Georgios Hatzidakis
Georgios Nicolaou Hatzidakis (Greek: Γεώργιος Νικολάου Χατζιδάκις; 23 November [O.S. 11 November] 1843, in Myrthios, Ottoman Crete – 28 June 1941, in Athens) was a Greek philologist, who is regarded as the father of linguistics in Greece. He was the first chair of Linguistics and Indian Philology at the University of Athens in 1890–1923.
Life and work
His family was traditionally part of the elevations on the island Crete against the Ottoman Empire. His grandfather Kyriako had taken part as a captain in the uprising of 1821, at the age of 18 Georgios himself took, after the school visit share into Rethymno at the side of his father in the uprising of 1866. After other three-year school visit in Athen he signed up Chatzidakis at the faculty of philosophy of the university of Athen for classical philology. In 1877 he won in a university competition in linguistics a scholarship for another study of the linguistics in Germany, which he perceived afterwards at the University of Leipzig with Georg Curtius and Karl Brugmann. Since then Chatzidakis stood in contact with German researchers as for example also with more than 15 year younger Albert Thumb who wrote his Nekrolog for him and often cited introduction to the modern Greek grammar also published into German, in particular them also even today. After his return to Greece he was first a grammar school teacher in Athen and was conferred a doctorate the next year with a thesis Συμβολή εις την Ιστορίαν της Ελληνικής Γλώσσης ("Contribution to the History of the Greek Language") at the university there.