Review article

Wilhelm von Humboldt, linguist**On the occasion of: Emanuel Drechsel, Wilhelm von Humboldt and Early American Linguistics. Resources and Inspirations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2024, pp. 364. ISBN: 9781108833042. 105,00£.

In a paper from 2017, John Joseph delineated the rather “complex reception” of Wilhelm von Humboldt’s linguistic writings in the Anglosphere. Humboldt did not only suffer from “bad timing” (Joseph 2017Joseph, John 2017 “The reception of Wilhelm von Humboldt’s linguistic writings in the Anglosphere, 1820 to the present”. Forum for Modern Language Studies 53:1.7–20. Joseph, John 2017 “The reception of Wilhelm von Humboldt’s linguistic writings in the Anglosphere, 1820 to the present”. Forum for Modern Language Studies 53:1.7–20. : 7) but also from Anglo-German political conflicts, from lack of English translations of his works and from misreadings. To these conditions I would add the complicated history of the publication of Humboldt’s writings from which the diffuse character of his scientific persona results. Who was Wilhelm von Humboldt, an educator and founder of the University of Berlin, a politician, a philosopher, a linguist, a brother of Alexander, a friend of Schiller’s and Goethe’s? Wilhelm von Humboldt did not publish very much during his lifetime (1767–1835)11.Cf. the bibliography of Humboldt’s writings published during his lifetime by Zimmer (2022)Zimmer, Frank 2022 “Zu Lebzeiten gedruckte Schriften Humboldts in zeitlicher Folge”. Wilhelm von Humboldt-Handbuch, ed. by Cord-Friedrich Berghahn, 387–388. Berlin: Metzler.Zimmer, Frank 2022 “Zu Lebzeiten gedruckte Schriften Humboldts in zeitlicher Folge”. Wilhelm von Humboldt-Handbuch, ed. by Cord-Friedrich Berghahn, 387–388. Berlin: Metzler.. and what he published in linguisticis (a book and an article on the Basque language, a French article on Chinese, eight academic speeches: on comparative linguistics, historiography, grammatical forms, alphabetic writing, the dual, hieroglyphics, Indian philosophy, local adverbs and pronoun) did not give the impression of a coherent linguistic oeuvre. His main work, the so-called Kawi-Work (Humboldt 1836–39Humboldt, Wilhelm von 1836–39 Über die Kawi-Sprache auf der Insel Java. 3 vols. Berlin: Druckerei der Königl. Akademie.Humboldt, Wilhelm von 1836–39 Über die Kawi-Sprache auf der Insel Java. 31 vols.1 Berlin: Druckerei der Königl. Akademie.), three enormous volumes on a very special subject, Old Javanese and Austronesian languages, was printed after his death and was not very popular reading. The book, however, that was read and reprinted three times in the 19th century and many times in the 20th century was the Introduction to the Kawi-Work, a separate book with a very precise title: Über die Verschiedenheit des menschlichen Sprachbaues und ihren Einfluss auf die geistige Entwicklung des Menschengeschlechts, “On the Diversity of the structure of human language and its influence on the mental development of mankind” (henceforth “Diversity”). It was published in 1836Humboldt, Wilhelm von 1836 Über die Verschiedenheit des menschlichen Sprachbaues und ihren Einfluss auf die geistige Entwicklung des Menschengeschlechts. Berlin: Druckerei der Königl. Akademie.Humboldt, Wilhelm von 1836 Über die Verschiedenheit des menschlichen Sprachbaues und ihren Einfluss auf die geistige Entwicklung des Menschengeschlechts. Berlin: Druckerei der Königl. Akademie., after Humboldt’s death, but Humboldt had read the proofs before he died. Hence, this book is really Humboldt’s legacy.

