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Karl Vollers

كارل فولرس

Notable figure 1857–1909 · Source: Najib al-Aqiqi, al-Mustashriqun, 3rd ed. (Cairo: Dar al-Maʿarif, 1964), vol. 2, p. 633; Yahya Murad, Muʿjam asmaʾ al-mustashriqin, p. 809 · Second source: Bibliothèque nationale de France, authority record: Vollers, Karl (1857-1909)

From Germany; worked in Egypt

Field: Phonetics and dialects

Affiliation

Author of Volkssprache und Schriftsprache (1906)

Biography

Born in Hooksiel in northern Germany, he succeeded Spitta at the Khedivial Library in Cairo (1886) and became professor of Oriental languages at Jena (1896). He edited the Diwan of al-Mutalammis, parts of Ibn Duqmaq's al-Intisar and of Ibn Saʿid's al-Mughrib fi hula al-Maghrib, and a catalogue of the Oriental manuscripts of Leipzig University Library (1906). In Volkssprache und Schriftsprache im alten Arabien (Strasbourg, 1906) he argued that the Qurʾan was first delivered in the Hijazi vernacular and later brought into line with the language of poetry.