55 Facts About Alexandru Philippide

Alexandru Philippide began publishing books on the Romanian language around the time he graduated from university, but it was not until he became a professor that he drew wider attention, thanks to a study of the language's history.

In 1898, Alexandru Philippide began work on a Romanian dictionary; by 1906, he and his team had completed the first four letters of the alphabet before others took over the task.

Alexandru Philippide was born in Barlad, Tutova County, Western Moldavia region; this region is coterminous the autonomous state of Moldavia, which had joined the United Principalities during the close of 1858, shortly ahead of the linguist's birth.

Alexandru Philippide was of Greek origin on his father's side, the family originating in Milies, a village at the foot of Mount Pelion in Thessaly.

Alexandru Philippide's great-grandfather's brother Daniel Philippidis, a historian and geographer, had settled in Iasi at the turn of the 19th century.

Alexandru Philippide attended primary school and Gheorghe Rosca Codreanu High School, both in his native city.

Alexandru Philippide was hired there to fill a vacancy caused by the death of an admired teacher, Alexandru Lambrior.

Alexandru Philippide ultimately became a professor at the literature faculty in Iasi in 1893, retaining the post until his death.

Alexandru Philippide was initially a substitute professor in the newly created department, rising to full professor in 1896.

In 1892, Alexandru Philippide undertook a thorough linguistic analysis to demonstrate that the Chronicle of Huru, a purported 13th-century document, was in fact a modern forgery.

Alexandru Philippide published in 1888 and Gramatica elementara a limbii romane in 1897; this was at a time when domestic scientifically composed textbooks were in scarce supply.

Alexandru Philippide believed that a satisfactory history of Romanian literature did not exist, and set out to correct this deficiency; according to philologist Eugen Negrici, his coverage of literary matters was below minimal, contrasting later approaches by Nicolae Cartojan.

Alexandru Philippide ascribed overarching importance in the creation and evolution of literary languages to popular writers.

Alexandru Philippide first learned of Lucretia when he saw her photograph in the hands of her brother, a student of his, and asked to meet her; a month and a half later, the two were married.

The elder Alexandru Philippide drew a sharp distinction between science, which he regarded as the province of manly, knowledge-seeking personalities; and literature, particularly poetry, which for him was an unserious activity for sensitive small minds.

Alexandru Philippide entered Junimea society in the early 1890s, during its gradual relocation to Bucharest, the national capital.

Alexandru Philippide was disgusted by the provincial airs of Iasi Junimism.

Alexandru Philippide did retain something of the conservative aesthetics promoted by Maiorescu, with which his tastes and sensibilities naturally fit in.

From 1900, Alexandru Philippide joined the 26-man team of editors at Convorbiri Literare.

In 1902, at Constantin Stere's urging, Alexandru Philippide joined the anti-Junimist National Liberal Party, but retained amiable or even friendly ties to Junimea figures, particularly Maiorescu.

An independent thinker and committed individualist, characterized by moral intransigence, a lucid critic of his era and of his country's negative aspects, Alexandru Philippide refused to be pigeonholed into a single ideological current, thus occupying a rare position for the time.

Alexandru Philippide's original thought combined tendencies normally thought of as contradictory: to his Junimist foundations were added small portions of socialist-tinted humanitarianism and Samanatorist-Poporanist nationalism, as well as a hefty dose of German notions.

Alexandru Philippide pursued two major tasks: the composition of a Romanian dictionary and the writing of the language's history from its origins to his day.

The project was sponsored by Maiorescu, who, like Alexandru Philippide, deplored the excessive tendency to ascribe Latin etymologies.

Alexandru Philippide managed to write definitions for letters A through D before having to interrupt his work; the manuscript covers 11,744 folio pages.

Alexandru Philippide put together a bibliography and plan for the whole dictionary and collected over 600,000 files.

The proximate cause for the end of Alexandru Philippide's involvement was that the contract had expired; however, disagreements had arisen over the years as well.

The academy and King Carol wanted a normal, functional, barebones dictionary, while Alexandru Philippide preferred an exhaustive compilation of the lexis, "a Littre for the Romanians".