“Diversity” shows Humboldt as a philosopher and as a linguist at the same time. Therefore, it was considered, from the very beginning, as a book that represented an alternative to the nascent positivist linguistics in Germany, which was programmatically unphilosophic. Franz Bopp, the father of comparative historical linguistics, explicitly excluded cognitive processes from linguistics, which he conceived as a natural science; he was not interested in languages as “means of cognition” (Bopp 1833Bopp, Franz 1833–52 Vergleichende Grammatik des Sanskrit, Zend, Griechischen, Lateinischen, Litthauischen, Gothischen und Deutschen. 6 vols. Berlin: Dümmler.Bopp, Franz 1833–52 Vergleichende Grammatik des Sanskrit, Zend, Griechischen, Lateinischen, Litthauischen, Gothischen und Deutschen. 61 vols. Berlin: Dümmler.: XII). And this triumphant new linguistics focused on one language family, it was Indogermanistik or, focusing on other language families, Germanistik or Romanistik etc. Humboldt’s approach, on the other hand, was explicitly about human ideas (“mental development”) and it was explicitly universal (“mankind”), i.e. his linguistic analyses were not focused on one special language family but treated languages from all over the world: Indo-European, Semitic, Romance, American, Chinese, and Austronesian languages. Verschiedenheit, “diversity” was the decisive word. The most famous part of “Diversity” developed a new philosophy of language which, without any explicit transition, merged into linguistic analyses which were still “philosophical”, since they concerned the cognitive function of linguistic procedures. Humboldt’s linguistics always concerned the human mind. There was simply no separation between philosophy and linguistics. Bad timing! “Diversity” appeared when linguistics became a professional university discipline which divorced linguistics from philosophy or from the study of the human mind.

“Diversity” was only translated into English nearly 150 years after 1836, first under the title Linguistic Variability and Intellectual Development in 1971Humboldt, Wilhelm von 1971 Linguistic Variability and Intellectual Development, translated by George C. Buck & Frithjov A. Raven. Coral Gables: University of Miami Press.Humboldt, Wilhelm von 1971 Linguistic Variability and Intellectual Development, translated by George C. Buck & Frithjov A. Raven. Coral Gables: University of Miami Press. (Humboldt 1971Humboldt, Wilhelm von 1971 Linguistic Variability and Intellectual Development, translated by George C. Buck & Frithjov A. Raven. Coral Gables: University of Miami Press.Humboldt, Wilhelm von 1971 Linguistic Variability and Intellectual Development, translated by George C. Buck & Frithjov A. Raven. Coral Gables: University of Miami Press.) and a second time as On Language. The Diversity of Human Language-Structure and Its Influence on the Mental Development of Mankind in 1988Humboldt, Wilhelm von 1988 On Language. The diversity of human language-structure and its influence on the mental development of mankind, translated by Peter Heath with an introduction by Hans Aarsleff. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Humboldt, Wilhelm von 1988 On Language. The diversity of human language-structure and its influence on the mental development of mankind, translated by Peter Heath with an introduction by Hans Aarsleff. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (Humboldt 1988Humboldt, Wilhelm von 1988 On Language. The diversity of human language-structure and its influence on the mental development of mankind, translated by Peter Heath with an introduction by Hans Aarsleff. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Humboldt, Wilhelm von 1988 On Language. The diversity of human language-structure and its influence on the mental development of mankind, translated by Peter Heath with an introduction by Hans Aarsleff. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.). Misreading and bad timing. The first translation is the result of a dramatically misleading interpretation through the lens of generative linguistics. And the second translation became the victim of an older misreading and of political Anglo-German stress. The excellent translation by Peter Heath was accompanied by an introduction which, in the tone of snarling contempt, accused Humboldt of lack of originality (his philosophy was presented as an unoriginal assemblage of French ideas) and — what was worse — of racism (Humboldt 1988Humboldt, Wilhelm von 1988 On Language. The diversity of human language-structure and its influence on the mental development of mankind, translated by Peter Heath with an introduction by Hans Aarsleff. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Humboldt, Wilhelm von 1988 On Language. The diversity of human language-structure and its influence on the mental development of mankind, translated by Peter Heath with an introduction by Hans Aarsleff. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.: VII–LXV). The latter accusation goes back to the first (and only) English translation of a Humboldtian linguistic article in the US in the 19th century and the first American interpretation of Humboldt’s “philosophic grammar”: Daniel Brinton’s English translation of an article on the verb in American languages (Humboldt 1885Humboldt, Wilhelm von 1885 “On the Verb in American Languages”, translated by Daniel Brinton. In Brinton 1885, 332–354.Humboldt, Wilhelm von 1885 “On the Verb in American Languages”, translated by Daniel Brinton. In Brinton 1885, 332–354.) and his introduction to that article transferred Humboldt’s ideas into the ideological framework of this famous American linguist and anthropologist (Brinton 1885Brinton, Daniel G. 1885 “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”. Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society XXII.306–354.Brinton, Daniel G. 1885 “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”. Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society XXII1.306–354.), who advocated a biological evolutionary hierarchy of human races. He interpreted Humboldt’s “mental development” (geistige Entwicklung) of fundamental syntactic structures as a hierarchical ascent from lower mental capacities to higher mental capacities. This interpretation fitted very well into the political agenda directed against native Americans. Thus, the racist misreading was in the American world. The generous and correct understanding of Humboldtian concepts by later generations of American linguists (Boas, Sapir) could not really eradicate these idées reçues.

