wilhelm von humboldt

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Wilhelm von Humboldt

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Wilhelm von HumboldtFirst published Fri Feb 23, 2007

Wilhelm (Friedrich Wilhelm Christian Karl Ferdinand) von Humboldt,German man of letters extraordinary, close friend of the poets Goethe andSchiller, whose life's work encompasses the areas of philosophy,literature, linguistics, anthropology, and political thought as wellstatesmanship was born in Potsdam on June 23, 1767 and died at Tegelnear Berlin on April 8, 1835. Although there has always been stronginterest in Humboldt expressed by political and cultural historians andeducationists in Germany, it is only in recent decades that hiscontributions to the formation of modern linguistics, to semiotics,hermeneutics and language philosophy have given rise to renewedattention to his pioneering achievements in these areas, even though muchof his work in linguistics has remained unknown or unexplored untilrecently. Yet numerous linguists beginning with Pott and Steinthal in thenineteenth century to Boas, Sapir, Bhler, Weisgerber, and Chomsky inthe twentieth century derived or claimed to have derived importantinsights from Humboldt. But their interest in Humboldt was partial at bestand limited to those aspects of his work that could be utilized to reinforceor to legitimize their own projects and methodologies. It is quitemisleading to associate the term Humboldtian linguistics orHumboldtian language philosophy with any one specific direction, forexample with the Whorfian thesis of linguistic relativity or withChomsky's opposite notion of a universalist generative grammarbecause these tend to ignore other equally or more important dimensionsof Humboldt's work.

A comparable process of partial appropriation has been characteristic alsoof the philosophers who paid serious attention to Humboldt's views, suchas Ernst Cassirer (192329), Martin Heidegger (1927, 1959), and morerecently Bruno Liebrucks (1965), Hans-Georg Gadamer (1960, 1965,

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recently Bruno Liebrucks (1965), Hans-Georg Gadamer (1960, 1965,1972), and Jrgen Habermas (1985, 1988, 1991). It is only in the lastdecades that Humboldt's philosophical and linguistic writings havebecome a focal point of attention in their own right. Linguists of variousorientations, philosophers, historians and literary scholars of differentnationalities alike have examined Humboldt's philosophy and linguisticideas by placing them into a variety of different contexts.

1. Humboldt's Life1.1 Education and Early Writings1.2 Writings and Studies in Jena1.3 A Linguistic Turn in Paris1.4 Rome: the World of Antiquity and the Languages of theNew World1.5 Return to Germany: Public Education and Politics1.6 Later Writings: General and Comparative Linguistics

2. Examining Humboldt's Writings: Contours, Scope, and Categories3. Humboldt's Approach to Anthropology, Political Philosophy andAesthetics4. Some Essentials of Humboldt's Understanding of Language5. Transcendental Semiotics: The Overturning of the TraditionalObjectivist Concept of the Sign6. The Anthropological Side of Language Production and theHumboldtian Model of Communication; Laying the Basis of ModernStructural Phonology7. Humboldtian and Cartesian LinguisticsBibliography

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2 Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

1. Humboldt's Life1.1 Education and Early Writings

Humboldt's father was of German middle class background whose familyhad been granted the status of nobility with the title of "Freiherr" (Baron)in 1738 whereas his mother (maiden name de Colomb) was of middleclass, mainly French Huguenot and German-Scottish extraction. NeitherWilhelm nor his younger brother Alexander (17691859) ever attended apublic primary or secondary school. Instead their father, and after hisuntimely death in 1779, their mother employed private tutors at the familyestate in Tegel who were recruited from among the leading figures of theBerlin Enlightenment scene. Among them were Joachim Heinrich Campe,well-known educational writer, Ernst Ferdinand Klein and Christian vonDohm, two leading political thinkers who brought enlightenmentorientation and ideas to the areas of constitutional law and public policy.Johann Jakob Engel, the renowned philosopher and writer, introduced theyoung Humboldt to modern and contemporary European philosophy inthe areas of logic, aesthetics, metaphysics and language philosophy.

With Engel he read and discussed works by Leibniz, Hume, Locke,Harris, Herder, Condillac and Rousseau. Yet at the same time bothHumboldt brothers were deeply immersed in the study of the Greeks.Wilhelm's first publication (at the age of 19) dealt with Socrates andPlato's idea of divinity ("Socrates und Plato ber die Gottheit") in whichhe defended the enlightenment ideal of natural religion. As adolescentsthe two brothers began frequenting the literary salon of Markus andHenrietta Herz in Berlin where they came into contact with intellectualluminaries of the city. It was here that Wilhelm first met MosesMendelssohn's granddaughter Brendel Veit, the subsequent DorotheaSchlegel, Schiller's future spouse Charlotte von Lengefeld and his ownbride-to-be, Karoline von Dacherden. After only one disappointing

Kurt Mueller-Vollmer

Spring 2009 Edition 3

bride-to-be, Karoline von Dacherden. After only one disappointingsemester at the narrow and provincial Prussian University at Frankurt-on-Oder, the Humboldt brothers transferred to the University of Gttingen in1788, arguably the most distinguished University in all the German-speaking territories at the time. Besides jurisprudence, Wilhelm studiedclassical philology with Christian Gottlieb Heyne, natural science withGeorg Christoph Lichtenberg (who counted him among the brightestintellects he had ever met), and immersed himself deeply in the study ofthe philosophy of Immanuel Kant. In Gttingen he met and becamefriends with August Wilhelm Schlegel, George Forster and thephilosopher Friedrich Jacobi. In August 1789 shortly after the outbreak ofthe French Revolution and accompanied by his former teacher Campe,Wilhelm visited Paris, the Rhineland and Switzerland and captured hisobservations in a travel journal that he kept (GS-Vol. 14,76236). Inresponse to the challenge of the encounters with Forster and Jakobi,Humboldt was lead to articulating his own philosophical position in OnReligion (ber Religion, GS Vol 1, 4576), his first important writing.

After having successfully passed his examinations in jurisprudence, heentered the Prussian civil service in Berlin in January of 1790 and wasappointed councilor (Legationsrat) soon afterwards. But he found theposition and the prospects it entailed uninspiring and boring and alreadyin May 1791 decided to take leave from the service. In June he marriedKaroline von Dacherden and spent the following years on his wife'sfamily estates in Thuringia in the vicinity of Jena devoting his entire timeand energy to his scholarly and philosophical pursuits while at the sametime establishing life-long personal and intellectual ties with the poetsJohann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller. He also befriendedthe famed Homeric scholar Friedrich August Wolf, author of theProlegomena ad Homerum, and debated politics and political philosophywith the statesman and Archbishop-Elector of Mainz, Karl Theodor vonDalberg. In 1792 he spelled out his views on key issues of the social andpolitical philosophy of the period in a series of articles for the Berlinische



political philosophy of the period in a series of articles for the BerlinischeMonatsschrift and for Schiller's journal Neue Thalia. Among these werethe Ideas concerning constitutions occasioned by the new FrenchConstitution and the programmatic What should be the Limits of theGovernment's Concern for the Well Being of its Citizens?

These writings formed part of a book-length manuscript that, because ofthe fear of censorship for its radical liberal position, was published onlyposthumously in 1851 under the title Versuch die Grenzen derWirksamkeit des Staates zu bestimmen (Engl.transl, 1854: The Spheresand Duties of Government). It represents the classical statement of theliberal humanist tradition in German political thought which, however,seems to have found a more appreciative readership in nineteenth- centuryEngland (Matthew Arnold, John Stuart Mill), than in Humboldt's nativeGermany. The Marxists (Lasalle) and conservative nationalists(Treitschke) alike rejected his ideas and his staunch defense of the rightsof the individual. John Stuart Mill, on the other hand, used a quote fromHumboldt's text as motto for his own treatise On Liberty.

1.2 Writings and Studies in Jena

In June 1794 Humboldt settled in Jena at a time when the city and itsUniversity became the center of German idealist philosophy and theRomantic movement and entertained contacts with the philosopher Fichteand with Friedrich and August Wilhelm Schlegel. He assumed the role ofphilosophical adviser and critical collaborator of Goethe and especiallySchiller. Through his discerning criticism he furthered the production ofsome of their important works, for ex. Schiller's Briefe ber diesthetische Erziehung des Menschen of 1795 (Letters on the AestheticEducation of Man), and his philosophical poems as well as Goethe's epicHerrmann und Dorothea and his novel Wilhelm Meister. For Schiller'snewly created journal, Die Horen, he authored two importantcontributions, Ueber den Geschlechts-Unterschied (On Sexual



contributions, Ueber den Geschlechts-Unterschied (On SexualDifference) where he formulated a gender theory on the basis ofcontemporary natural philosophy and Ueber mnnliche und weiblicheForm (On the Male and Female Form) where he extended this theoryinto the realm of the arts and culture (1794, 1795.GS, Vol 1, 31134;33569). While in Jena he joined forces with his brother Alexander andGoethe and together the three men engaged in a study of the evolving newdiscipline of comparative anatomy at the University. Humboldt used theinsights he had gained from this study to create a comprehensive blueprintfor a future comparative anthropology (Plan einer vergleichendenAnthropologie (1797, GS Vol 1, 377410). But only years later when heattempted to lay the foundation for his newly conceived discipline ofgeneral and comparative linguistics, he would return to it and rework hisideas.

Guided by his anthropological interests, however, Humboldt becameinvolved in the problem of what constituted national character and howprecisely one could within the context of modern Europe determine itsessential features. Thus in 1797 he composed an extensive study in agenre of what we might call today cultural and historical criticismentitled: Das achtzehnte Jahrhundert (The Eighteenth Century), GS Vol2, 1112. He would soon have the opportunity to gather his ownobservations on those issues, when in the fall of 1797 he and his familymoved to Paris where they would remain until the summer of 1801. Thisextended sojourn was interrupted by two extended journeys to Spain,from November 1799 to April 1800 and again in the spring and summerof 1801, the purpose of the latter being a visit to the Basque country inorder to study the Basque language and culture.

