Samuel Linde

Samuel Linde studied at Toruńskie Gimnazjum Akademickie and Leipzig University. The recorded working language is German and Polish. The field of work recorded is linguistics. Places of work recorded in the authority are Leipzig. Residence is recorded at Toruń and Leipzig. Employment is recorded with Leipzig University and Józef Maksymilian Ossoliński. Positions recorded include director and president. Works named in the authority record are Dictionary of Polish language. Distinctions recorded are Order of Saint Stanislaus and Order of St.

• Illustration — Bust of Linde in the family tomb at the Protestant cemetery in Warsaw • Illustration — Linde monument, Toruń Samuel Gottlieb Linde was born in Toruń, Crown of Poland, which 22 years later, after his birth, as a result of the Second Partition of Poland, became a city under the rule of the King of Prussia (Prussian Poland), to Jan Jacobsen Linde, a master locksmith and member of the city council who had immigrated from Sweden, and Anna Barbara, née Langenhann. His mother's family originated from Coburg. His second name Gottlieb has been rendered in Polish as Bogumił. Linde came from a German-speaking family but learned the Polish language in Leipzig in order to serve as a lector of Polish at University of Leipzig where he had previously studied theology and philology. In 1793 he began to collaborate with supporters of the Constitution of 3 May 1791. During the Kościuszko Uprising (1794) he was in Warsaw and supported Hugo Kołłątaj. In 1795–1803 he was a librarian to Józef Maksymilian Ossoliński and began gathering material for his future dictionary for Polish and other Slavic grammar and expressions by traveling for six years through Galicia and to Moldova. He became director at the newly established Königlich-Preußisches Lyzäum in Warsaw, the later Warsaw Lyceum (1804–31). Linde hired Frédéric Chopin's father, Nicolas Chopin, as a teacher of French language. The composer himself studied at the Lyceum in 1823–26. Linde was a Lutheran and he was instrumental in establishing the Lutheran community in Warsaw. He is buried at the Evangelical Cemetery of the Augsburg Confession in Warsaw. Linde married Ludwika Nussbaum, originally from Switzerland. Their daughter Ludwika Emilia Izabela married Leopold Otto, a Lutheran pastor.

Linde's major work was Słownik języka polskiego (Samuel Bogumił Linde) (Dictionary of the Polish Language), a six-volume monolingual dictionary, of lasting importance for Slavic lexicography, published in Warsaw in 1807–14. It was the first major dictionary of the Polish language. The second edition was published posthumously in Lemberg (Polish Lwów, now Lviv) in 1854–1861. Both editions are now present in several digital libraries.

Samuel Linde worked in linguistics. He was employed by Leipzig University and Józef Maksymilian Ossoliński. Recorded positions include director and president. He belonged to Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences, Warsaw Society of Friends of Learning, Göttingen Academy of Sciences and Humanities in Lower Saxony, Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences and Towarzystwo Naukowe Krakowskie. He worked at Leipzig, Toruń and Warsaw.