Wolfgang-E. Scharlipp

22.07.1947     born in Bad Salzuflen / Germany
1953 - 1958primary school
1958 - 1966high school in Bochum
1966 - 1971stays in various countries of Europe, Asia, North Africa and North America
1971 - 1976construction worker; interpreter institute, exam as Staatl. geprüfter Dolmetscher und Übersetzer (officially examined interpreter and translator) for English and Turkish; teacher for Turkish children at primary school
1976 - 1983reading turcology as a major, tibetology and indology as minors and Chinese at the University of Hamburg; doctorate
1982 - 1984researcher in the project Catalogue of the Oriental Manuscripts in Germany (Staatsbibliothek Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin)
1984 - 19871. teacher for Modern Turkish at the Oriental Department of the University of Freiburg (Germany)
2. assistant at the Oriental Department at Zürich University (Switzerland), lectures on Ottoman, Chagatay, system of Turkic
1987 - 1993assistant professor at Freiburg University within the "Sonderforschungsbereich (special research group)" "Connections and Tensions between Writing and Orality"
1993 - 1997assistant professor for Turkish Studies at the University of Cyprus (Greek part)
since 1997associate professor at the University of Copenhagen

A short report on past and present research and teaching. Having studied turcology as a major and indology and tibetology as minors I received my doctor degree in turkology in 1983, and was given the titel of Dr. phil. habil. as well as the venia legendi in 1994 following the German habilitation.

During my years as a university teacher at various universities in Germany, Switzerland, Cyprus and Denmark I collected experience in teaching in different environments.

My special fields of interest are: cultural contacts of Turkic peoples, focusing on linguistic contact, reforms of writing systems and language reforms and their effect on culture and education, reception and description in modern Turkic societies of their own history and culture, the history of modern Turkish literature and the Western influence on it.

As can be seen from the list of publications added, I worked and published in the fields of Old Turkish Runic Inscriptions, Classic and Modern Uyghur, various periods of Muslim Central Asian and Ottoman literature. During the last years I have dedicated most time on modern Turkish literature of Turkey and language contact between Turkish and Greek.

The topic of my Habilitationsschrift was the history of using the Arabic alphabet for writing Turkish. This book was written within the interdisciplinary project about Transitions and tensions between orality and writing Within this project also a number of articles were published concerning the history of writing Turkish at various stages of history and in diffenrent areas.

Working on texts of different historical epochs has, besides dealing with linguistic problems, also always implied an interest for the contents of the text. My interest in literature also motivated me to translate modern Turkish literature and resulted in my participation of writing an Anthology of Modern Literature of the Near East, in which the Turkish part, i.e. an introduction to modern Turkish literature and several translations of short stories were done by myself.

As far as teaching is concerned, some of my teaching concentrated on language history and languages. I have been teaching Old Turkish, Uyghur, Chaghatay, Ottoman (historiography and poetry) and Modern Turkish. From my first employment at a university I have also given courses in modern literature. At the present I give two courses anually in Modern Turkish literature, one of them an introduction.