Not much is known about Ernst Erdmannsdörffer, who defended a thesis on the rhymes of the Troubadours in 1895, and published it, with a modified title, in 1897. His only known biography is his work, in Latin, a Vita which takes up less than a page of his Reime der Trobadors of 1895. We find there his date and place of birth, 27 January 1870 in Łuków (Luckau in German), Lower Lusatia, and the names of his parents. Nothing about his life after 1897.
Erdmannsdörffer’s thesis is that the study of rhymes makes it possible to restore the pronunciation of ancient Occitan. The first publication was strongly criticized by Edmund Stengel and by the editorial staff of Romania. The title of the final version becomes Reimwörterbuch (rhyming dictionary). The review of this edition by Oscar Schultz-Gora is less negative. The book is regularly mentioned in even recent bibliographies, which suggests that it wasn’t all that bad.
Click here to read or download Ernst Erdmannsdörfer Die Reime des Trobadors (#125 of the Documents pour l’étude de la langue occitane series) from the IEO Paris website.
Occitanism 