The strange and unique nature of Humboldt’s approach to language as a philosopher and as a linguist is certainly another major problem for an adequate understanding of Humboldt — not only in the Anglosphere. Eugenio Coseriu stated in his Tübingen lectures on Humboldt in the 70s of the last century: “Humboldt ist der Sprachwissenschaftler, der Fachmann unter den Sprachphilosophen” (Coseriu 2015Coseriu, Eugenio 2015 Geschichte der Sprachphilosophie, ed. by Jörn Albrecht. Vol. 2. Tübingen: Narr.Coseriu, Eugenio 2015 Geschichte der Sprachphilosophie, ed. by Jörn Albrecht. Vol. 21. Tübingen: Narr.: 355), “Humboldt is the linguist, the professional among the philosophers of language”. But this truth is not very widely spread in the literature on Humboldt. Humboldt is mostly regarded as a philosopher who said beautiful things about language: that language is the work of the spirit, that it is the formative organ of the mind, that it is energeia, not ergon, that languages are world views etc. And in linguistics Humboldt was mostly discussed — without any regard to his philosophy — as the inventor of a linguistic typology that differentiated between flexional, isolating and agglutinative languages. These morpho-syntactic features were also the most discussed issue in the Americanist context where they led to Brinton’s racist appropriation. But the descriptive linguistic work of Humboldt on concrete languages was quite unknown. Only a few of his linguistic studies were available in print. An important part of his linguistic studies remained as manuscripts in the archives and was not included in the editions of his writings, like the Gesammelte Schriften (Humboldt 1903–36Humboldt, Wilhelm von 1903–1936 Gesammelte Schriften, ed. by Albert Leitzmann, Bruno Gebhardt and Wilhelm Richter. 17 vols. Berlin: Behr (quoted as GS).Humboldt, Wilhelm von 1903–1936 Gesammelte Schriften, ed. by Albert Leitzmann, Bruno Gebhardt and Wilhelm Richter. 171 vols. Berlin: Behr (quoted as GS)., henceforth GS). This is particularly the case for his descriptive studies on the American languages. Because Humboldt’s struggle with understanding the structures of different languages was not known to readers, the deep reason for the intimate connection of linguistics and philosophy was not clearly grasped by Humboldt scholarship: Humboldt was fascinated by concrete languages. His encounter with the Basque language was the decisive experience that initiated his interest for languages and his project of creating a “systematic encyclopedia of all languages” of the world (GS VII: 598). Humboldt was fascinated by Basque because it differed dramatically from the languages known to him: It is not an Indo-European language, it has no connection to any other language, its morphology is incredibly complicated and it is what we call today an “ergative” language.

The question that arose with Humboldt’s attention to particular languages was: Why should we bother with the description of these strange human productions? He was looking for a justification for the difficult task of descriptive linguistics. And this is the reason why philosophy comes in: Since there was no philosophy of language to which he could possibly refer, Humboldt had to create a philosophy of language of his own that justifies the task of the linguist. Why bother with understanding and describing complicated language structures? And here, his main philosophical insights might be briefly quoted: Language is the creation of human thought, it is the work of the spirit, it is not only an instrument for communication but primarily the “formative organ of thought” (GS VII: 53). The universal task of producing human thought is, however, fulfilled in different ways in different languages which are, as such, different “world views” (at least “to a certain degree”, GS IV: 21). And since Humboldt was a Leibnizian, the diversity of languages is not a Babelian curse, but represents the “wonderful variety of the operations of the human mind” (Leibniz 1765/1966Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm 1765 Nouveaux essais sur l’entendement humain, ed. by Jacques Brunschwig. Paris: Garnier-Flammarion (1966).Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm 1765 Nouveaux essais sur l’entendement humain, ed. by Jacques Brunschwig. Paris: Garnier-Flammarion (1966).: 293). Now, the task of linguistics is to understand these ways of the human mind. Therefore, linguistics is essentially “philosophical”, or, as we might say today, linguistics is a cognitive science. When Coseriu states that Humboldt was “still a linguist as a philosopher of language”, he stresses this identity of linguistics and philosophy.