Alongside Stere, Alexandru Philippide was a founding member and mentor of Viata Romaneasca magazine, which, according to his own linguistic norms, was written in conscious contrast to the official spelling directives from the academy.

Alexandru Philippide's writings were polemical, sharply attacking the leading figures of his time.

Alexandru Philippide derided a certain type of "specialist", and insisted that intellectuals needed to focus above all on enrichment through learning.

Alexandru Philippide urged the Viata Romaneasca journalists to write more comedy, arguing that life itself was already providing enough tragedies.

Alexandru Philippide suggests that his spirit, in order to face a society he often shunned, took refuge in humor.

Alexandru Philippide began by defending his student Giorge Pascu, the target of a number of attacks by Weigand.

Alexandru Philippide passionately underscored what he considered Weigand's shortcomings as a person, accusing him of lacking objectivity and even of intrigue, claiming he sent letters to magazines in order to stop publication of articles by professional rivals.

Alexandru Philippide made a trip to Western Europe in 1914, after which he remained in Iasi for the rest of his days.

Alexandru Philippide derided the Romanian Parliament as a gathering of "wretched undertakers", and railed against the Romanian Academy, which he saw as a hastily improvised imitation of prestigious Western academies, rife with imposture and improvisation, its members concerned with getting rich quickly rather than finding comfort in the rewards of philosophy.

Alexandru Philippide was proud to live far from the hustle and bustle of Bucharest, hoping to revive the Junimea-era glories of the country's former cultural capital that he inhabited.

In February 1916, after a student strike led by Ententists Gheorghe Cuza and Grigore T Popa, Philippide asked for leniency toward the offenders, and advised against closing down their student clubs.

The ramifications of this scandal prompted Stere to resign from his position as Rector, with Alexandru Philippide assigned to take over in a caretaker's position.

Alexandru Philippide spent the better part of his career on his second principal endeavor, a history of the language and an exploration of how it arose.

Alexandru Philippide continued to work on it throughout the war, and, by his own account, had once destroyed the family piano, using a hatchet, because the music was too distracting; his passion, Sevastos reports, made him look "possessed".

Alexandru Philippide brings critical analysis to the works of Herodotus, Polybius, Appian, Strabo, Ptolemy and Cassius Dio, focusing on their writings about Dacia and the northern Balkans.

Alexandru Philippide calculates the length and intensity of Romanization in various parts of the Balkans and documents the ethnic migrations that took place throughout the Middle Ages between the north and south banks of the Danube.

Alexandru Philippide made a correction to the Jirecek Line that was generally accepted by later linguists.

Alexandru Philippide suggests how the Eastern Romance languages were related at that point and how they broke apart into four distinct entities: Daco-Romanian, Aromanian, Megleno-Romanian and Istro-Romanian.

Alexandru Philippide used Weigand's linguistic atlas of the area, as well as many other sources on the four languages.

Alexandru Philippide's conclusions retain general acceptance: that commonalities between the two languages are not due to borrowing by the ancestors of the Romanians from early Albanian, or vice versa, but arise from an ancient substrate.

In terms of where ethnogenesis took place, Alexandru Philippide, based on historic and linguistic investigation, proposed that this happened after 268 AD in the Roman provinces south of the Danube: Pannonia Inferior, Moesia and Dardania, and not in Dacia Traiana.

Later research using discoveries in archaeology and numismatics that had not yet been made in Alexandru Philippide's day cast doubt on his hypothesis that the Roman population of Dacia withdrew south of the Danube during the reign of Emperor Gallienus.

Nevertheless, Alexandru Philippide was not strident in his conclusions, suggesting that a Romanized remnant stayed in Dacia even after 268, while in the parts of Romania that were not under Roman rule, there were people "not Romanized, but only Romanianized, and who live there, where they are now, since time immemorial".

Alexandru Philippide suffered an attack of paralysis in early 1926 and developed atherosclerosis in 1931.

Alexandru Philippide was instead said to have been much loved by his students.

Alexandru Philippide reported it as "not just shameful, but a sign of disease" that, of 150 teaching staff, only twelve had ever shown up.

Two Iasi sites associated with Alexandru Philippide are listed as historic monuments by Romania's Culture Ministry: his house, now a laboratory used by the city's medical university; and his grave in Eternitatea.