Müller, Friedrich

Friedrich Müller, (born March 6, 1834, Jemnik, Austria [now Jemnice, Czech Republic]—died May 25, 1898, Vienna), Austrian linguist who worked on many different languages and language families; he is often cited for his contributions to the study and classification of African languages.

Among the many books written by Müller, the most important is Grundriss der Sprachwissenschaft (1876–88; Outline of Linguistics). The book provides detailed examples of some of the more common languages of the world and attempts to show the genetic relations between different languages. Müller and other typologists of his day used such nonlinguistic criteria as hair type to deduce their classifications. Although these methods were rather simplistic and arguably racist compared with the more modern typological methods, Müller’s Grundriss provided a foundation and a wealth of data for later linguists.

Its section on African languages remains one of the most influential works on that subject, and Grundriss is certainly among the most influential linguistic studies of its time. Müller posited six divisions within the African languages: a Semitic family, a Hamitic group, a Nuba-Fula group, a Negro group, a Bantu family, and a Hottentot-Bushman group. At the turn of the 21st century, the main language families of the African continent had been determined to include the Afro-Asiatic languages (Müller’s Hamitic and Semitic families combined), the Nilo-Saharan languages, the Niger-Congo languages, and the Khoisan languages (Müller’s Hottentot-Bushman group).