1.3 A Linguistic Turn in Paris

During his Parisian sojourn Humboldt met and had contact with theforemost French politicians, scholars and intellectuals of the period such



foremost French politicians, scholars and intellectuals of the period suchas Sieys, Tracy, Roederer, Garat, Cabanis, Degrando, La Romiguire,Dupont de Nemours, Benjamin Constant and Madame de Stal whoseliterary salon he frequented. He attended meetings of the Institut National(as the Academie Franaise was called then) and debated Kantianphilosophy with the leading French philosophers (GS Vol 14, 48387),visited the theater regularly, and from a cultural anthropologist's point ofview, he observed and analyzed its different forms and varieties from theComdie Franaise and the Thatre de la Rpublique to the Vaudeville.Meanwhile he studied and commented upon effectively the entire canonof classical and modern, i.e., eighteenth century French literatureand philosophy, for ex. Rousseau, Diderot, and Madame de Stal. Hiscomments on these writers and his astute critique of the philosophy ofCondillac and his followers found in his Parisian diaries offer importantclues for an understanding of his own philosophical position. Goethemeanwhile published two essays by him on French theater and art in hisjournal Die Propylen. Humboldt's Parisian diaries reveal theextraordinary scope and intensity of his involvement with the complexcultural, social, political and cultural life-world of France under theDirectoire. (GS Vol 14, 361643; Vol 15, 146.)[1]

In Paris, Humboldt completed his major work on aesthetics, hisAesthetische Versuche I. Ueber Goethes Herrman und Dorothea (Essaysin Aesthetics I. On Goethe's Herrmann und Dorothea) in 1799. In thesame year he also published in French for the benefit of Madame de Staland her circle a concise summary of its major arguments with emphasison his new theory of the imagination in the Parisian journal MagasinEncyclopdique. A decisive turning point in his intellectual careeroccurred with his discovery and pioneering investigations of the Basquelanguage, an idiom whose origin and structure had defied hitherto allattempts at an explanation by historians, philosophers and linguistsfollowing conventional methodologies. He disproved all existing theoriesabout its descent and affiliation but instead of advancing new theories he



about its descent and affiliation but instead of advancing new theories hedecided first to set out to study the language itself using all possiblemeans at his disposal, from written documents, native informants,statistics, historical, ethnological and sociological information toinventing and actually conducting what is known today as field work.His Basque studies coincided with his formulation of a new conception oflanguage questioning and defying the representational view of languagethat had been dominant in Western thinking from Aristotle all the way tothe empiricist and rationalist thinkers of his day. This new conceptionwould find its expression in Humboldt's language philosophy andlinguistics that from this moment on became of central concern to him.

1.4 Rome: the World of Antiquity and the Languages of theNew World

From 1803 until the end of 1808 he served as Prussian envoy (MinisterResident) to the Vatican in Rome, a post whose diplomatic chores hedispatched with skill and efficiency leaving him enough time for his ownwork. Besides his Basque studies he turned his attention again to ancientGreek language and literature, translating from the poetry of Pindar(Olympic Odes), Aischylos play Agamemnon as well as smaller piecesfrom other authors (GS Vol 8, 3270). The introduction to his Germanversion of Agamemnon includes a succinct statement of his theory oftranslation where he formulated a new approach to the problem oftranslation and developed concepts that have been taken up again only inmodern (Walter Benjamin) and contemporary translation theories. ButHumboldt's life in the Eternal City also lead him to reflect deeply aboutthe fate of ancient culture and its history, a concern that found expressionin his two essays Latium und Hellas1806, and Geschichte des Verfallsund Untergangs der griechischen Freistaaten (Latium and Hellas,History of the Decline and Fall of the Greek Republics) 18071808 (GSVol 3, 13670; 171218). Under the impact of Schiller's untimely deathin 1805 he composed the elegy Rome (published in 1806), the best



in 1805 he composed the elegy Rome (published in 1806), the bestknown of his poems. His stay in Rome unexpectedly added yet anotherdimension to his linguistic interests that would become significant for hisfuture linguistic research endeavors: the native languages of the Americas.He had already asked his brother Alexander before he set sail for the NewWorld to be on the lookout for linguistic materials during his travels inSouth and Central America. In Rome he had the opportunity to meet andbefriend the former chief of the Jesuit Missions in the Americas and headof the Papal Quirinal Library, the Spaniard Lorenzo Hervs (17531809).His new acquaintance was himself a renowned linguist with whose work(for ex. his Catlogo des las lenguas de las naciones conocidas, 1787)Humboldt was already familiar. He was given the chance to consult andeventually to copy the entire collection of Hervs' extensive holdings ofNative American grammars and materials. These would form the basis forhis own study of the American languages. While he was perusing hislinguistic researches, Humboldt's residence in the Villa Gregorianabecame a popular gathering place for the members of the European artistcolony, which harbored figures like Bertel Thorwaldsen, Christian DavidRauch, Gottlieb Schlick, Karl Ludwig Fernow and Johann Georg Zoega.Among the European visitors who came to see Humboldt were Madamede Stal, August Wilhelm Schlegel and the English poet Coleridge.Although he lost two of his sons in Rome (of the Humboldt's eightchildren three died at an early age) he considered the Roman years as thehappiest of his life.

1.5 Return to Germany: Public Education and Politics

After Napoleon's decisive victory at Jena and Auerstedt and the resultingcollapse of Prussia Humboldt returned to Germany in the fall of 1808 andreluctantly accepted the position as head of the section for ecclesiasticaffairs and education in the ministry of the interior. Yet in the short periodfrom 1809 to 1810 he was able to institute a radical reform of the entirePrussian educational system from elementary and secondary school to the



Prussian educational system from elementary and secondary school to theUniversity which was based on the principle of free and universaleducation for all citizens. His idea of combining both teaching andresearch in one institution that guided him in establishing the Universityof Berlin in 1810 (today's Humboldt University) and the structures hecreated for this institution would become the model not only throughoutGermany but also for the modern university in most Western countries.Predictably, Humboldt soon ran into difficulties with the establishedlanded aristocracy in Prussia when he insisted that the University beendowed with landed property in order to insure its independence fromthe state and the changing winds of politics. After quarreling with hissuperiors he was asked to resign his post and in 1810 was sent to Viennaas ambassador where, however, he soon became instrumental inconvincing Austria to join the Grand Coalition of the European powersagainst Napoleon. But during the initial diplomatic lull in Vienna he stillfound time for his linguistic studies. His recently discovered Viennesenote books contain sketches of grammars for several South and CentralAmerican languages written in French that were intended to become partof his brother's American Travel account. In 1811 he produced his firstextensive philosophical and methodological statement, the Essai sur leslangues du Nouveau Continent (Essay on the languages of the NewContinent) that was to introduce his study of the Indian grammars of theAmericas (GS Vol 3, 300341).

During the negotiations for the first and second Paris peace treaty andsubsequently at the Congress of Vienna he was successful in defendingJewish rights but failed in his attempt to secure a liberal constitution forthe German Confederation (Deutscher Bund) to be based on a statute offundamental principles (Grundgesetz) that would have guaranteed therights of all citizen. After representing Prussia at the newly constitutedBundestag in Frankfurt on Main for a short time, he was appointedPrussian ambassador to the Saint James Court in London where, besidesstudying Sanscrit at the British Museum Library in his spare time, he was



studying Sanscrit at the British Museum Library in his spare time, he wasable, with the help of the Banking House of Rothschild, to organize afinancial aid program for the reconstruction of the war-ravished Prussianeconomy. He returned to Berlin to the ministry of the Interior to head acommittee to draft a new Prussian constitution in 1819. But his carefullydesigned comprehensive plan for introducing a liberal constitution (GSVol 2, 389455) that would have transformed Prussia into a genuineconstitutional monarchy did not have a chance to be adopted. WhenHumboldt strongly resisted the repressive measures taken by the royalgovernment in the wake of the Karlsbad decrees and in the ensuingassault on civil liberties, King Friedrich Wilhelm III on New Years Eve of1819 summarily dismissed him from all his duties. His dismissal markednot only the end of his political career but the de facto elimination inPrussia of the chances for the development of a true civil society, thecreation of democratic institutions and thus for the middle classes toparticipate actively in the political life of the country. From now onHumboldt would spent the rest of his life (with the exception of aprolonged visit to Paris and London in 1828) at the family estate in Tegelthat he had remodeled in classicist style by the renowned architect KarlFriedrich Schinkel in order to concentrate his energy on his scholarly andlinguistic work.

1.6 Later Writings: General and Comparative Linguistics

Already in June 1820 he was able to submit to the Berlin Academy a boldplan for the creation of the new discipline of comparative linguistics andto outline the philosophy and methodology on which it was to be built ina paper entitled: On the Comparative Study of Language and its Relationto the Different Periods of Language Development. (Ueber dasvergleichende Sprachstudium in Beziehung auf die verschiedenenEpochen der Sprachentwicklung (GS Vol 4, 134). In this compact yethighly complex presentation he offered a brief summary of his previousendeavors and proceeded to lay down the principles and the blueprint for



endeavors and proceeded to lay down the principles and the blueprint fora comprehensive research program that would guide his work during thefollowing years but at the same time defined the tasks of a futurelinguistics. Humboldt viewed the function of language as not limitedsimply to representing or communicating existing ideas and concepts butas formative organ of thought (das bildende Organ des Gedankens, GSVol 6, 152) and thus instrumental also in the production of new conceptsthat would not come into being without it. The differences betweenlanguages for him were not those of sounds and signs (Schllen undZeichen) but ultimately of differences of representing the world(Verschiedenheit der Weltansichten), GS Vol 4, 27. Therefore it seemedobvious to Humboldt that a categorical separation between languagephilosophy and empirical linguistics as it developed during the nineteenthcentury and still exists today, was unacceptable. For not only could therebe no discipline of linguistics without a conceptual base and firmphilosophical grasp of its many- faceted object of inquiry but, Humboldtmaintained, empirical research into actual language use in differentlanguages with quite diverging structures would provide the philosopherwith concrete insights into the nature of language that would otherwisenot be attainable. One is reminded here of Kant's dictum that conceptswithout intuition (Anschauung i.e. empirical content) are empty andthat intuitions without concepts are blind.

