August Leskien
August Leskien (8 July 1840 – 20 September 1916) was a German linguist active in the field of comparative linguistics, particularly relating to the Baltic and Slavic languages.
Biography
Leskien was born in Kiel. He studied philology at the universities of Kiel and Leipzig, receiving his doctorate from the latter in 1864. He taught Latin and Ancient Greek at the Thomasschule zu Leipzig from 1864 to 1866. In 1866 he began studying comparative linguistics under August Schleicher at the University of Jena. He completed his habilitation in 1867 and went on to lecture at the University of Göttingen.
He was appointed as the extraordinary (German: außerordentlicher) professor of comparative linguistics and Sanskrit at Jena in 1868. Two years later he was named as the extraordinary professor of Slavic philology at the University of Leipzig, where he delivered the first course there in Slavic languages. He was promoted to full (German: ordentlicher) professorship in 1876 and remained in the position until 1915.
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