This special orientation of Humboldt’s thought was not easy to understand for a discipline that was still mainly history, i.e. that looked for historical developments and connections, whose attention was on the original genealogical unity of mankind, not on the diversity of human thought, and which considered diversity mainly as a phonetic phenomenon.

The Introduction to the Kawi-Work, “Diversity”, starts with a philosophical reflection of the task of language in general (formation of thought) and then proceeds to the different ways in which languages fulfill that task, at least in their morpho-syntactic procedures. But the book to which “Diversity” was an “introduction” — On the Kavi language on the Island of Java — the huge posthumous work in three books, printed in 1836–39Humboldt, Wilhelm von 1836–39 Über die Kawi-Sprache auf der Insel Java. 3 vols. Berlin: Druckerei der Königl. Akademie.Humboldt, Wilhelm von 1836–39 Über die Kawi-Sprache auf der Insel Java. 31 vols.1 Berlin: Druckerei der Königl. Akademie., had a very special topic whose connection with the Introduction is not easy to understand. The Kawi-Werk poses the question whether the encounter of two languages (like the encounter of Anglo-Saxon and French in England, or of Persian and Arabic in Persia) generates a new language or not. Humboldt asked whether Kavi, the old language of Java, had become a new language through its intensive contact with Sanskrit. In the first book, Über die Verbindungen zwischen Indien und Java, Humboldt writes the history of the cultural and religious relations between India and Java. In the second book, Über die Kawi-Sprache, he describes the linguistic structure of Kavi and concludes that this language, notwithstanding the massive influence of Sanskrit, had remained structurally an Austronesian language: “so halte ich das Kawi für eine ältere Form der heutigen Javanischen Landessprache” (Humboldt 1836–39Humboldt, Wilhelm von 1836–39 Über die Kawi-Sprache auf der Insel Java. 3 vols. Berlin: Druckerei der Königl. Akademie.Humboldt, Wilhelm von 1836–39 Über die Kawi-Sprache auf der Insel Java. 31 vols.1 Berlin: Druckerei der Königl. Akademie., vol. 2 [1838]: 188). And in order to further prove the Austronesian (“Malayisch”) character of Kavi, he writes, in the third book, a comparative grammar of the Austronesian languages demonstrating the structural affinities of Kavi with these languages: Über den Malayischen Sprachstamm. Very few people in the world would read such a work. Oceanic linguistics was not a popular topic, and, thus, Humboldt’s descriptive linguistic analysis of one specific language, book two of the Kawi-Work, remained largely unknown. Humboldt’s remarks on different languages in the Kawi-Introduction were better known in linguistics and served as examples to illustrate more general linguistic problems. Thus, in the Introduction, the American languages mainly appeared to exemplify the syntactic method of agglutination (or incorporation), but were not treated, like Kavi, as individual languages.