His wide-ranging and ambitious empirical investigations coveredpractically the entire globe. Alexander von Humboldt said about hisbrother that it had been granted to him to penetrate more deeply into thestructure of a larger number of languages as probably have ever beengrasped by one human mind (Humboldt, 1836, viii).

But Humboldt did not labor by himself in isolation, as some of hisinterpreters have claimed to this very day, but communicated with andentertained lively contacts with leading scholars in both Europe andAmerica: with, for example, Franz Bopp in Berlin, August Wilhelm



America: with, for example, Franz Bopp in Berlin, August WilhelmSchlegel in Bonn, Jean-Franois Champollion and Jean-Pierre Rmusat[2]in Paris, Alexander Johnston in London and Peter S.Du Ponceau and JohnPickering in Philadelphia and Boston in the United States. Humboldthimself has utilized and understood his correspondence with the leadingscholars of the world as an integral part of his ongoing research work.

He managed, with the help of his brother Alexander initially, to acquirewhat was probably the largest collection of linguistic materials in Europefor his time. There was in effect no language group on the globe that didnot attract his attention. Among the European and Indo-Europeanlanguages Humboldt knew and studied classical Greek and Latin,Sanscrit, all of the Romance languages, English, Basque, Old Icelandic,Lithuanian, Polish, Slovenian, Serbo-Croation, Armenian but alsoHungarian. He was familiar with Hebrew, Arabic and Coptic (of which hewrote a grammar). From among the Asian languages he studied Chinese,Japanese, Siamese and Tamul. Yet in the center of his work stood,besides Basque (he is considered the founder of Basque Studies), thenative languages of South, Central and North America, and increasinglyfrom 182728 the languages of the Pacific from the East Coast of Africato Hawaii and the South Sea Islands. These form what we call today theAustronesian language group whose existence Humboldt was the first todemonstrate conclusively. Among the papers in his remains we findstudies, notes, analyses, observations and materials relating to well overtwo hundred languages. In his private and public life he mastered andused (besides his native German) French, English, Italian and Spanish.

A self-imposed commitment to report on the progress of his researchefforts to the Berlin Academy at regular intervals induced him to devisehis own specific style of presentation that allowed him freely andcreatively to combine elements of the philosophical essay with those of ascholarly exposition. Among the important of his academy addressesmarking the progress and direction of his investigations belong his On



marking the progress and direction of his investigations belong his Onthe Task of the Historian (Ueber die Aufgabe desGeschichtsschreibers) of 1821 (GS Vol 4, 3556); On the Origin ofGrammatical Forms and their Influence on the Development of Ideas(Ueber das Entstehen der grammatischen Formen und ihren Einfluss aufdie Ideeentwicklung) of 1822 (GS Vol 4, 285313); On AlphabeticScript and its Relation to the Structure of Language (Ueber dieBuchstabenschrift und ihren Zusammenhang mit dem Sprachbau) of1824 (GS Vol 5, 107133); On the Grammatical Structure of theChinese Language (Ueber den grammatischen Bau der ChinesischenSprache) of 1826 (GS Vol 5, 309325); On the Dual Form (Ueber denDualis of 1827 (GS Vol 6, S.430); On the Languages of the South SeaIsland (Ueber die Sprachen der Sdseeinseln) of 1828 (GS Vol 6, 3751); and two presentations on the Indian Bhagavad-Gita poem (Ueber dieBhagavd-Gita) of 1826 (GS Vol 5, 158-89; 325-44). These and his otherpresentations formed part of the published proceedings of the BerlinAcademy.

His paper On the Task of the Historian, besides dealing with theproblems the historian has to confront in writing history, offers a theoryof historical research that is augmented by observations on the nature ofhistorical understanding. The piece occupies a special place in thedevelopment of the hermeneutics of the human sciences. The historianDroysen called Humboldt the Bacon of the historical sciences in hisinfluential Historik (theory of historical studies) and some of his ownconcepts and distinctions echo Humboldt's formulations (Droysen 1958,324). Whereas Droysen speaks of the method of the historian asunderstanding by investigation (forschendes Verstehen), Humboldt setsoff historical understanding from mere deductive rational procedures bycalling it an assimilation of the investigative capability (forschende Kraft)and the object under investigation (GS Vol 4, 39). Furthermore, with hisnotion of a preexisting basis of understanding (vorgngige Grundlagedes Begreifens) Humboldt clearly anticipated Heidegger's and Gadamer's



des Begreifens) Humboldt clearly anticipated Heidegger's and Gadamer'srespective notions of an ontological or historical preunderstanding asnecessary condition of all formal understanding and interpretation in thehuman sciences (GS Vol 4, 48), even though Gadamer in his Truth andMethod gravely misrepresents the hermeneutic dimensions of Humboldt'sthought omitting the fact that for Humboldt (and Schleiermacher)understanding was grounded in language and linguisticality and wasperceived by them as the correlative of the act of speaking.

In 1830 Humboldt edited and published his correspondence with the poetSchiller and included a lengthy essay On Schiller and the Path of hisIntellectual Development (Ueber Schiller und den Gang seinerGeistesentwicklung(GS Vol 6, 492527). In the same year appeared alsoan extensive essay on the late Goethe in the form of a review of theconcluding part of the poet's Italian Journey that had been published theprevious year. There he attempted, as he had done before in his Schilleressay, to interpret the various sides of the poet from one central point ofview: this time from the poet's perception of art and nature. (Rezensionvon Goethes Zweitem rmischen Aufenthalt, GS Vol 6, 528550).During the remainder of his life most of his time and energy was spent onwhat was to be his magnum opus: a monumental study of the KaviLanguage on the island of Java within the context of the entireAustronesian language group of the Pacific. But he was only able tocomplete the Introduction and Book 1 of the work. His researchassociate Buschmann published these parts in 1836, constituting the firstvolume of what came to be known as Humboldt's Kawi Werk (Kavi-Work). Buschmann also edited and published the remaining two volumesin 1838 and 1839. About this work the American linguist Bloomfieldwrote: The second volume of Humboldt's great treatise founded thecomparative grammar of the Malayo-Polynesian language family(Bloomfield 1933, 19). At the behest of Alexander von Humboldt, whohad written a Preface to the entire work, a separate edition of theIntroduction was brought to publication to serve as a memorial to the



Introduction was brought to publication to serve as a memorial to thedeceased, its text shortened and adjusted by the editor to its new purposewhich made it appear as an independent treatise containing a summary ofHumboldt's theoretical views on language. Therefore, the wordIntroduction was dropped from its title altogether: The Diversity ofHuman Language-Structure and its Influence on the intellectual andspiritual Development of Mankind (Ueber die Verschiedenheit desmenschlichen Sprachbaus und seinen Einfluss auf die geistigeEntwickelung des Menschengeschlechts) (Berlin, 1836). This text, oftenconfused with the Introduction proper or even with the whole work,became the single most important text for the Humboldt receptionthroughout the nineteenth and much of the twentieth century.[3] While inthis text Humboldt elaborated broadly on his understanding of languageand human speech, it is no longer evident that he intended it as a clearingof the ground for the large-scale empirical investigations that were tomake up the body of the work. Yet from a strictly philosophicalperspective this text does not measure up in its organization, articulationof issues or its philosophical stringency to some of Humboldt's earlierposthumous treatises. These, however, were not published until thetwentieth century. Among these groundbreaking works (of which noEnglish translations yet exist) must be counted the Grundzge desallgemeinen Sprachtypus (Fundamentals of the Linguistic Prototype) andVom grammatischen Baue der Sprachen (On the Grammatical Structureof Languages). It is only in the light of twentieth- century linguistics,anthropology and philosophy, that is, after Saussure, Cassirer, Jakobson,Whorf, Chomsky and Wittgenstein, that the true scope of Humboldt'slinguistic philosophy has become visible and its actuality been perceived.During the nineteenth century Humboldt was for the representatives ofthe academically established discipline of linguistics with its positivistichistoricist and strictly Indo-European orientation nothing but the odd manout. What separated him from the mainstream was his philosophicallygrounded understanding of language and linguistics and his decidedly



grounded understanding of language and linguistics and his decidedlynon-Eurocentric orientation, which preserved the enlightenmentUniversalist tradition by providing it with a new philosophical base.

Before he died Humboldt bequeathed his entire collection of linguisticmaterials, including his own manuscripts, to the Royal Prussian Library inBerlin so that it would be accessible to the public for further research. Yetsoon after his death in 1835 the integrity of the collection was violated, itscontents were divided and dispersed and many items sent to differentlocations. Thus some of Humboldt's books, with his marginal commentsand annotations, could still be found in general circulation in libraries ofthe former East Germany. It was also wrongly believed until recently thatthe greater part of the collection, including Humboldt's own manuscripts,was destroyed in Berlin or otherwise lost during the last months of WorldWar Two. Throughout the nineteenth and most of the twentieth centurieswith few exceptions, his papers did not attract the curiosity ofprofessional linguists whose attention was focused mainly on Indo-European languages. Astonishingly, the extensive body of his posthumousworks and papers was not ever systematically examined or properlycatalogued, let alone studied in depth until recently. As a consequence, allexisting editions have virtually excluded Humboldt's empirical work, asituation that will be rectified with the appearance of a new completeedition of Humboldt's linguistic works that is under way (Humboldt1994).

