History of the Qurʾān) first appeared in 1860 and provided a new, solid foundation for research on the Qurʾān. Other projects concerned Arabic poetry and fable research. In 1896, a study on the classical Arabic language appeared.

During his time in Kiel, where he also taught Old Testament and Sanskrit, and where the University Library had rich Syriac holdings, his interests in Aramaic became more prominent. It is in this period that he laid the foundations for his scholarly work on Syriac, Neo-Syriac, and Mandaic. As early as 1868, he published his Grammatik der neusyrischen Sprache am Urmia-See und in Kurdistan (Grammar of the Neo-Syriac language at Lake Urmia and in Kurdistan), which was based on the publications of the American missionaries. His Mandäische Grammatik (Mandaic Grammar) followed in 1875. On the basis of his extensive readings in Syriac literature, he wrote his Syriac Grammar, the first edition of which appeared in 1880 and the second expanded edition in 1898. Without going into too much linguistic detail, its focus is on syntax, amply documented with textual references. As such it remains a unique tool up to the present day. An English translation appeared in 1904. Even though the content of Syriac literature — to which he devoted a short survey essay in 1906 — did not strongly appeal to him, he devoted studies to individual works such as the Alexander Romance, Julian Romance, the Aḥiqar story, and Kalila and Dimna. In addition, his contributions to Syriac studies consisted of numerous essays and reviews.

A further important field of Nöldeke’s research was Iranian history and literature. In 1879, he published a translation from the Arabic Chronicle of al-Ṭabarī, entitled Geschichte der Perser und Araber zur Zeit der Sasaniden (History of the Persians and Arabs in the time of the Sasanians). His relevant contributions to the Encyclopaedia Britannica were reworked in German and published in 1887 as Aufsätze zur persischen Geschichte (Essays on Persian history). Additional fields of Nöldeke’s research were comparative Semitic linguistics and Old Testament.

Characteristic for Nöldeke are his sober assessment and his common sense. He saw himself as a ‘rationalist’, limiting himself to what could be ascertained and avoiding unprovable hypotheses or speculations. Eastern mysticism remained utterly foreign to him.

Nöldeke was among the most significant scholars of Near Eastern studies of his day even though due to poor health he never was able to visit the Middle East. Through him, Strasbourg became a center of Near Eastern studies in Germany. He had many students, including from abroad; he maintained contacts with many scholars and enjoyed international esteem. For his seventieth birthday, a Festschrift was published, of more than 1200 pages, to which 85 colleagues contributed from all over the world (with photograph). A second Festschrift followed in 1916 for his eightieth birthday.