Portrait of Walter Bruno Henning

Birthday profile

Walter Bruno Henning

Walter Bruno Henning, Prussian-American linguist and scholar (died 1967)

Born
August 26, 1908
Died
January 8, 1967
Zodiac sign
Virgo
Birth year
1908

About Walter Bruno Henning

Walter Bruno Henning (August 26, 1908 – January 8, 1967) was a German scholar of Middle Iranian languages and literature, especially of the corpus discovered by the Turpan expeditions of the early 20th century. == Biography == Walter Henning was born in the ancient fortress town of Ragnit, East Prussia (now Neman, Russia), but grew up in Köslin in Pomerania on the Baltic Sea. Henning initially attended the University of Göttingen to study mathematics, and although he would soon choose to study Iranian languages instead, he would maintain an interest in mathematics for the rest of his life. At Göttingen, Henning was—together with Paul Thieme, Walther Hinz, Kaj Barr and Hans Jakob Polotsky—among the last group of students of Friedrich Carl Andreas, chairman of the faculty for Western Asian languages (German: Lehrstuhl für Westasiatische Sprachen), acknowledged authority on Middle Iranian literature and guiding force behind the analysis of the Turfan manuscripts. In 1931, Henning received a Ph.D. summa cum laude for his study of the Middle Iranian verb as it appeared in the Turfan collection. In 1932, the Prussian Academy of Sciences appointed Henning editor of the Manichaean manuscripts of that collection, for which Henning shifted to Berlin. Between 1932 and 1936, Henning completed several studies that Andreas had begun, the results of which were published as the 3-volume Mitteliranische Manichaica aus Chinesisch-Türkestan. Independently of Andreas' Nachlass, Henning published Ein manichäisches Bet- und Beichtbuch, the first major publication of the difficult Sogdian language texts. In the same period, Henning also made several significant contributions to the understanding of the history of Manichaeism. While in Berlin, Henning became engaged to marry Maria Polotzky, the sister of Hans Jakob Polotzky, his colleague from student days.

Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.

Career and life highlights

Walter Bruno Henning timeline

  1. Walter Bruno Henning (August 26, 1908 – January 8, 1967) was a German scholar of Middle Iranian languages and literature, especially of the corpus discovered by the Turpan expeditions of the early 20th century.
  2. In 1950, and at the invitation of the Iranian government, Henning spent several months doing field-work in Iran, where he was the first to make several tracings of Pahlavi rock-face inscriptions at (otherwise) inaccessible locations.
  3. In 1954, Henning was appointed the first Chairman of the Executive Council of the Corpus Inscriptionum Iranicarum, and in the same year, a Fellow of the British Academy.

The world when Walter Bruno Henning was born

Walter Bruno Henning was born in 1908. The year snapshot below places that birthday in its cultural and historical setting: the music and films people were following, the headlines shaping public life, and the everyday prices families encountered.

Culture in 1908

  • Best-selling book"Mr. Crewe's Career" – Winston Churchill

Headlines and milestones

  • Major sports momentChicago Cubs win World Series
  • Top headlineFord Model T goes on sale — $850
  • Technology milestoneFord Model T — affordable automobile for the masses
  • Defining fadAutomobile craze
  • World population~1.68B

United States snapshot

  • U.S. leaderTheodore Roosevelt
  • U.S. population87.4M

1908 versus 2026

These figures put everyday life in Walter Bruno Henning's birth year beside the site's latest United States snapshot.

Measure19082026
Population87.4M341 million

Sources and editorial standards

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