Professor Adam Heinz As The Unforgotten Teacher Of Several Generations Of Linguists

Adam Heinz (1914–1984) was an academic whose field of study encompassed – to use the term employed by Walter Porzig (1950) – das Wunder der Sprache (the wonder that is language). His most extensive work entitled Dzieje językoznawstwa w zarysie (An outline of the history of linguistics) has, despite its 36 years, still maintained its popularity amongst linguists. Adam Heinz as one of the most eminent Polish structuralist was to remain critical in relation to both formal and functional structuralism. In subscribing to linguistic autonomy he would quote Wittgenstein’s words Die Grenzen meiner Sprache bedeuten die Grenzen meiner Welt (The limits of my language means the limits of my world.). His academic output is a long way from the tiresome monotony of immanent structuralism; for he grasped as if en passent the difference between lies (deceit) and Newspeak. Professor Adam Heinz, in referencing painting, unofficially divided linguists into miniaturists, landscapists and abstractionists. He himself was an extraordinary miniaturist and landscapist.