Heimann Hariton Tiktin

Heimann Hariton Tiktin (August 9, 1850 – March 13, 1936), born Heimann Tiktin, was a Silesian-born Romanian linguist and academic, one of the founders of modern Romanian linguistics.

Biography Born in Breslau (part of Prussia at the time), into a rabbinic family which took its name from the shtetl of Tyktin, he was himself destined to a rabbinic vocation, and received a classical education. At the age of 18, Tiktin moved to Iaşi, where he married Amalia Mayerhoffer one year later, becoming a Romanian citizen in the early 1870s. He was also a friend of Nicolae Iorga and Gheorghe Kirileanu, being well acquainted with Titu Maiorescu, Grigore Tocilescu, Alexandru Philippide, A. C. Cuza, Ovid Densusianu, Alexandru Vlahuţă and Bogdan Petriceicu Hasdeu.

Tiktin received his Ph.D. from the University of Leipzig in 1884, with the thesis Studies on Romanian Philology. Beginning in 1889, he headed the linguistics section of the journal Albina.

In 1900, he converted to Christianity, taking the Christian name of Hariton. In 1904, Tiktin was appointed as a lecturer at the Humboldt University of Berlin. Two years later he founded a seminary of Romanian Linguistics inside the university, one sponsored by the Romanian state; it was the first Romanian-language teaching unit outside Romania. He returned to Romania in the late 1910s, being elected honorary member of the Romanian Academy in 1919.

Tiktin rejoined his daughter in Berlin during the late 1920s. He died there, but was buried in Iaşi.

Work Formed at the Neogrammarian School in Leipzig, Tiktin was especially interested in phonetics and grammar, which he analyzed from an historical perspective. Like his fellow Junimea members, he advocated phonetic transcription in creating the Romanian alphabet.

A frequent contributor to Junimea'''s Convorbiri Literare,

His work is considered seminal in the fields of grammar and etymology — Eugenio Coșeriu regarded Tiktin as a precursor of structural syntax, and Marius Sala considers that Tiktin created a method in the etymological research. Iorgu Iordan considers that his work, though not very sizeable, has a "definitive character, in the sense that following research did not challenge its essence".

Awards Special Prize of the Romanian Academy (1926) Golden Medal "Bene Merenti" of the Romanian Academy (1928)

Selected worksStudien zur rumänischen Philologie, I, Leipzig, 1884Studien zur rumänischen Philologie, II: Einfluss von ú und j auf benachbarte Laute, Leipzig, 1884 "Der Vokalismus des Rumänischen", in Zeitschrift der Romanischen Philologie, X, (1886) p. 246–255; XI, (1887) p. 56–85; XII, (1888) p. 220–241, 436-462 "Die rumänische Sprache", in Grundriss der romanischen Philologie, vol. I, Strassburg, 1888 "Der Konsonantismus des Rumänischen", in Zeitschrift der Romanischen Philologie, XXIV (1900) p. 319–328, 489-500 Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, vol. I (A – C), Bucharest, 1903Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, vol. II (D – O), Bucharest, 1911Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, vol. III (P – Z), Bucharest, 1925