The Philosophic Grammar of American Languages, as Set Forth by Wilhelm von Humboldt. Daniel G. (Daniel Garrison) Brinton
The Philosophic Grammar of American Languages, as Set Forth by Wilhelm von Humboldt / With the Translation of an Unpublished Memoir by Him on the American Verb
The Philosophic Grammar of American Languages
§ 1. Introductory
The foundations of the Philosophy of Language were laid by Wilhelm von Humboldt (b. June 22, 1767, d. April 8, 1835). The principles he advocated have frequently been misunderstood, and some of them have been modified, or even controverted, by more extended research; but a careful survey of the tendencies of modern thought in this field will show that the philosophic scheme of the nature and growth of languages, which he set forth, is gradually reasserting its sway, after having been neglected and denied through the preponderance of the so-called naturalistic school during the last quarter of a century.
The time seems ripe, therefore, to bring the general principles of his philosophy to the knowledge of American scholars, especially as applied by himself to the analysis of American languages.
Any one at all acquainted with Humboldt’s writings, and the literature to which they have given rise, will recognize that this is a serious task. I have felt it such, and have prepared myself for it not only by a careful perusal of his own published writings, but also by a comparison of the conflicting interpretations put upon them by Dr. Max Schasler,1 Prof. H. Steinthal,2 Prof. C. J. Adler,3 and others, as well as by obtaining a copy of an entirely unpublished memoir by Humboldt on the “American Verb,” a translation of which accompanies this paper. But my chief reliance in solving the obscurities of Humboldt’s presentation of his doctrines has been a close comparison of allied passages in his various essays, memoirs and letters. Of these I need scarcely say that I have attached the greatest weight to his latest and monumental work sometimes referred to as his “Introduction to the Kawi Language,” but whose proper title is “On Differences in Linguistic Structure, and their Influence on the Mental Development of the Human Race.”4
I would not have it understood that I am presenting a complete analysis of Humboldt’s linguistic philosophy. This is far beyond the scope of the present paper. It aims to set forth merely enough of his general theories to explain his applications of them to the languages of the American race.
What I have to present can best be characterized as a series of notes on Humboldt’s writings, indicating their bearing on the problems of American philology, introducing his theories to students of this branch, and serving as a preface to the hitherto unpublished essay by him on the American Verb, to which I have referred.
§ 2. Humboldt’s Studies in American Languages
The American languages occupied Humboldt’s attention earnestly and for many years. He was first led to their study by his brother Alexander, who presented him with the large linguistic collection he had amassed during his travels in South and North America.
While Prussian Minister in Rome (1802-08), he ransacked the library of the Collegio Romano for rare or unpublished works on American tongues; he obtained from the ex-Jesuit Forneri all the information the latter could give about the Yurari, a tongue spoken on the Meta river, New Granada;5 and he secured accurate copies of all the manuscript material on these idioms left by the diligent collector and linguist, the Abbé Hervas.
A few years later, in 1812, we find him writing to his friend Baron Alexander von Rennenkampff, then in St. Petersburg: “I have selected the American languages as the special subject of my investigations. They have the closest relationship of any with the tongues of north-eastern Asia; and I beg you therefore to obtain for me all the dictionaries and grammars of the latter which you can.”6
It is probable from this extract that Humboldt was then studying these languages from that limited, ethnographic point of view, from which he wrote his essay on the Basque tongue, the announcement of which appeared, indeed, in that year, 1812, although the work itself was not issued until 1821.
Ten years more of study and reflection taught him a far loftier flight. He came to look upon each language as an organism, all its parts bearing harmonious relations to each other, and standing in a definite connection with the intellectual and emotional development of the nation speaking it. Each language again bears the relation to language in general that the species does to the genus, or the genus to the order, and by a comprehensive process of analysis he hoped to arrive at those fundamental laws of articulate speech which form the Philosophy of Language, and which, as they are also the laws of human thought, at a certain point coincide, he believed, with those of the Philosophy of History.
In the completion of this vast scheme, he continued to attach the utmost importance to the American languages. His illustrations were constantly drawn from them, and they were ever the subject of his earnest studies. He prized them as in certain respects the most valuable of all to the philosophic student of human speech.
Thus, in 1826, he announced before the Berlin Academy that he was preparing an exhaustive work on the “Organism of Language,” for which he had selected the American languages exclusively, as best suited for this purpose. “The languages of a great continent,” he writes, “peopled by numerous nationalities, probably never subject to foreign influence, offer for this branch of linguistic study specially favorable material. There are in America as many as thirty little known languages for which we have means of study, each of which is like a new natural species, besides many others whose data are less ample.”7
In his memoir, read two years later, “On the Origin of Grammatical Forms, and their Influence on the Development of Ideas,” he chose most of his examples from the idioms of the New World;8 and the year following, he read the monograph on the Verb in American languages, which is printed for the first time with the present essay.
In a later paper, he announced his special study of this group as still in preparation. It was, however, never completed. His earnest desire to reach the fundamental laws of language led him first into a long series of investigations into the systems of recorded speech, phonetic hieroglyphics and alphabetic writing, on which he read memoirs of great acuteness.
In one of these he again mentions his studies of the American tongues, and takes occasion to vindicate them from the current charge of being of a low grade in the linguistic scale. “It is certainly unjust,” he writes, “to call the American languages rude or savage, although their structure is widely different from those perfectly formed.”9
In 1828, there is a published letter from him making an appointment with the Abbé Thavenet, missionary to the Canadian Algonkins, then in Paris, “to enjoy the pleasure of conversing with him on his interesting studies of the Algonkin language.”10 And a private letter tells us that in 1831 he applied himself with new zeal to mastering the intricacies of Mexican grammar.11
About 1827, he found it indispensable to subject to a critical scrutiny the languages of the great island world of the Pacific and Indian oceans. This resulted at last in his selecting the Kawi language, a learned idiom of the island of Java, Malayan in origin but with marked traces of Hindu influence, as the point of departure for his generalizations. His conclusions were set forth in the introductory essay above referred to.
The avowed purpose of this essay was to demonstrate the thesis that the diversity of structure in languages is the necessary condition of the evolution of the human mind.12
In the establishment of this thesis he begins with a profound analysis of the nature of speech in general, and then proceeds to define the reciprocal influences which thought exerts upon it, it upon thought.
Portions of this work are extremely obscure even to those who are most familiar with his theories and style. This arises partly from the difficulty
From his memoir
He draws examples from the Carib, Lule, Tupi, Mbaya, Huasteca, Nahuatl, Tamanaca, Abipone, and Mixteca;
This letter is printed in the memoir of Prof. E. Teza,
Compare Prof. Adler’s Essay, above mentioned, p. 11.
This is found expressed nowhere else so clearly as at the beginning of § 13, where the author writes: “Der Zweck dieser Einleitung, die Sprachen, in der Verschiedenartigkeit ihres Baues, als die nothwendige Grundlage der Fortbildung des menschlichen Geistes darzustellen, und den wechsel seitigen Einfluss des Einen auf das Andre zu erörtern, hat mich genöthigt, in die Natur der Sprache überhaupt einzugehen.” Bd. vi, s. 106.