Highlights of my work and anecdotes#
For some highlights, by which I mean smaller contributions that I think are quite useful, see «Persephone», «Dialectology and the origin of Iliad and Odyssey», «Hinweise auf “Oral Poetry” im vulgärlateinischen Kontext der pompejanischen Wandinschriften», «Attische Vaseninschriften im Spannungsfeld zwischen Alphabet, Dialekt und Literatur», «Nereiden und Neoanalyse: ein Blick hinter die Ilias», «Abbreviated Writing», «The invention of the Latin letter G» (in Altlateinische Inschriften, pp. 324–33), «The genesis of the local alphabets of Archaic Greece» and «Die Erfindung des Alphabets: ein realistisches Szenario», «Recitationes: combining effective assessment with pleasurable listening».
One of the most hilarious anecdotes that happened to me in an academic context is the following: I just had finished my «Lizentiat» (equivalent to the M.A. degree) in Zürich, got an assistant's post and started my doctoral thesis, when our Professor, Ernst Risch, encouraged all of his pupils in Comparative historical linguistics to join him for the «VII. Fachtagung der Indogermanischen Gesellschaft» in Berlin (20–25 February 1983). I therefore wrote a letter of application, exactly like all my colleagues, but unlike them never got an answer. Finally, soon after New Year, I wrote again, and this time it worked: a few days later I got my confirmation as well as the programme and all necessary information. I almost forgot about the little incident, we travelled to Berlin full of joy and expectations and walked into the big entrance hall of «Freie Universität» (in the building called «Rostlaube»). In the hall there was a table, serving as reception area, where we queued up. At last it was my turn, and I gave them my name, when an elegantly dressed elderly man, who had so far kept himself in the background, rushed forward towards me, almost embracing me, and spiritedly and politely introducing himself as Professor Bernfried Schlerath, organiser of the conference, spoke as follows: «Oh great, here is Mr. Wachter. What a pleasure to see you here, safe and sound! We were all so worried!» I was of course completely flabbergasted but then took the courage to ask for the reason of such a warm and enthusiastic address of welcome. In the meantime, the entire Berlin staff had gathered around us. «But – you don't know? Well, my friend, you were a major topic of conversation here for several weeks!» etc. etc. In the end I was informed that they had sent me the conference documents just like to all my Zürich colleagues, but mine had come back after a few days marked with a bold stamp by the main post office of Winterthur, where I was still living at the time, saying: «Addressee deceased». Fortunately the penny quickly dropped with me, and when I told them what must have been the reason, the peculiar atmosphere gave way to a merry laughter of the whole round and a slightly derisive disapproval of the Swiss Post normally known for its great reliability: about six months before, a distant great-uncle of mine, who was also called Rudolf Wachter and was much better-known than myself, had died, aged 93, in Wiesengrund nursing home, Winterthur.
