Fick and Kleuker on Jones – Riga 1795

Avenues of the impact of Sir William Jones’s Discourses, especially his Third, on the continent are of great interest, in view of the development of Indo-European historical linguistics there rather than in England. Translations may account for that impact, such as those carried out by Johann Christian Fick (1763–1821) and Johann Friedrich Kleuker (1749–1827). Published in 1795 in Riga, these translations with their notes indicate the information on India at the time, as well as the steps which were necessary to establish the new linguistic and philological disciplines. The notes also indicate the expectations for information from the newly discovered materials regarding clarification of social and cultural arrangements of the day. A part of their interest lies in the inaccurate and erroneous information available on Asia at the time. Yet by making readily available Jones’s discourses, Fick and Kleuker laid some of the groundwork for the 19th-century concern with India and Asia.