Ernst Sittig

Life and Education

Ernst Carl Wilhelm Sittig was born on February 1, 1887, in Berlin. He attended secondary school in Berlin before studying philology at the universities of Jena, Berlin, and Halle. In Tübingen, he became a member of the singing society Hohentübingen. Sittig received his doctorate in 1911 from the University of Halle with a dissertation on "De Graecorum nominibus Theophoris," where he began to focus on comparative linguistics.

Career

Sittig took interpreter exams for Polish, Russian, Bulgarian, and Modern Greek, and was a student lecturer from 1914. During World War I, he served in an army deciphering department. After the war, he worked as a civil servant in the higher cipher service of the Federal Foreign Office from 1919 to 1924.

In 1923, Sittig habilitated at the University of Berlin as a private lecturer for Slavic Studies and comparative linguistics. From 1924 to 1926, he worked at the University of Tübingen before becoming a professor at the University of Königsberg in 1926. He then held the position of professor of Indo-Germanic and Slavic studies at the University of Tübingen from 1927 to 1945.

Research and Contributions

Sittig was a researcher of texts in Cretan writing and Cypriot writing, and during World War II, he performed decryption work on the order of the military. Having correctly assumed that Linear B contains texts in Greek, Sittig attempted to decipher them using statistical methods. However, without a formal system or key, his efforts were hindered.

Personal Life

Ernst Sittig passed away on December 25, 1955, in Tübingen.