But Humboldt had written a complete grammar of an American language, Nahuatl, which was ready for print when he died in 1835. But nobody bothered with the publication of that description of an American language, Humboldt’s most important descriptive linguistic work. Only in 1994, more than 150 years after its completion, was this grammar edited by Manfred Ringmacher. That edition of the Mexicanische Grammatik (Humboldt 1994Humboldt, Wilhelm von 1994 Mexicanische Grammatik, ed. by Manfred Ringmacher. Humboldt, Wilhelm von 1994 Mexicanische Grammatik, ed. by Manfred Ringmacher. ) was the beginning of further editorial work by Manfred Ringmacher and others who finally published Humboldt’s descriptive linguistic work as Schriften zur Sprachwissenschaft (Humboldt 1994–2022Humboldt, Wilhelm von 1994–2022 Schriften zur Sprachwissenschaft, established by Kurt Mueller-Vollmer, ed. by Tilman Borsche, Bernhard Hurch, Jürgen Trabant and Gordon Whittaker. 11 vols. Paderborn: Schöningh.Humboldt, Wilhelm von 1994–2022 Schriften zur Sprachwissenschaft, established by Kurt Mueller-Vollmer, ed. by Tilman Borsche, Bernhard Hurch, Jürgen Trabant and Gordon Whittaker. 111 vols. Paderborn: Schöningh.). This turn in Humboldt studies was the merit of Kurt Mueller-Vollmer of Stanford. Based on the conviction that the Gesammelte Schriften did not provide a complete representation of Humboldt’s scientific persona, Mueller-Vollmer studied Humboldt’s manuscripts in different libraries, mainly in the Staatsbibliothek of Berlin and in the Jagiellonian library at Krakow. He published a description of the whole linguistic Nachlass showing that Humboldt’s linguistic work had been neglected in the available editions (Mueller-Vollmer 1993Mueller-Vollmer, Kurt 1993 Wilhelm von Humboldts Sprachwissenschaft. Ein kommentiertes Verzeichnis des sprachwissenschaftlichen Nachlasses. Paderborn. Schöningh.Mueller-Vollmer, Kurt 1993 Wilhelm von Humboldts Sprachwissenschaft. Ein kommentiertes Verzeichnis des sprachwissenschaftlichen Nachlasses. Paderborn. Schöningh.). With a group of other Humboldt specialists Mueller-Vollmer succeeded in designing a project for the edition of Schriften zur Sprach-wissenschaft, which was then funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft and was hosted by the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy. The idea of that project was to assemble and publish the totality of Humboldt’s linguistic studies. The project was funded until 2017 and produced eleven volumes of Linguistic Writings of Wilhelm von Humboldt. A part of the plan (on Chinese, on Japanese, on Egyptian hieroglyphs) is not yet realized, but the most important aims of the research project and the edition were reached, viz. the reconstruction of Humboldt’s two main linguistic projects which had remained incomplete: the work on Basque and the work on the American languages (the third big project was the Kawi-Werk, on Kavi and the Austronesian languages, which Humboldt himself had — nearly — succeeded in completing).22.It was actually his secretary Eduard Buschmann who completed the Kawi-Werk. Bernhard Hurch reconstructed the Basque Work in three volumes: Schriften zur Anthropologie der Basken (Humboldt 2010Humboldt, Wilhelm von 2010 Schriften zur Anthropologie der Basken, ed. by Bernhard Hurch.Humboldt, Wilhelm von 2010 Schriften zur Anthropologie der Basken, ed. by Bernhard Hurch.), Baskische Wortstudien und Grammatik (Humboldt 2012Humboldt, Wilhelm von 2012 Baskische Wortstudien und Grammatik, ed. by Bernhard Hurch. Humboldt, Wilhelm von 2012 Baskische Wortstudien und Grammatik, ed. by Bernhard Hurch. ) and Schriften zur Geschichte und Frühgeschichte der Basken und des Baskischen (Humboldt 2022Humboldt, Wilhelm von 2022 Schriften zur Geschichte und Frühgeschichte der Basken und des Baskischen, ed. by Bernhard Hurch. Humboldt, Wilhelm von 2022 Schriften zur Geschichte und Frühgeschichte der Basken und des Baskischen, ed. by Bernhard Hurch. ). And Humboldt’s most important research project, we might call it the Amerika-Werk, was reconstructed by Manfred Ringmacher, Ute Tintemann, Micaela Verlato and other specialists of American languages in six volumes between 1994 and 2017: Mexicanische Grammatik (ed. by Manfred Ringmacher 1994Humboldt, Wilhelm von 1994 Mexicanische Grammatik, ed. by Manfred Ringmacher. Humboldt, Wilhelm von 1994 Mexicanische Grammatik, ed. by Manfred Ringmacher. ), Wörterbuch der Mexicanischen Sprache, by Humboldt and Eduard Buschmann (ed. by Manfred Ringmacher 2000)Humboldt, Wilhelm von 2000 Wörterbuch der Mexicanischen Sprache (by Eduard Buschmann and Wilhelm von Humboldt), ed. by Manfred Ringmacher.Humboldt, Wilhelm von 2000 Wörterbuch der Mexicanischen Sprache (by Eduard Buschmann and Wilhelm von Humboldt), ed. by Manfred Ringmacher., Mittelamerikanische Grammatiken (ed. by Manfred Ringmacher and Ute Tintemann 2009Humboldt, Wilhelm von 2009 Mittelamerikanische Grammatiken, ed. by Manfred Ringmacher and Ute Tintemann.Humboldt, Wilhelm von 2009 Mittelamerikanische Grammatiken, ed. by Manfred Ringmacher and Ute Tintemann.), Südamerikanische Grammatiken (ed. by Manfred Ringmacher and Ute Tintemann 2011Humboldt, Wilhelm von 2011 Südamerikanische Grammatiken, ed. by Manfred Ringmacher and Ute Tintemann.Humboldt, Wilhelm von 2011 Südamerikanische Grammatiken, ed. by Manfred Ringmacher and Ute Tintemann.), Nordamerikanische Grammatiken (ed. by Michaela Verlato 2013Humboldt, Wilhelm von 2013 Nordamerikanische Grammatiken, ed. by Micaela Verlato.Humboldt, Wilhelm von 2013 Nordamerikanische Grammatiken, ed. by Micaela Verlato.). Manfred Ringmacher complemented the five American language volumes with a sixth volume on preparatory works (Einlei­tende und vergleichende amerikanische Arbeiten, 2016Humboldt, Wilhelm von 2016 Einleitende und vergleichende amerikanische Arbeiten, ed. by Manfred Ringmacher. Humboldt, Wilhelm von 2016 Einleitende und vergleichende amerikanische Arbeiten, ed. by Manfred Ringmacher. ). Bettina Lindorfer and Jürgen Trabant added a volume that contains the French “Essai sur les langues du Nouveau continent” as well as the “Grundzüge des allgemeinen Sprachtypus”, two philosophical texts that were first intended as introductions to the book on American languages (Humboldt 2017Humboldt, Wilhelm von 2017 Von den Sprachen Amerikas zum allgemeinen Typus der Sprache, ed. by Bettina Lindorfer and Jürgen Trabant. Humboldt, Wilhelm von 2017 Von den Sprachen Amerikas zum allgemeinen Typus der Sprache, ed. by Bettina Lindorfer and Jürgen Trabant. ).

