Friedrich Hebbel and Comparative Linguistics
1955; Routledge; Volume: 30; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/19306962.1955.11786815
ISSN1930-6962
Autores Tópico(s)Linguistic Education and Pedagogy
ResumoClick to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size NotesThere are some forty-eight such entries from October 10, 1844 (the start of the Italian sojourn) until the end of 1847. See R. M. Werner, Friedrich Hebbel, Tagebücher, 4 vols. (Berlin, 1905).Cf. especially the sonnet, “Die Sprache” (“Als höchstes Wunder, das der Geist vollbrachte”), R. M. Werner, Friedrich Hebbel, Sämtliche Werke (Berlin, 1902), VI, 323-324, written in Naples on May 23, 1845.The greater part of the present article was read as a paper before the Group on Germanic Philology of the Modern Language Association of America, New York City, December 27, 1954.Leipziger Illustrierte Zeitung, February 22, 1862, p. 123; Werner, Sämtliche Werke (Berlin, 1904), XII, 312-315.Cf. Metakritik über den Purismum der reinen Vernunft in: Hamanns Schriften, ed. Fr. Roth (Leipzig, 1825), VII, 1-16.Ernst A. Cassirer, “Structuralism in Modern Linguistics,” Word, I (1945), 99-120, esp. p. 116; also Cassirer, “Die kantischen Elemente in Wilhelm von Humboldts Sprachphilosophie,” Fests chri ft Paul Hensel (1923), pp. 105-127.Cf., e.g., Harold Basilius, ” Neo-Humboldtian Ethnolinguistics,” Word, VIII (1952), 95-105.Hebbel is particularly disappointed in their slavish adherence to alphabetical order with no attempt to group pertinent articles together according to semantic relationship. Even the lexicographical achievements of Adelung and Campe (“serviceable pedants”) are considered superior to those of the Grimms, whose wasteful procedure puts them in the position of a physicist who tries to measure the number of glasses of water in the ocean, thereby yielding from a superabundance of labor a deficiency of accomplishment. Almost the only compliment paid the Wörterbuch is that of commending the practice of giving definitions in Latin, “denn die eine Sprache kann nur an der anderen gemessen werden” (Werner, XII, 25–28).Hebbel’s review is sixteen years earlier than H. Osthoff and K. Brugmann’s Morphologische Untersuchungen auf dem Gebiet der indogermanischen Sprachen (Leipzig, 1878), where that tenet was proclaimed.Baron Georges Cuvier, French naturalist, 1769–1832, cf. esp. Leçons d’anatomie comparée (Paris, 1805).R. M. Werner, Friedrich Hebbel, Briefe (Berlin, 1907), VII, 140.Wolfgang von Kempelen constructed (1788) a “talking-machine” which reproduced, or imitated, the voice of a child three or four years of age. For a recent discussion of this remarkable device, cf. H. Dudley and T. Tarnoczy, “The Speaking Machine of Wolfgang von Kempelen,” Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, XXII (1950), 151-167.Werner, Briefe, VII, 274.Leonard Bloomfield, Language (New York, 1933), p. 18.2 vols. (Berlin, 1856, 1857).Franz Zinkernagel, Hebbels Werke (Leipzig: Bibliographisches Institut, n.d.), VI, 497.Werner, XII, 217–220.Werner, XII, 215–217.For similar anticipation of ideas, cf. Hebbel’s remarks in the Tagebücher dated Vienna, February 4, 1847 (Werner, Tagebücher, III, 196) where he expresses amazement at finding in Feuerbach’s Geschichte der Philosophie ideas on language not at all remote from his own as expressed in the sonnet referred to above (footnote 2). zo An enlightening discussion of this problem (and others) is found in Rulon Wells, “Meaning and Use,” Word, X (1954), 235-250.By “deutsch” Schleicher means both “German” and “Germanic,” but there is less confusion than one might expect. Whatever its faults, the book is eminently readable. lt enjoyed several editions and evidently served the purpose the author intended. lt is interesting to note that posthumous editions were seen through the press by Johannes Schmidt, whose Wellentheorie effectively smashed the Stammbaumtheorie of Schleicher, but in a way that brought no animosity to bear. This might well serve as a model for some of our contemporary linguists in their doctrinal disputes.Here he is admittedly repeating a remark of Jean Paul’s.
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