2. Examining Humboldt's Writings: Contours,Scope, and CategoriesReflecting the extraordinary range of his intellectual interests andconcerns, the corpus of Humboldt's writings consists of a wide spectrumof diverse types and genres of texts of which only a small portion wasever published during his lifetime. Until this day all editions of his workshave remained incomplete. His texts consist of philosophical reflections,



have remained incomplete. His texts consist of philosophical reflections,fragments, studies of varying types and length, notes, diaries, as well asentire treatises and monographs with themes ranging from politicaltheory, anthropology, aesthetics, educational theory, literature and historyto hermeneutics, ethnology, and last but not least, to language philosophyand linguistics. Not to be omitted are the political memoranda produced atthe time Humboldt held public office, many of which must be countedamong his outstanding literary and intellectual achievements. There isalso a sizable corpus of translations from the works of Lucretius, Pindar,Aeschylos, Aristophanes and others (GS Vol 8) as well as his own poeticproductions (GS Vol 9). Last but not least, must be consideredHumboldt's extensive and extraordinarily rich correspondence that hemaintained with a large number of the important personalities of the agethroughout his entire life. Noteworthy among these are hiscorrespondence with his wife Caroline (7 vols.), his brother Alexander,Franz Bopp, Karl-Gustav Brinkmann, Charlotte Diede (Briefe an eineFreundin), Friedrich Gentz, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, HenrietteHerz, Friedrich Jacobi, Christian Gottfried Krner, Friedrich Schiller,August Wilhelm Schlegel, Germaine de Stal, Friedrich Welcker andFriedrich Wolf. An entire group of his correspondence consists ofexchanges with scholars in different parts of the world and is concernedwith specific issues and problems. The bulk of these communications canbe found among his extant linguistic papers where they have come downto us in the order in which Humboldt filed them. His politicalcorrespondence forms a separate category and has been published as partof the Academy edition in GS Vol 16, 17.

Among his published writings only the Ideen zu einem Versuch dieGrenzen der Wirksamkeit des Staats zu bestimmen (The Speres and Dutiesof Government) 1792, the Aesthetische Versuche I (Essays on AestheticsI) 1799, Prfung der Untersuchungen ber die Urbewohner Hispaniens(On the Early Inhabitants of Spain) 1821, and the Kawi-Einleitung(Introduction to the Kavi Language) 1836, constitute complete works in



(Introduction to the Kavi Language) 1836, constitute complete works inthe traditional sense. The majority of his writings consist of essays,articles or presentations produced for specific occasions on the one handand of a large body of sketches, studies, notes, expositions and entiretreatises on the other. Humboldt used the medium of writing as a vehicleof intellectual exploration to untangle the complex and diverse aspects ofa specific problem or set of problems rather than attempting to state afixed and definite position or opinion, and he would often bring to beardifferent view-points onto the matter at hand and utilize varyingformulations. It is characteristic of his intellectual style that he would withconsistent philosophical and methodological astuteness develop a specifictype of questioning that made it possible for him to bring to viewparticular phenomena or sets of problems in their inherent complexity.What lends a sense of unity to the large variety of his writings devoted toso many different domains of knowledge, is his consistency in articulatingquestions, in applying a specific viewpoint and perspective, and arecurring use of specific key concepts and their concomitant terminology.

3. Humboldt's Approach to Anthropology, PoliticalPhilosophy and AestheticsIn his essay On Religion (1789) Humboldt drew the outlines of ahistorical typology that would make it possible to study the relationshipbetween religion and state power from the Greek city-states to presenttimes and envisaged the purpose of the modern state as enabling itscitizens to realize fully their human vocation (Bestimmung alsMensch)(GS Vol 1, S.54). It would be necessary for this purpose,Humboldt thought, to accord a positive value to human sensuality andgive it a freer and more creative rein. Consequently, he rejected thetraditional dualistic view of human nature with its mind/body dichotomyand the Cartesian notion of the human spirit as a kind of ghost in themachine. Instead, he maintained, mind and body form a vital unity and



machine. Instead, he maintained, mind and body form a vital unity andwhat we call spirit (Geist) for him was nothing but the finestramification of sensuality. The path to self-determination that Kant haddemanded in his moral philosophy must therefore proceed through thecultivation of man's sensuality (Sinnlichkeit). Hence the realm ofaesthetics is granted a key function in any attempt to overcome theinherited mind/body dichotomy, in which Humboldt saw a major obstaclein the path of achieving individual self-determination. Schiller, in thecentral sections of his Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man of 1795would take up Humboldt's ideas. In the twentieth century members of theFrankfurt School, such as Herbert Marcuse in his book Eros andCivilization, would infuse these ideas with a renewed sense of relevancyand importance by linking them to Freudian psychology in their CriticalTheory and philosophy. In his two contributions for Schiller's journalDie Horen, Humboldt took the additional step of characterizing sexualdifference as basic biological and anthropological givens of humanculture and society.

His political writings from this period take issue with the eighteenthcentury absolutist idea of the state while at the same time offering acritical analysis of the political situation in contemporary France.Humboldt tried to explain the unsuccessful attempts by the FrenchNational Assembly to create a lasting constitution and civic order by itsunrealistic absolutist reliance on principles of abstract reason. As early as1791 he predicted the fate of the new French constitution when he arguedthat constitutions cannot be grafted upon human beings as sprigs on atree. Where time and nature had not prepared the ground, he argued itwould be like tying blossoms on trees with pieces of twine: the firstsunlight at noon will scorch them to death. (GS. 1.80). In order tosafeguard the freedom of the individual from government encroachment,Humboldt proposed to limit the functions and the authority of the state.This included the state's endeavors to provide actively for the welfare ofits citizens whenever this would cripple or hinder the free development of



its citizens whenever this would cripple or hinder the free development ofthe individual's own potential for self-realization. For the true end ofman Humboldt wrote, was the highest and most harmoniousdevelopment of his powers to a complete and consistent whole. To reachthat goal, freedom was the indispensable condition (GS Vol 1, 107). Yetthe free development of the individuals, their self-realization, or Bildung,their self-culture, as the American Transcendentalists would translatethe term, for Humboldt necessarily implied a social and politicaldimension. Self-culture demanded a manifold of situations (eineMannigfaltigkeit der Situationen) for the individual citizens, so that theywould be able to enter freely into relationships of association andcooperation with one another, because, Humboldt argued, humans canrealize their potential as individuals only in society. For this reason,Humboldt maintained, a government should not be evaluated solely by itslegal system that granted freedom and liberty to its citizens but equally byhow much and to what degree it helped assure the creation of such amanifold of situations and opportunities for the individual citizens todevelop their human capacities in actual reality.

In his Aesthetische Versuche I (Essays in Aethetics I) of 1799 Humboldtemployed an unusual and original approach that enabled him to combinesuccessfully three different tasks, namely a close interpretation ofGoethe's epic poem Hermann und Dorothea, the laying of the foundationsof a new aesthetics and poetics proceeding from Kantian transcendentalprinciples and finally the formulation of a theory of literature and literarygenres. His starting point is the question:

What makes it possible for the artist to produce aesthetic effects? (GSVol 2, 318). Combining Kantian questioning from the Critique ofJudgment with the performative model of the human mind presented byFichte in his Science of Knowledge (Wissenschaftslehre), Humboldtadvanced a theory of the imagination (Einbildungskraft) that enabled himto explain aesthetic effects as an interactive process involving the triad of



to explain aesthetic effects as an interactive process involving the triad ofartist, work of art and recipient.

Art in its most basic sense is to be understood as the transformation ofwhat is real into an image. (Das Wirkliche in ein Bild zu verwandeln, GSVol 2, 126, de transformer en image ce qui, dans la nature est rel, GSVol 1, 1) The art of the poet, more specifically, consists in his ability orcompetence (Fertigkeit) to render the imagination creative according torules, to incite the imagination through the imagination (GS Vol 2, 127)and thereby create a live act of communication (lebendige Mitteilung)(GS Vol 2, 132). Among all the arts poetry occupies a special position inHumboldt's view, because the material from which it is fashioned is notlike ordinary material, as the stone or marble the sculptor uses, but insteadconsists of something already endowed with form, namely language.Poetry therefore is art through language. Through his imagination thepoet creates works that represent a world embodying a totality of theirown that differs in principle from the world of reality. In his definition ofart Humboldt no longer looks at art works as objects in order to gatherfrom them a list of quasi objective qualities from which the nature of artcould then be derived, but instead focuses on the process of aestheticproduction and the rules by which it is governed and on how these rulesare revealed in the poet's art. In other words, a generative one hasreplaced the traditional mimetic or objective concept of art.

4. Some Essentials of Humboldt's Understanding ofLanguageSubsequently, in his linguistics and language philosophy Humboldt wouldadvance a similar generative view of human language and speech.Because he understood linguistic form as procedural rule and direction, asforma formans, (Form von Form, GS Vol 5, 455) rather than as somekind of material shape or fixed objective entity (Form von Materie), thestructure and organization of a language for him could not be gathered



structure and organization of a language for him could not be gatheredfrom the actual verbal forms of its construction, its grammar. It was to beobtained rather from an analysis of the procedures language employs in itsgeneration of speech. (Verfahrensweise der Sprache bei der Erzeugungder Rede). For, as Humboldt put it language in actuality only exists inspoken discourse, its grammar and dictionary are hardly even comparableto its dead skeleton. (Die Sprache liegt nur in der verbundenen Rede,Grammatik und Wrterbuch sind kaum ihrem todten Gerippevergleichbar GS Vol 6, 147) How such an analysis of the process ofspeech production is to proceed, what it encompasses, what it is able toachieve and how it will enable the linguist to study and describe differentnatural languages, Humboldt has discussed in great depth and detail inseveral of his larger linguistic treatises, as for example in hisFundamentals of the Linguistic Prototype (Grundzge des allgemeinenSprachtypus, GS Vol 5, 400ff.)

