DIEZ, FRIEDRICH CHRISTIAN (1794-1876), German philologist, the founder of Romance philology, was born at Gies sen, Hesse-Darmstadt, on March is, 1794. A visit to Goethe in 1818 decided the direction to his studies. Goethe had been reading Raynouard's Choix de poesies originales des troubadours, and advised the young scholar to explore the rich mine of Pro vencal literature which the French savant had opened up. Hence forth Diez devoted himself to Romance literature. He removed in 1822 to Bonn, where he held the position of privat-docent. His Poesie der Troubadours (1826) and Leben and werke der Troubadours (1829), of both of which there are modern editions edited by Karl Bartsch, were his earliest important studies. In 183o he became professor of modern literature at Bonn. The rest of his life was mainly occupied with the composition of the two great works on which his fame rests, the Grammatik der roman ischen Sprachen (3 vols., Bonn, 1836-44; 5th ed. 1882), and the Etymologische Worterbuch der romanischen Sprachen (2 vols., Bonn, 1853; 5th ed. 1887); in these two works Diez did for the Romance group of languages what Jacob Grimm did for the Teutonic family. He died at Bonn on May 29, 1876. He also wrote works on Spanish and Portuguese language and early litera ture.
See W. Foerster, Friedrich Diez (1894).