Note 266 — PART IV. LINGUISTIC.
Reading edition
This essay is extracted from a more general discussion of Humboldt’s linguistic philosophy which I read before the American Philosophical Society in 1885, and which was printed in their Proceedings for that year. Humboldt’s great work was his Introduction to his essay on the Kawi language under the title: Ueber die Verschiedenheit des menschlichen Sprachbaues und ihren Einfluss auf die geistige Entwickelung des Menschengeschlechts. Prof. Adler translates this, “The Structural Differences of Human Speech and their Influence on the Intellectual Development of the Human Race.” The word geistige, however, includes emotional as well as intellectual things. Of the many commentators on this masterly production, I have used particularly the following:
Die Elemente der Philosophischen Sprachwissenschaft Wilhelm von Humboldt’s. In systematischer Entwicklung dargestellt und kritisch erläutert, von Dr. Max Schasler, Berlin, 1847.
Die Sprachwissenschaft Wilhelm von Humboldt’s und die Hegel’sche Philosophie, von Dr. H. Steinthal, Berlin, 1848. The same eminent linguist treats especially of Humboldt’s teachings in Grammatik, Logik und Psychologic, ihre Principien und ihr Verhältniss zu einander, pp. 123–135 (Berlin, 1855); in his well-known volume Characteristik der Hauptsächlichsten Typen des Sprachbaues, pp. 20–70 (Berlin, 1860); in his oration Ueber Wilhelm von Humboldt (Berlin, 1883); and elsewhere.
Wilhelm von Humboldt’s Linguistical Studies. By C. J. Adler, A. M. (New York, 1866). This is the only attempt beside my own, so far as I know, to present Humboldt’s philosophy of language to English readers. It is meritorious, but certainly in some passages Prof. Adler failed to catch Humboldt’s meaning.