Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Austrian Dictionary

Abstract

Upon his return from World War I in which Wittgenstein had served in the Austrian army, he gave most of his property away — mainly, I have been told, to his sisters and his brother — and decided to become an elementary school teacher.1 He taught for six years altogether in three communities in the province of Lower Austria: in the Alpine village of Trattenbach, about 60 miles south of Vienna; in the somewhat larger community of Puchberg at the foot of the Schneeberg, a 6000 ft. peak in the Eastern Alps; and in Ottertal. In letters to Bertrand Russell in the early 1920’s, Wittgenstein bitterly complained about the ‘wickedness’ of the people in one of these places. During that period he published a short dictionary for the use of pupils in Alpine elementary schools. Except for a short paper, this dictionary was to be Wittgenstein’s only publication during his life time apart from the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. I had wanted to see the booklet ever since I heard about it. But it has been out of print since the 1920’s.