Reckendorf, Hermann Solomon
RECKENDORF, HERMANN SOLOMON
RECKENDORF, HERMANN SOLOMON (1863–1923), German Orientalist. Reckendorf's father, also named hermann (Ḥayyim Ẓevi; 1825–1875), taught Semitic languages at Heidelberg University, and wrote a Hebrew translation of the Koran (1857). Inspired by E. Sue's Les Mystères de Paris, he also wrote Die Geheimnisse der Juden (5 vols., 1856–57), a fictionalized recounting of Jewish history. Several Hebrew versions of this work were published; the one by A.S. Friedberg (Zikhronot le-Veit David, 1893–1900) is still popular with Israel youth. Hermann Solomon Reckendorf studied Semitics under T. Noeldeke and at the Berlin rabbinical seminary, but later abandoned Orthodoxy. Reckendorf became professor at Freiburg University, specializing in Arabic syntax.
His Die syntaktischen Verhaeltnisse des Arabischen (1895–98) outlines the problems of Arabic syntax; his Arabische Syntax (1921) is important for its collection of material. The two works remain outstanding. In his Ueber Paronomasie in den semitischen Sprachen (1909) Reckendorf covers a wider field, dealing with a well-defined syntactic phenomenon in most Semitic languages. Another of his works is Mohammed unddie Seinen (1907).
bibliography:
J. Fueck, Arabische Studien in Europa (1955), 312–3.
[Joseph L. Blau]