Austrian Anthropologists Work on Arabic and Swahili Dialects

A set of books I would like to own, but probably never will...they cost over $1600.

Description: Volume I, " Die Somali-Sprache, Texte" , viii, 287 pp.; double column / Volume II: "Die Somali-Sprache", vii, 126 pp./ Volume III: "Der Mehri- und Soqotri-Sprache", ix, 168 pp./ Volume VII: "Die Mehri-Und Soqotri-Sprache" ix, 168 pp., index/ Volume VIII: "Der Vulgarabische Dialekt Im Dofar (Zfar)" ix, 144 pp., index/ Volume IX: "Mehri- Und Hadrami-Texte, Gesammelt Im Jahre 1902 In Gischin", xxviii, 200 pp., index, contemporary hard boards, titles printed on front cover. Set published between 1900 & 1911. Volumes in Very good condition. Over a period of eleven years these volumes were published by the Austrian Royal Academy. The work is a series of field studies by leading Austrian scholars of the local Arabic and Swahili dialects in Oman, Yemen and Somalia. Leo Reinisch (1832-1919), investigated the languages of the peoples of northeast Africa. This work here is a complete set of his investigation of the Somali language which is spoken by the people of Somalia, Ethiopia, Kenya and Djibouti. Professor David Heinr Muller (1846-1912), studied Semitic languages at Sachau, and taught Semitic languages at the University of Vienna. He published and edited several Arabic manuscripts including Al-Hamadhani "Sifat Jazeerat Al-Arab". In this work he discusses the Mehri language of Southern Arabia. Wilhelm Hein (1861-1903), was educated as an orientalist - he was fluent in Arabic - he was not only interested in languages but also in ethnology. In 1901, he finished his postdoctoral thesis at Vienna University. He was forty years old when he was finally able to fulfill his childhood dream: to take part in the exploration of southern Arabia. On the suggestion of his mentor, David H. Müller, he and his wife, Marie Hein (1853-1943), spent 1901 and 1902 in Al Mukallah and Aden on an expedition organised under the auspices of the Imperial Academy of Sciences and the Imperial Museums. There, he undertook geographical and linguistic research and assembled zoological, botanical and ethnographical collections. Today, the zoological and botanical collections are still in the Natural History Museum, 142 prints from now-lost glass-negatives have survived in the photographic archive of the Ethnological Museum Vienna and the phonograme archive of the Austrian Academy of Sciences still houses recordings of Yemeny-Arab songs by Wilhelm Hein‘s informant, Ali bin Amer (1902). Nikolaus Rhodokanakis (1876-1945), an Austrian orientalist who contributed several studies on Arabic poetry including translations into German of al-Khansa diwan, and Ibn Qutaiba poems. This work is a study of the Arabic local dialect of Dhofar. Bookseller Inventory # 006587