FOREIGN NEWS

100 YEARS SINCE THE BIRTH OF EUGEN WÜSTER, A PIONEER OF TERMINOLOGY THEORY

This year marks 100 years since the birth of the Austrian terminologist Eugen Wüster (Eugen Wüster), one of the founders of terminology as a branch of science.

Eugen Wüster was born on October 3, 1898, in Wieselburg near Erlau. From 1905 to 1918, E. Wüster attended school in Hirschberg, Silesia, and continued his studies in Berlin at the Charlottenburg Higher Technical School, graduating in 1927 with an engineering diploma. After defending his dissertation, “The International Standardization of the Language of Technology, Especially Electrical Engineering,” in 1931, E. Wüster received a doctorate in technical sciences. This major work, published as a separate book, became one of the main pillars of terminology theory. In 1955, E. Wüster began teaching technical subjects at the University of Agriculture in Vienna, and in 1972 became professor of lexicology, lexicography, terminology, and standardization at the University of Vienna.

He died on March 29, 1977.

In 1935, a book by E. Wüster, translated into Russian at the request of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, became the principal terminology handbook. Soon afterwards, the Russian standards committee of the time proposed that the International Standards Association (ISA) establish Technical Committee 37 (TC 37), whose remit would be the standardization of terminology. The first meeting of TC 37 took place in 1936. Although the secretariat of this committee was at the German Standards Institute (now DIN), most of the work was carried out in Vienna under the leadership of E. Wüster. In 1939, projects were prepared for rules on creating technical terms, rules for compiling standardized technical terminology dictionaries, and an international terminology bibliography, but the outbreak of the Second World War brought this work to a halt. As the war drew to a close, all ISA TC 37 documents held in Berlin were destroyed, but E. Wüster had preserved copies in Wieselburg, so the work could continue.

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After the war, the ISA resumed its activities as the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), but the Technical Committee on Terminology did not work, and its activities were suspended in 1949. E. Wüster made every effort to ensure that international work on terminology standardization would continue. He proposed that the Austrian Standards Institute approach ISO to establish a secretariat in Austria. E. Wüster also took on organizational work himself. Conditions were far from easy: Austria was divided into zones controlled by the Allied and Soviet armies, and E. Wüster had to travel by steam truck from Soviet-controlled Wieselburg to Vienna (gasoline was in short supply at the time) and endure thorough inspections by soldiers. This man’s efforts and patience were largely responsible for the restoration of ISO TC 37 in the summer of 1950 and for the first meeting being held in Copenhagen in the autumn of 1952.

E. Wüster made a major contribution to the preparation of various terminology collections and dictionaries. He was actively involved in the work of the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), which published terminology collections.

E. Wüster’s longstanding work on rules for creating terms and formulating definitions helped give rise to a new discipline of applied linguistics. His work “General Terminology” (“Die Allgemeine Terminologielehre. Ein Grenzgebiet zwischen Sprachwissenschaft, Logik, Ontologie, Informatik und den Sachwissenschaften”) laid the foundations for terminology theory. Another important theoretical work on terminology by E. Wüster was published after his death. His colleagues prepared for publication the manuscript of notes from the lectures on German terminology and terminography that E. Wüster gave at the University of Vienna (Wüster Eugen: Einführung in die allgemeine Terminologielehre und terminologische Lexikographie / Ed. Helmut Felber // Schriftenreihe der Technischen Universität Wien, vol. 8 (part 1 & 2). Wien: Springer, 1979, 145+70 p.).¹. Later, a terminology course was taught at the University of Vienna based on this book. Da

¹ Lang F. Eugen Wüster – his life and work until 1963 // Eugen Wüster (1898–1977): Leben und Werk. Ein Österreichischer Pionier der Informationgesellschaft = His Life and Work. An Austrian Pioneer of the Information Society / Ed. E. Oeser, C. Galinski. Vienna: TermNet, 1998. P. 13–25.

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Moreover, terminology seminars for scholars from other countries are held there every year².

Three major projects by E. Wüster remained unfinished: “A Systematic Definitional Dictionary of the Basic Concepts of Terminology,” which the author had been writing since 1955 (“Systematisches Definitionswörterbuch der Grundbegriffe der Terminologielehre”); the “International Terminology Key” (“Internationaler Terminologieschlüssel”) (a kind of collection of international word elements that would serve as a guide to forming international technical terms); and a collection of selected publications and unpublished manuscripts compiled by E. Wüster himself in 1973 (“Jubiläumssammlung 1973”)³.

E. Wüster was a man of very broad interests. An engineer by training, he was not only one of the most prominent creators of terminology theory and of the principles and methods of terminological standardization, but also a lexicographer and bibliographer. E. Wüster made a major contribution to simplifying German spelling rules. He took part in the work of the spelling reform commission at the Austrian Academy of Sciences and was the author or co-author of 35 articles on German spelling. E. Wüster contributed greatly to improving the Universal Decimal Classification (UDC), took part in the work of the International Federation for Documentation and the Austrian Society for Documentation, and served as the latter’s president⁴. From his youth, E. Wüster was interested in Esperanto and other artificial languages, which he called Planensprache. From 1921 to 1931 he published several articles on Esperanto, which are still considered foundational. E. Wüster even reviewed the Esperanto translation of A. Mickiewicz’s “Pan Tadeusz” ((Recenzo:) Mickiewicz, A.; Grabovski, A., trad. Sinjoro Tadeo aŭ Lasta Armita

² This year, the so-called summer school was completed by Renata Dapkūtė, an employee of the Lithuanian Standards Department, and the author of this article.

³ Bühler H. The Scientific Legacy of Eugen Wüster Revisited: Three Major Unfinished Projects // Eugen Wüster (1898–1977): Leben und Werk. Ein Österreichischer Pionier der Informationgesellschaft = His Life and Work. An Austrian Pioneer of the Information Society / Ed. E. Oeser, C. Galinski. Vienna: TermNet, 1998. P. 187-205.

⁴ Ibid. P. 13–25.

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Posedopreno en Litvo. Varsovio: Gebethner & Wolff, 1918, 304 p. Per.: Germana Esperantisto (Dresden) 15 (1918), no. 11B (1 nov.), p. 86–87).⁵

The work of E. Wüster, a pioneer in many fields and the author of more than 600 articles, is important not only to German-speaking countries. E. Wüster can undoubtedly be regarded as the founder of the Austrian school of terminology.

Jolanta GAIVENYTĖ

⁵ Felber H. Eine erweiterte Wüster-Bibliographie: 1931–1977. // Eugen Wüster (1898–1977): Leben und Werk. Ein Österreichischer Pioner der Informationgesellschaft = His Life and Work. An Austrian Pioneer of the Information Society / Ed. E. Oeser, C. Galinski. Vienna: TermNet, 1998. P. 299.

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