To understand his approach to linguistics and to appreciate the empiricallinguistic investigations that will follow from it, it is necessary to take acloser look at his conception of language at its formative stage wherephilosophy and linguistics intersect in a distinct manner. DuringHumboldt's Jena period the problem of the relationship between thinking,language and reality that seemed to have been settled once and for all byrationalist (Descartes, Leibniz) and empiricist (Locke, Condillac) thinkersalike, became an open question again for Humboldt, who looked at itfrom the new perspective that Kantian and Fichtean philosophy hadopened up. In 1795 he wrote a series of sixteen theses on Thinking andSpeaking (Ueber Denken und Sprechen, GS Vol 7, 58183) in response toa recent essay by Fichte On the origin of language and human languageability. In this, his first major statement on language, he takes issue withthe concept of the linguistic sign, which had been one of the cornerstonesof seventeenth and eighteenth-century language philosophy. In both therationalist and empiricist schools of thought it was assumed that signsconstituted a special class of objects outside the mind existing



constituted a special class of objects outside the mind existingindependently from it to which convenient labels agreed upon by societyhad been attached. The relationship of these signs to the mental ideas theywere supposed to represent were therefore understood as arbitrary orconventional. Although empiricists and rationalists agreed that speakingrequired the use of signs and that without them mental operations whetherthey derived from sensations or not were not possible, they were unable toexplain as Herder had put it, how the sound of roundness was able torepresent the idea of roundness. But Herder himself had not been able toadvance a plausible solution to the problem, either, even though heconnected the origin of language with reflection (Besonnenheit), claimingthat it was through reflection that humans had first created language.

5. Transcendental Semiotics: The Overturning of theTraditional Objectivist Concept of the SignHumboldt's approach differs radically from that of his predecessors. TheNature of thinking consists in reflecting, he states in thesis 1, that is, inthe act by which the thinking subject differentiates itself from its thought(im Unterscheiden des Denkenden vom Gedachten). This basic fact thatevery person can easily verify by performing such an act is the startingpoint of Humboldt's deliberations. Now, in order to reflect we must in ourmind arrest the continuous flow of impressions in order to concentrate onsomething, comprehend this something as a separate unit (Einheit), andset it as an object over against our thinking activity (thesis 2) As a nextstep, the mind can now proceed to compare several of these units,divide and combine them in different ways. In drawing the conclusion(thesis 4) from this state of affairs, Humboldt lays the ground for aradically new notion of the sign that anticipates (and points beyond)Saussure's definition given in his Cours de Linguistique Gnrale.Thinking consists for Humboldt in segmenting its own process, therebyforming whole units out of certain portions of its activity, and in setting



forming whole units out of certain portions of its activity, and in settingthese formations separately in opposition to one another, collectively,however, as objects, in opposition to the thinking subject. In otherwords, in this process of segmentation not only are different objects arecreated, but With it the very subject of this thinking activity constitutesitself. Up to this point we seem to have been moving very much along thelines of Fichte's Wissenschaftslehre the I positing itself in the act ofthinking but in thesis 5, Humboldt's argumentation takes a suddenKantian turn: No thinking, not even the purest, can occur without the aidfrom the general forms of our sensibility (allgemeinen Formen unsrerSinnlichkeit); only through them can it be apprehended and, as it were,arrested. What Humboldt is saying, then, is that the mental acts he hasdescribed would not have been possible without assistance from thegeneral forms of our sensibility. But how precisely do they make theseacts possible? thesis 6 offers an unexpectedly suspenseful answer thatbuilds up to its culmination in the very last word which is: language:The sensory designations of those units, into which certain portions ofour thinking are united, in order to be opposed as parts to other parts of agreater whole as objects to the subjects, is called in the broadest sense ofthe word: language (Sprache).

What Humboldt describes here is a dual process of segmentation: that ofthe mental stream of impressions and a corresponding one of sensoryorder, exactly what linguists today refer to as the principle of doublearticulation (Martinet 1963, 22f). Through reflection we single outcertain portions from the unending and amorphous flow of impressionsand mental images while at the same time imposing an order upon them.This imposition of order is the work of the sensory medium of language:word sounds function as structured units (Einheiten) through which wediscern and secure the mental units in the flow of impressions and images.Human speech, therefore, is no longer seen by Humboldt as applying andmanipulating a fixed system of arbitrary signs as was assumed by bothrationalists and empiricists, but consists rather of the operation of joining



rationalists and empiricists, but consists rather of the operation of joiningtogether these two different sets of orders: that of the articulated sound,the signifier, and that of the thought or signified. Over a century laterSaussure in his Cours de Linguistique Gnrale would define languageand the linguistic sign with almost the same words. What constitutedlanguage, according to Saussure, was the somehow mysterious fact thatthe thought-sound implies the divisions which are the ultimate units oflinguistics. Sound and thought can be combined only by means of theseunits (Engler 1968, 2523). It is Humboldt who deserves the credit forhaving first discovered the triadic nature of the linguistic sign:Signification (speaking) is defined by him as the synthesis (Saussure'scombination) of sound and idea: Ton and Vorstellung.

6. The Anthropological Side of Language Productionand the Humboldtian Model of Communication;Laying the Basis of Modern Structural PhonologyBut there is yet another important facet in Humboldt's account that islacking in Saussure and that Humboldt already had referred to in thesis 5.There he had shown the act of language production, or Articulation to beat one and the same time the constitutive act for the consciousness of selfof the speaking individual. Thus there arises in the act of speaking thedistinction between subject and object as mutually constitutivecorrelatives of this act. Subsequently, in thesis 7 we learn that besides thelinguistic and epistemological angle there is still an anthropological sideto this process. For language begins simultaneously with the first act ofreflection, Humboldt argues, and precisely when man awakens from thestupor of desire (Dumpfheit der Begierde), in which the subject devoursthe object, to self-consciousness, the word is there also the first impulse,as it were, which man gives himself to stand still, to look around and toorient himself. His notion of the rise of human self-consciousness istherefore quite the opposite of Hobbes' and particularly Hegel's view as



therefore quite the opposite of Hobbes' and particularly Hegel's view asdepicted by the latter in the life and death struggle of the master/slavedialectics in his Phenomenology of the Spirit. For Humboldt it is languageinstead that serves as the civilizing force leading the individual to self-consciousness and societal interaction and thus involves a positiverelation to the other. In his later linguistic writings, discussed below, hedeveloped a communicative model of human speech that can be seen asan extension and transformation of the Fichtean concept of theintersubjective I. In the twentieth century the philosopher JuegenHabermas attempted to incorporate Humboldt's model in his theory ofcommunicative action.

Humboldt's notion of articulation first introduced in his Thinking andSpeaking of 1795 formed the theoretical basis also for his empiricalwork into the phonemic structures of natural languages where his researchanticipated modern linguists', e.g. Trubetzkoy's and Jakobson's,conception of phonology. Already in 1795 he drew a clear distinctionbetween the physical sound of nature on the one hand and thearticulated sounds that constitute language on the other. In his empiricalstudies he discovered that the latter alone would form a clearly discernibleunit (scharf zu vernehmende Einheit), capable of embodying features toallow these sounds to enter into specific relationships with each other andany other sound(GS Vol 7, 67). What this means is that for Humboldt, theindividual sound of a given language can be formed only in relation tothe others (in Beziehung auf die brigen) that make up the entire soundsystem (Lautsystem) of that language (GS Vol 7, 67). He thought itpossible and desirable to set up schemata accounting for the differentclasses of phonemes (Buchstabenlaute) found in the world's languages,and the different relationships into which these may enter according totheir affinities (Verwandtschaft) or their mutual opposition (inVerschiedenheit einander gegenberstellen GS Vol 7, 69). In workingwith over a dozen native South and Central American languages,Humboldt created one such schema enabling him to describe and to



Humboldt created one such schema enabling him to describe and tocompare the phonetic systems of these different languages.[4]

7. Humboldtian and Cartesian LinguisticsBut if linguistic signs no longer function as instruments forcommunicating independently existing thoughts and ideas from one mindto another, as Descartes, his followers and the empiricists believed, thisraises the question of how individuals can communicate with each otherthrough language, a question that becomes even more urgent if, asHumboldt maintained, states of consciousness cannot be transmitted fromone individual to another at all, for there can be nothing in our mind thanthat which is the result of its own activity (eigne Thtigkeit) (GS Vol 5,382). However, any communication between individuals presupposessomething that is common to both: We understand the word we hearonly, because we could have said it ourselves(GS Vol 5, 382). Thewords we hear and those that we utter are the stimuli for our languagecapacity to generate participatory responses. However, shared languagecapacity and linguistic competence cannot guarantee that one individualunderstands what the other is saying. Only through dialogue with theother can they test their understanding , amend and correct it, ifnecessary. Every understanding is therefore also a non-understanding,Humboldt argued. Thinking, in other words, is by its very nature tied toman's social existence which means that it requires a Thou thatcorresponds to the I. A concept, Humboldt argued, can attain itsdistinctness and clarity only through its being reflected back from theintellect of another person (einer fremden Denkkraft) GS Vol 5, 380) withlanguage as the only mediator between one intellect and another. At thispoint it becomes evident how radically Humboldt's linguistic philosophyand his language studies part company with the traditional Cartesian wayof understanding language. There existed for him a communicativeprototype of human speech that is embedded in the structure of languageitself manifesting itself in the different languages. This prototype of all



itself manifesting itself in the different languages. This prototype of alllanguage (Urtypus aller Sprachen) finds expression through the personalpronoun, that is, by the differentiation between the second and the thirdperson. All speech is directed at someone and its structure cannot beunderstood by applying Cartesian grammatical analysis to it, becausefrom a logical and grammatical point of view, it makes no differencewhether I use the first, second or third personal pronoun, when in eachcase these pronouns function as the subject of a sentence. But forHumboldt I and he really are different entities, and with them, he argued,all possibilities are exhausted: because they constitute the I and the not-I.Thou is also a not I but unlike he, not in the sphere of all beings, butrather in another sphere of common action and interaction. In hisempirical investigations Humboldt therefore paid special attention to thesystem of personal pronouns in a given language because it was fromthere that one could reconstruct the specific manifestation of theprototypal speech situation. Following this line of research in hisAcademy addresses On the Dual Form (1827) and On the Relationshipof the Adverbs of Place with the Pronoun in some Languages (1829)Humboldt analyzed several dozen languages of different language groupsfrom around the globe. It is in these texts that the marriage of languagephilosophy and empirical linguistics that characterizes his work, can bestbe studied.

