BENARY, KARL ALBERT AGATHON:
By: Isidore Singer
German philologist; born at Cassel 1807; died 1860; brother of Franz Ferdinand Benary. He received his education at the gymnasia of Göttingen and Erfurt, studied classical philology (1824-27) at the universities of Göttingen and Halle, and obtained his degree of Ph.D. with the thesis "De Æschyli Prometheo Soluto." While teacher at a Berlin gymnasium, he continued, together with his brother, his philological studies at the university under Bopp.
From 1833 until his death Benary was professor at the so-called Cölnische Realgymnasium at Berlin, and at the same time lectured in the university. He was one of the first linguists who applied the methods of comparative grammar to Latin and Greek. Unfortunately his work "Die Römische Lautlehre Sprachvergleichend Dargestellt," 1837, vol. i., remained a torso. Most of Benary's essays were published in the Berlin "Jahrbücher für Wissenschaftliche Kritik," and in Kuhn's "Zeitschrift für Vergleichende Sprachforschung." In 1848 he sided with the Liberal party. Like his elder brother, he embraced Christianity.
- Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie, vol. ii.;
- Le Roi, Gesch. der Evangelischen Judenmission, 1899, p. 210;
- Schulnachrichten des Cölnischen Realgymnasiums, Berlin, 1861.
