Polotsk, Hans

Polotsk was born in Zurich, Switzerland into a Jewish family of immigrants from Russia. He spent his childhood in Berlin , began to study Egyptology and Semitology at the universities of Berlin and Gottingen . In Berlin, Hans Polotsky was a student of the famous Egyptologist Kurt Zete . He was engaged in research work: in 1926-1931, in Gottingen, he took part in a university project for a new translation of the text of the Septuagint . In 1929 he received the degree of Doctor of Science for studying Egyptian texts of the XI dynasty ( German: Zu den Inschriften der 11. Dynastie ). In 1931–1934, in collaboration with the church historian and kontologist Karl Schmidt, he worked in Berlin to translate Coptic Manichaean texts. After the Nazis came to power in Germany, he moved to Palestine , where he got a job as a teacher and researcher at the University of Jerusalem. Professor of Semitic and Egyptian linguistics at the University of Jerusalem since 1948.

Hans Polotsky died in Jerusalem in 1991.

The main work of Hans Polotsky is considered to be the fundamental work "Studies of the syntax of the Coptic language" ( Fr. Études de syntaxe copte ), dedicated to the Coptic and early ancient Egyptian languages, published in 1944. The works of Polotsk devoted to studies of the times of ancient Egyptian verbs (the topic is very abstract, since the times of verbs changed by replacing the vowels that were dropped when writing) became so accepted by the linguistic community that they got the name Polotsky's Theory .

Hans Polotsky is the founder and head of the Jerusalem School of Structural Syntactic Analysis , close to the Ferdinand de Saussure Linguistic School. Being recognized as an authority in ancient Egyptian, Coptic, Ethiopian, Iranian, Semitic, Ancient Greek, Latin, and also modern European languages ​​(including Russian), Polotsky could conduct a comparative analysis of the syntactic structures of different, sometimes distant languages ​​belonging to different language families. Particularly significant are his works in such specific areas as the grammar of the Gourage language (1938), the syntax of Coptic (1944) and Novi Syriac (1961) languages, the history of the Ancient Egyptian language (1966), and others ^[4] .

At the University of Jerusalem, the student of Polotsk was Miriam Lihtheim , a subsequently known Egyptologist and researcher of ancient Egyptian literature.

• 1961 -
• 1966 - Israel Prize ^[5]
• 1982 - Harvey Prize
• Polotsk was a member of the Academy of Sciences of Israel, Denmark, the Netherlands and several other academies and scientific societies.
• Honorary Doctor of several foreign universities

• (with: Carl Schmidt) Ein Mani-Fund in Ägypten, Original-Schriften des Mani und seiner Schüler . Berlin: Akademie der Wissenschaften 1933.
• "Manichäische Studien", in: Le Muséon 46, 1933, pp. 247-271.
• (ed.) Manichäische Homilien . Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer 1934.
• Manichäische Handschriften der Staatlichen Museen Berlin , W. Kohlhammer Stuttgart: 1935
• "Études de grammaire gouragué", in: Bulletin de la Societé de Linguistique de Paris 39, 1938, pp. 137–175
• Études de syntaxe copte , Publications de la Société d'Archéologie Copte. Le Caire, 1944
• "Notes on Gurage Grammar", Israel Oriental Society, No. 2, 1951
• "Syntaxe amharique et syntaxe turque", in: Atti del Convegno Internazionale di Studi Etiopici , Roma (Acc. Naz. Dei Lincei) 1960 :, pp. 117-121
• "Studies in Modern Syriac", in Journal of Semitic Studies 6, 1961, pp. 1–32
• "Aramaic, Syriac, and Ge'ez", in: Journal of Semitic Studies 9, 1964, pp. 1–10
• "Egyptian Tenses", The Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities , Vol. II, No. 5. 1965
• EY Kutscher (ed.), Collected Papers by HJ Polotsky Magnes Press, Jerusalem 1971
• "Les transpositions du verbe en égyptien classique", in Israel Oriental Studies 6, 1976, pp. 1–50
• "A Point of Arabic Syntax: The Indirect Attribute", in Israel Oriental Studies 8, 1978, pp. 159–174.
• "Verbs with two Objects in Modern Syriac (Urmi)", in Israel Oriental Studies 9, 1979, pp. 204–227.
• Grundlagen des koptischen Satzbaus , Scholars Press, Decatur, Ga., 1987, ISBN 1-55540-076-0
• "Incorporation in Modern Syriac", in G. Goldenberg & Sh. Raz (eds.), Semitic and Cushitic studies . Harrassowitz Wiesbaden 1994, pp. 90-102.
• "Notes on Neo-Syriac Grammar", in Israel Oriental Studies 16, 1996, pp. 11–48.

• Erdal, M. (1994). "Hans Jakob Polotsky (1905-1991): an appreciation", in: Mediterranean language review , 8, pp. 1–9.
• Hopkins, S. (1992/3). "HJ Polotsky 1905-1991", in: Rassegna di Studi Etiopici , 34, pp. 115-125.
• Osing, J. (1993). "Hans Jakob Polotsky: 13. September 1905 - 10. August 1991", in: Zeitschrift für ägyptische Sprache und Altertumskunde 120/1, pp. iii-v.
• Shisha-Halevy, Ariel (1992). "In memoriam Hans Jakob Polotsky (1905-1991)", in: Orientalia (nova series) 61, pp. 208–213.
• Shisha-Halevy, Ariel (2006). "HJ Polotsky Structuralist", in: After Polotsky: Proceedings of the Colloquium, Bad Honnef, September 2005 ( Lingua Aegyptia 14), pp. 1–8.
• Shisha-Halevy, Ariel & Goldenberg, Gideon (2007). "HJ Polotsky", in: Lexicon Grammaticorum, 2nd ed., (Ed. H. Stammerjohann).
• Shivtiel, A. (1994). "Polotsky Hans (Hayyim) Jacob (1905-91)", in: The encyclopedia of language and linguistics . Oxford: Pergamon, vol. 6, pp. 3226–3227
• Edward Ullendorff (ed .; 1992). HJ Polotsky (1905-1991): Ausgewählte Briefe (Äthiopistische Forschungen, Band 34). Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag. ISBN 3-515-06066-9
• Ullendorff, Edward (1994). "HJ Polotsky (1905-1991): Linguistic Genius", in: Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Series 3, 4, 1, pp. 3-13. [= E. Ullendorff, From Emperor Haile Selassie to HJ Polotsky . Harrassowitz: Wiesbaden 1995, pp. 165–175]