Cartesian linguistics is intimately connected with the notion of Universalor Philosophical Grammar and, given its revival in Chomsky's generativeapproach to language and his naming of Humboldt as one of hisimmediate precursors, Humboldt's relation to this tradition needs to beclarified. First of all, Humboldt was decidedly critical of all attempts toconstruct a system of Philosophical Grammar supposedly underlying allnatural languages, because it was patterned after the concepts of Latin andFrench grammar and in practice had resulted in the writing of grammarsthat violated the nature of the Non-European languages by forcing theminto the procrustean bed of a Western system, whose categories were



into the procrustean bed of a Western system, whose categories werecompletely alien to their own inherent structures (GS Vol 5, 355). He didnot, however, reject the idea of linguistic universals. On the contrary,these constituted the backbone of his concept of linguistic variety, the factnamely that each language by its structure and formation was able torepresent a specific view of the world (Weltansicht). With Kant hebelieved in the universality of the mental structures and Kantiancategories represented for him the rules and the laws of thinking that wereultimately responsible also for the rule systems that govern our linguisticutterances. But he rejected the idea that these structures were themselvesalready a kind of logical grammar from which a Philosophical Grammarcould directly be deduced. Therefore, the comparative study of thelanguages required some new kind of Universal Grammar to serve astertium comparationes for the linguist not to lose himself in endless andaimless comparisons. Hence he replaced the traditional principles with aradically different conception that he had derived from his work incomparative anatomy at Jena in 1794: the notion of type, used first in hisPlan for a Comparative Anthropology of 1795 and which he now adaptedto the study of language. As the title of his treatise Fundamentals of theLinguistic Prototype (Grundzge des allgemeinen Sprachtypus) suggests,the term stands for the idea of a prototype of language, similar in conceptto Goethe's idea of a protoplant (Urpflanze) which was not to be confusedwith a real plant but instead embodied the essential elements found in allexisting plants. But whereas Goethe's Urpflanze was something quasi-realthat could be perceived through one's mental eyes, Goethe claimed,Humboldt's type is of a different nature[5] Since linguistic form is notsomething material or something abstracted from natural languages, butpertains to a Verrichtung (performance) namely the production of speech,Humboldt's prototype embodies the ensemble of elements and rulesystems that must be considered common and essential for speechproduction in all languages (Verfahrensweise); in short, it is a generativerather than a substantive notion. Once established, through a combination



rather than a substantive notion. Once established, through a combinationof philosophical-methodological reflection and concrete linguisticanalysis, the linguistic prototype was to serve and did serve Humboldt asa guide and tertium comparationis for the study and comparison ofdifferent languages and language groups. In short, the prototype is not tobe seen as an object, a list of specific surface structure features, nor doesit resemble any existing actual language, but instead stands for thecommunality of elements, rules, and structures that underlie all languageproduction. For example, the existence of phonetic elements in a givenlanguage, constituting a sound system (Lautsystem) and its individualword always combining a sound-unit with a thought-unit, must beunderstood as part of the prototypal nature of language, whereas theparticular Lautsystem of that language as it resulted from its historicaldevelopment becomes the subject of specific linguistic investigations.

Similarly, but on a larger scale, Humboldt thought the investigation ofindividual languages and their specific form and character should beguided by the linguist's awareness of the prototypal element in them whilehis work should also contribute to our knowledge of the prototype. Thetask of the linguist was therefore to study each language as a fragmentof the universal language of the human species, (comme un fragment dulangage gnral du genre humain) (Essai sur les langues du NouveauContinent in Stetter 2004, 238). Yet for Humboldt languages do not differfrom each other as species (Gattungen) but as individuals; their characterdoes not pertain to the species but to them as individuals as conditionedby and as a result of their own specific historical development (GS Vol 6,150). The comparative study of the world's languages, as Humboldtenvisioned it, thus represented a constant challenge to the empiricallinguist and to the philosopher; namely, to discover in the linguistic datathat which relates to the prototypal in language and to increase ourknowledge of the nature of language and the human language capacity.Furthermore, he saw the importance of linguistic studies (Sprachstudien)in the discovery of the part language plays in the formation and



in the discovery of the part language plays in the formation andtransmission of ideas (Vorstellungen) not just in the metaphysical senseas conditioning the creation of concepts , but also in the way in which anindividual language imparts its formative imprint on these concepts (GSVol 6, 147).

There are some critical distinctions that Humboldt employs in hislinguistic writings, which shed light on his understanding of language andthe approach he follows in his empirical investigations. Most famous (andoften misunderstood) is his distinction between language perceived asproduct (Werk) or ergon on the one hand and as activity (Ttigkeit) orenergeia on the other (Humboldt 1836, LVII). It is not identical with thedistinction introduced by Saussure between langue and parole, sinceHumboldt's distinction cuts across both langue and parole and both canbe seen from the angle of either process or product. Because Humboldtperceived language not as a fixed entity or object, but as somethingtransitory, something that is real only in the moment of speaking, as anactivity, he thought its true definition can only be a genetic one.(Humboldt 1836, LVVII). Thus he distinguished sharply (as did hiscontemporary Schleiermacher) before Saussure and twentieth-centurylinguistics, between language (Sprache) and Speech (Rede). In his FrenchEssai of 1811 he also uses Saussure's third term, langage in a similarmanner as pertaining to language in a general sense.

Although he developed almost single-handedly against the tenets of histime and of most of the nineteenth century a structural approach for hisinvestigation of dozens of mostly non- European languages, Humboldtdid not consider the study of a language's structure, its Bau, the ultimateend of linguistics. Because language in its fullest sense occurs only in thesocietal context in its acts of speech production and in what is being saidthrough them, its true nature can only be intimated and perceived in livingdiscourse (verbundener Rede) and should be studied equally in its lastingmanifestations in the works of culture and of science, in literature, poetry,



manifestations in the works of culture and of science, in literature, poetry,and philosophy.

A comprehensive account and just assessment of Humboldt'sachievements in language philosophy and linguistics will become possibleonly as the new complete edition of his Writings on Linguistics (Schriftenzur Sprachwissenschaft), presently under way, becomes available.[6]

BibliographyWorks

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184152 Gesammelte Werke. Ed. Carl Brandes. 7 vols, Berlin: G.Reimer. Reprint Berlin: De Gruyer, 1988.

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1994 Schriften zur Sprachwissenschaft (Writings on Linguistics),Ed., Kurt Mueller-Vollmer in cooperation with TilmanBorsche, Bernhard Hurch, Manfred Ringmacher, JrgenTrabant and Gordon Whittaker. Paderborn, Mnchen, Wien,Zrich: F. Schningh. 2 vols. so far of 23.

English Translations

1854 The Spheres and Duties of Government. Translated from theGerman by Joseph Coulthard, London: Chapman. Reprint: Bristol:Thoemmes Press, 1994

1997 Essays on Language, Edited by T.Harden and D. Farrelly,Frankfurt, Berlin, Bern, New York: P. Lang.

1999 On Language. On the Diversity of Human Language Constructionand its Influence on the Mental Development of the HumanSpecies. Ed, Michael Losonsky, Translated by Peter Heath,Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy, Cambridge:Cambridge University Press.

2000 On the Task of the Historian, Tran.Linda DeMichiel, in TheHermeneutics Reader, ed. Kurt Mueller-Vollmer, New York:Continuum, 105-119.

Correspondence



There is as yet no complete edition of Humboldt's correspondence.

1830 Briefwechsel zwischen Schiller und Wilhelm von Humboldt Miteiner Vorerinnerung ber Schiller und den Gang seinerGeistesentwicklung von Wilhelm von Humboldt. Stuttgart andTbingen: Cotta.

1859 Wilhelm von Humboldt's Briefe an Friedrich Gottlob Welcker.Ed. Rudolf Haym. Berlin: R. Gaertner.

1892 Briefe von Wilhelm von Humboldt an Friedrich HeinrichJacobi. Ed. Albert Leitzmann. Halle/S: Niemeyer.

1897 Briefe an Franz Bopp. In: Salomon Liefmann, Franz Bopp,sein Leben und seine Wissenschaft Nachtrag. Berlin: G.Reimer. p. 1104.

190616 Wilhelm und Caroline von Humbodlt in ihren Briefen. Ed.Anna von Sydow. 7 vols, Berlin: Mittler.

1908 Briefwechsel zwischen Wilhelm von Humboldt und AugustWilhelm Schlegel. Ed. Albert Leitzmann. Halle/S: Niemeyer.

1909 Briefe an eine Freundin. Zum ersten Male nach den Originalenherausgegeben von Albert Leitzmann, 2 vols., Leipzig: Insel.

