Kuhn, Adalbert

Adalbert Kuhn, in full Franz Felix Adalbert Kuhn, (born Nov. 19, 1812, Königsberg, Prussia [now Kaliningrad, Russia]—died May 5, 1881, Berlin, Ger.), German language scholar and folklorist who founded a new school of comparative mythology based on comparative philology. He was associated with the Kollnisches Gymnasium, Berlin, from 1841 and became its director in 1870.

Kuhn first devoted himself to the study of German stories and legends, but he established his reputation with research into the language and history of the Indo-European peoples as a whole. In his Zur ältesten Geschichte der indogermanischen Völker (1845; “On the Most Ancient History of the Indo-European Peoples”) he gave an account of the earliest Indo-European peoples before their separation into different families, comparing and analyzing the original meaning of the words and stems common to the different languages. His other works include Mythologische Studien, 2 vol. (1886–1912; “Mythological Studies”).

Together with Theodor Aufrecht (1822–1907) he launched the Zeitschrift für vergleichende Sprachforschung (“Journal of Comparative Linguistic Research”) in 1852, though Aufrecht soon relinquished his coeditorship. Until 1988, when it was renamed Historische Sprachwissenschaft (“Historical Linguistics”), the journal was usually referred to as “Kahn’s Zeitschrift,” or “Kahn’s journal.”