Benfey Theodor

Theodor Benfey (28 January 1809, Herten, - 26 June 1881, Göttingen) was a German philologist, a specialist in general linguistics and Indo-European languages. He studied classical languages and Sanskrit. His major work is “History of Linguistics and Oriental Philology in Germany” (1869).

In literary studies, Benfey is the founder of the so-called "comparative" or "loanword" theory, which he wrote in the preface to his translation of the Indian “Panchatantra” (1859). Benfey explained the presence of common motifs in both Indian and European folklore by the migration of stories. He considered Indian literature to be the only source of world folk tales.

Benfey rejected the idea of the Georgian language being related to other well-known language groups and considered Georgian to be a language of an independent group.

Literature: К о к к ь я р а  Дж., История Фольклористики в Европе, пер. с итал., М., 1960; Ц а г а р е л и  А. А., О грамматической литературе грузинского языка (Критический очерк), СПб., 1873.

E. Virsaladze

T. SaraSenidze

T. Uturgaidze