1909 Goethes Briefwechsel mit Wilhelm und Alexander vonHumboldt. Ed. Ludwig Geiger. Berlin: H. Bondy.

191617 Wilhelm von Humboldt und Frau von Stal. Ed. AlbertLeitzmann. Deutschse Rundschau, Vol 169 (1916), 95112,271280, 431442; Vol 170 (1917), 95108, 256266, 425435; Vol 171 (1917), 8295.

1936 Georg und Therese Forster und die Brder v.H. Urkunden undUmrisse. Ed. Albert Leitzmann. Bonn: Rhrscheid.

1939 Briefe an Karl Gustav von Brinkmann. Ed. Albert Leitzmann.Leipzig: Hiersmann.



1940 Briefe an Christian Gottfried Krner. Ed. Albert Leitzmann.Berlin: E. Ebering.

1956 Briefe an Christine Reinhard-Reimarus. Ed. Arndt Schreiber.Heidelberg: Lamber Schneider.

1962 Der Briefwechsel zwischen Friedrich Schiller und Wilhelm vonHumboldt Ed. Siegfried Seidel. 2 vols. Berlin: Aufbau Verlag.

1999 Lettres difiantes et curieuses sur la langue chinoise : un dbatphilosophico-grammatical entre Wilhelm von Humboldt etJean-Pierre Abel-Rmusat (1821-1831), ed. Jean Rousseau,Denis Thouard; with new correspondence of Humboldt (18241831) introd. by Jean Rousseau. Villeneuve-d'Ascq: Pressesuniversitaires du Septentrion.

Literature

Bibliographies

Goedeke, Karl. 1959. Grundriss zur Geschichte der DeutschenDichtunge, Vol 14, second revised ed., Dresden: Ehlermann. p. 50278, 101516.Mattson, Philip. 1980. Verzeichnis des Briefwechsels Wilhelm vonHumboldts. 2 vols., Heidelberg: Wilhelm von Humboldt Briefarchiv.Sweet, Paul. 1980. Wilhelm von Humboldt: A Biography, Vol 2.,Columbus, Ohio: Ohio University Press, p. 53056.

Monographs, Biographies and Collected Essays

Berglar, Peter. 1970. Wilhelm von Humboldt in Selbstzeugnissen undBilddokumenten. Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt.Freese, Rudolf, ed. 1955. Wilhelm von Humboldt Sein Leben undWirken, dargestellt in Briefen, Tagebchern und. Dokumenten.Berlin.



Berlin.Harnack,Otto. 1913. Wilhelm von Humboldt. Berlin: Hofmann.Haym, Rudolf. 1856. Wilhelm von Humboldt Lebensbild undCharakeristik. Berlin. Reprint Osnabrck: O. Zeller, 1965.Heilmann, Luigi. 1976. Wilhelm von Humboldt nella culturacontemporanea. Bologna: Il Mulino.Kaehler, Siegfried. 1927. Wilhelm von Humboldt und der Staat.Mnchen: Oldenburg. 2nd revised ed. Gttingen: Vandenhoeck &Ruprecht, 1963.Kessel, Eberhard. 1967. Wilhelm von Humboldt Idee undWirklichkeit. Stuttgart: Koehler.Leroux, Robert. 1932. Guillaume de H. La formation de sa pensejusqu'en 1794. Paris: Les Belles Lettres.Schaffstein, Friedrich. 1952. Wilhelm von Humboldt Ein Lebensbild.Frankfurt: Klostermann.Schlerath, Bernfried, ed. 1986. Wilhelm von HumboldtVortragszyklus zum 150. Todestag. Berlin, New York: de Gruyter.Schlesier, Gustav. 184345. Erinnerungen an Wilhelm von Humboldt2 vols. Stuttgart:H. Khler. New edit. 1854.Scurla, Herbert. 1970, 1975. Wilhelm von Humboldt Werden undWirken. Berlin: Verlag der Nation, DDR.Sweet, Paul S. 197880. Wilhelm von Humboldt A Biography. 2vols., Columbus, Ohio: Ohio University Press.

Aesthetics, Art, Literature

Borinski, Karl. 192324. Die Antike in Poetik und Kunsttheorie vomAusgang des klassischen Altertums bis auf Goethe und Wilhelm vonHumboldt Vol 2, Leipzig: Dieterich.Harnack,Otto. 1892. Die klassische sthetik der Deutschen. Leipzig:J.C. Hinrichs.Leitzmann, Albert. 1912. Wilhelm von Humboldts Sonettdichtung.Bonn: A.Markus & E.Weber.



Bonn: A.Markus & E.Weber.Leroux, Robert. 1948. L'esthtique sexue de Guillaume de H..Etudes Germaniques, 3. p.261273.Marcovaldi, Gaetano. 1934. Il pensiero estetico di Guglielmo H. In:Scritti di Estetica, Wilhelm von Humboldt Firenze: Sansoni.Mueller-Vollmer, Kurt. 1967. Poesie und.Einbildungskraft.ZurDichtungstheorie Wilhelm von Humboldts. Stuttgart: Metzler.Novak, Richey A. 1972. Wilhelm von Humboldt as a Literary Critic.Bern: P.Lang.Price, Cora Lee. 1967. Wilhelm von Humboldt und.Schillers Briefeber die sthetische Erziehung des Menschen. Jahrbuch derDeutschen Schiller Gesellschaft. 11, p.358373.Rehm, Walter. 1960. Europische Romdichtung, 2. revised ed.,Mnchen: Max Hueber, p.17496.Rdiger, Horst. 19367. Wilhelm von Humboldt als bersetzer. InImprimatur 7, p. 7996.

Politics and Education

Benner, Dietrich. 2003. Wilhelm von Humboldts Bildungstheorie,Weinheim and Munich: Juventus.Craig, Gordon. 1967. Wilhelm von Humboldt as a diplomat. InStudies in International History, London: Longmans.Gebhardt, Bruno. 189699. Wilhelm von Humboldt als Staatsmann.Stuttgart: Cotta. (Reprint: Aalen, 1965.)Kaehler, Siegfried A. 1961. Wilhelm von Humboldt und derStaat:Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte deutsche Lebensgestaltung um1800. 2d. Gttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.Meinecke, Friedrich. 1933. Staat und Persnlichkeit. Berlin: Mittler.Trans Cosmopolitanism and the national state, R. Kimber, tr.Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1970.Menze, Clemens. 1966. Wilhelm von Humboldts Lehre und Bild vomMenschen. Ratingen: A.Henn.



Menschen. Ratingen: A.Henn.. 1975. Die Bildungsreform Wilhelm von Humboldts. Hannover,Darmstadt, Derlin: Schroedel.Mueller-Vollmer, Kurt. 1989. Humboldts Bildungspolitik und dieFranzsische Revolution. Diskursanalysen 2. Institution Universitt.Ed., Friedrich Kittler et.al., Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, p.6381.Muhlack, Ulrich. 1967. Das zeitgenssische Frankreich in derPolitik Hs. Lbeck and Hamburg: Matthiesen.Schelsky, Helmut. 1963. :Einsamkeit und Freiheit. Reinbek:Rowohlt.Spranger, Eduard. 1909. Wilhelm von Humboldt und dieHumanittsidee. Berlin: Reuther & Reichard. 2d ed., 1928.. 1910. Wilhelm von Humboldt und die Reform desBildungswesens. Berlin: Reuther & Reichard. New EditionTbingen: Niemeyer, 1965.

Anthropology, Hermeneutics, History

Droysen, Johann Gustav. 1937. Historik Vorlesungen berEnzyklopaedie und Methodologie der Geschichte. ed. R. Hbner,Munich and Berlin. 3rd ed. Darmstadt: WissenschaftlicheBuchgesellschaft, 1958.Gadamer, Hans-Georg. 1972. Wahrheit und Methode. 3rd enlargeded., Tbingen:J.C.B. Mohr, (1960, 1965), English tran.: Truth andMethod. 2nd rev. edition, New York: Cross road, 1989.Heinemann, Fritz. 1929. Wilhelm von Humboldts philosophischeAnthropologie und.Theorie der Menschenkenntnis, Halle/S:Niemeyer.Leroux, Robert. 1959. L'Anthropologie compare de Guillaume deH. Strassbourg: Presses Universitaires de Strassbourg.Mueller-Vollmer, Kurt 1985. Von der Durchdringbarkeit deswirkungsgeschichtlichen Bewusstseins. Zur Hermeneutik



wirkungsgeschichtlichen Bewusstseins. Zur HermeneutikHegels,Gadamers und Humboldts. Literary Theory andCriticism.Festschrift in Honor of Ren Wellek.Bern: P. Langd., p.475494.Quillien, Jean. 1991. L'Anthropologie Philosophique de G. deHumboldt. Lille: Presses Universitaires de Lille.Riedel, Manfred. 1978. Erklren oder Verstehen? Stutgart: Klett,Cotta.Spranger, Eduard. 1908. Wilhelm von Humboldts ber dieAufgabe des Geschichtsschreibers. Historische Zeitschrift 100.. 1952. Wilhelm von Humboldts Aufgaben desGeschichtsschreibers, Historische Zeitschrift 174.Stadler, Peter B. 1959. Wilhelm von Humboldts Bild der Antike.Zrich: Artemis.Wach, Joachim. 1926. Das Verstehen. Vol 1., Tbingen: J.C.B.Mohr. (Rep. Hildesheim 1966).

Philosophy and Linguistics

Adler, G.J. 1866. Wilhelm von Humboldt's Linguistic Studies. NewYork: Wynkoop & Hallenbeck.Bloomfield, Leonhard. 1933. Language. New York: Henry Holt andCo.Borsche, Tilman. 1981. Der Begriff der menschlichen. Rede in derSprachphilosophie Wilhelm von Humboldts. Stuttgart: Cotta.Brown, Roger Langham. 1967. Wilhelm von Humboldt's Conceptionof Linguistic Relativity. The Hague and Paris: Mouton.Buchholz, Ulrike. 1986. Das Kawi-Werk Wilhelm von Humboldts.Mnster: Institut f. Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft, Nodus.Chomsky, Noam. 1965. Aspects of the Theory of Syntax. Cambridge,Mass: MIT Press.. 1966. Cartesian Linguistics: A Chapter in the History ofRationalist Thought. New York/London: Harper & Row.



Rationalist Thought. New York/London: Harper & Row.Cassirer, Ernst. 1923. Die kantischen Elemente in Wilhelm vonHumboldts Sprachphilosophie. Festschrift Paul Hensel, Greiz:Ohag. 192331. Philosophie der symbolischen Formen. 3 vols. 4thed.,Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1964. (OnHumboldt: Vol 1). 1953. English transl.:The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms. NewHaven: Yale University PressDe Mauro, Tullio and Formigari, Lia. eds. 1988. Leibniz,Humboldt,and the Origins of Comparativism. Amsterdam-Philadelphia: Benjamins.Di Cesare, Donatella, Pour une hermneutique du langage.Epistmologie et mthodologie de la recherche linguistique d'aprsHumboldt, in Cahiers Ferdinand de Saussure, 4, 1990, p.123140., Individualitt der Sprache und Verstehen des AnderenHumboldts dialogische Hermeneutik, in Internationale Zeitschriftfr Philosophie 1996, 2, p. 160183.Engler, Rudolf. 1968. Cours de Linguistique Gnrale. Wiesbaden.Fiesel, Eva. 1927. Die Sprachphilosophie der deutschen Romantik.Tbingen: J.C.B. Mohr. Reprint Hildesheim: Olms, 1973.Gipper, Helmut. 1965. Wilhelm von Humboldt als Begrnder dermodernen Sprachforschung. WWort 15. p.119.Gipper, Helmut and Schmitter, Peter. 1979. Sprachwissenschaft.undSprachphilosophie im Zeitalter der Romantik. Tbingen: GnterNarr.Habermas, Jrgen. 1991. Communicative Action in Essays on JrgenHabermas' Theory of Communicative Action. Ed by Axel Honnethand Hans Jonas, Cambridge, Mass, MIT Press. p. 214250.Hansen-Loeve, Ole. 1972. La rvolutionne copernicienne du langagedans l'oeuvre de Wilhelm von Humboldt. Paris: J. Vrin.



Heeschen, Volker. 1972. Die Sprachphilosophie Wilhelm vonHumboldts. Diss. Bochum.Heidegger, Martin. 1927. Sein und Zeit, Tbingen: Niemeyer. 9thEd., 1960.. 1962. Being and Time. Trans. Macquarrie and Robinson. NewYork: Harper & Row.. 1959. Unterwegs zur Sprache. Pfullingen: G. Neske.. 1971. On the Way to Language. Trans. P.D.Hertz, New York:Harper & Row.Lammer, Wilhelm. 1936. Wilhelm von Humboldts Weg zurSprachforschung 17851801. Berlin and Rostock: Junker &Dnnhaupt.Liebrucks, Bruno. 1965. Sprache und Bewusstsein, Vol 2: Sprache.Wilhelm von Humboldt. Frankfurt/ M.: AkademischeVerlagsgesellschaft.Losonsky, Michael. 1999. Introduction to Wilhelm von HumboldtOn Language, Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press,p. viixxxxix.Manchester, Martin. 1985. The Philosophical Foundations ofHumboldt's Linguistic Doctrines. Amsterdam/ Philadelphia:Benjamins.Martinet, A. 1963. Grundzge der allgemeinen Sprachwissenschaft,Stuttgart.Miller, Robert L. 1968. The Linguistic Relativity Principle andHumboldtian Ethnolinguistics. The Hague and Paris: Mouton.Mueller-Vollmer, Kurt. 1976. Wilhelm von Humboldt und derAnfang der amerikanischen Sprachwissenschaft:Die Briefe an JohnPickering. Frankfurt a. M.: Klostermann. 1977. From Poetics to Linguistics:Wilhelm von Humboldt andthe Romantic Idea of Language. Le Groupe de Coppet. Actes etDocuments du deuxime Colloque de Coppet Geneva and Paris:M.Slatkin and H.Champion. p. 195215.



M.Slatkin and H.Champion. p. 195215.. 1989. Thinking and Speaking: Herder, Humboldt andSaussurean Semiotics. A Translation and Commentary on Wilhelmvon Humboldt's Thinking and Speaking: Sixteen Theses onLanguage. Comparative Criticism 11, p. 159214.. 1991. Die Vaskische Haupt-und Muttersprache.Zweiunverffentlichte Stcke aus Humboldts baskischen Arbeitsbchern18001801. Multum-non multa? Studien zur Einheit der Reflexionim Werk Wilhelm von Humboldts.Ed.Peter Schmitter, Mnster:Nodus. p. 111130. 1993. Wilhelm von Humboldts Sprachwissenschaft. Einkommentiertes Verzeichnis des sprachwissenschaftlichen Nachlasses.Mit einer Einleitung und Zwei Anh ngen. Paderborn, Mnchen,Wien, Zrich: F Schningh.. 1997. Sprache, Zeichen, System: Humboldt gegen Saussure.Festschrift Joseph Strelka. Tbingen: Stauffenburg Verlag. p. 603622.Mueller-Vollmer, Kurt and Heeschen, Volker. 2007. Wilhelm vonHumboldts Bedeutung fr die Beschreibung der sdostasiatischenSprachen und die Anfnge der Sdostasien Forschung. Geschichteder Sprachtheorie, ed.Peter Schmitter, Tbingen: Gnter Narr. Vol6/2. p. 43061 [In press].Oesterreicher, Wulf. 1981. Wem gehrt H? In Logos Semanticos,Festschrift Coseriu, Vol 1, Berlin, New York, Madrid: de Gruyer &Gredos.Olson, Kenneth Russell. 1978. Wilhelm von Humboldt's Philosophyof Language. Diss.,Stanford University.Pott, August Wilhelm. 1876. Wilhelm von Humboldt und dievergleichende Sprachwissenschaft. Berlin: S.Calvary. 2d enl.ed.1880.Scharf, Hans-Werner, ed. 1988. Wilhelm von HumboldtsSprachdenken. Essen: Hobbing.



Sprachdenken. Essen: Hobbing.. 1994. Das Verfahren der Sprache.Humboldt gegen Chomsky.Paderborn, Mnchen, Wien, Zrich: F. Schningh.Schmitter, Peter. 1987. Das sprachliche Zeichen Mnster: Institut f.Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft, Nodus.Spranger, Eduard. 1908. Wilhelm von Humboldt und Kant. KantStudien 13.Steiner, George. 1975. After Babel:Aspects of Language andTranslation. New York and London: Oxford University Press.Stetter, Christian. 1997. Schrift und Sprache. Frankfurt a.M.:Suhrkamp.. 2004. Einleitung to Wilhelm von Humboldt, Grundzge desallgemeinen Sprachtypus. Berlin, Wien: Philo. p. 932.Trabant, Jrgen. 1986. Apeliotes oder der Sinn der Sprache.Mnchen: Fink.. 1990. Traditionen Humboldts, Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp.Welke, Klaus, ed. 1986. Sprache, Bewusstsein,Ttigkeit.ZurSprachkonzeption Wilhelm von Humboldts. Berlin: AkademieVerlag.Zimmermann, Klaus, Trabant, Jrgen, Mueller-Vollmer, Kurt eds.1994. Wilhelm von Humboldt und die amerikanischen Sprachen.Paderborn, Mnchen, Wien, Zrich: F. Schningh.

Other Internet ResourcesEdition Project: The Linguistic Works of Wilhelm von Humboldt,the website of the project to provide an historical-critical edition ofthe linguistic works of Wilhelm von Hunmboldt at the Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie Der Wissenschaftern.

Related Entries



Cassirer, Ernst | Fichte, Johann Gottlieb | Gadamer, Hans-Georg |Habermas, Jrgen | Heidegger, Martin | Kant, Immanuel | Schlegel,Friedrich

Notes to Wilhelm von Humboldt1. There is now a recent French translation of Humboldt's Parisian diaries:Beyer, Elisabeth: Wilhelm von Humboldt. Journal Parisien(1997-1799).Solin/Actes Sud, 2001.

2. Humboldt's correspondence with the French linguist Abel-Rmusat hasbeen published in France in an excellent edition by Jean Rousseau andDenis Thouard: Lettres Edifiantes et Curieuses sur la Langue Chinoise.Humboldt/Abel Rmusat (1821-1831). Villeneuve and Paris, 1999.

3. There exist recent translations of this text into English, French, Italian,Japanese, Spanish and Polish.

4. This schema is preserved among Humboldt's unpublished linguisticpapers at the Staatsbibliothek Preussischer Kulturbesitz in Berlin, callnumber Coll.ling.fol.146

5. On Goethe's notion of a protoplant (Urpflanze), see OlafBreidbach,Goethes Metamorphosenlehre Mnchen, 2006, 33f,106f.

6. The plan for this edition divides Humboldt's writings into for seven (7)separate sections. Section 1 (two vol

wilhelm von humboldt

Documents

areas of philosophy

lifes work

study of language

humboldts views

humboldtcopyright c

humboldts philosophical

hansgeorg gadamer

century derived