Even if the edition of Humboldt’s Schriften zur Sprachwissenschaft is not completed, we can say that this edition has changed the approach to Humboldt and is going to change the image of the author in the future: Humboldt has become a linguist. And the document that proves this change in Humboldt literature is the book I have the pleasure to present here: Emanuel Drechsel, Wilhelm von Humboldt and Early American Linguistics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2024). Drechsel knows that what he is writing is really innovative. He wants to present Wilhelm von Humboldt as a linguist, especially as one of the founders of Americanist linguistics. And he can do so because he can refer to the edition of Humboldt’s Americanist studies in the Berlin Academy edition. And, on this basis, he can show Humboldt’s impact on American linguistics from the beginning of the 19th century to the middle of the 20th century, from Duponceau to Sapir.

Drechsel knows the Humboldt literature from the beginning to our own days, and he has the advantage of being able to read English as well as German. He positions himself in the Anglophone discussion on Humboldt where the “Prussian savant”, as he calls Wilhelm, has a somewhat problematic image as John Joseph (2017)Joseph, John 2017 “The reception of Wilhelm von Humboldt’s linguistic writings in the Anglosphere, 1820 to the present”. Forum for Modern Language Studies 53:1.7–20. Joseph, John 2017 “The reception of Wilhelm von Humboldt’s linguistic writings in the Anglosphere, 1820 to the present”. Forum for Modern Language Studies 53:1.7–20. has shown. The decisive blow to Humboldt’s renown was the racist reception of one of his linguistic themes by Daniel Brinton. Brinton’s interpretation was mainly what the American public knew about Humboldt by the end of the 19th century. And Humboldt never got rid of that prejudice, which is continually renewed by non-specialists in the history of linguistics and anthropology, e.g. by Harvey (2015)Harvey, Sean P. 2015 Native Tongues. Colonialism and race from encounter to the reservation. Cambridge & London: Harvard University Press. Harvey, Sean P. 2015 Native Tongues. Colonialism and race from encounter to the reservation. Cambridge & London: Harvard University Press. .33.Harvey’s critique (2015Harvey, Sean P. 2015 Native Tongues. Colonialism and race from encounter to the reservation. Cambridge & London: Harvard University Press. Harvey, Sean P. 2015 Native Tongues. Colonialism and race from encounter to the reservation. Cambridge & London: Harvard University Press. : 158 and 296 n. 24, 175 and 301 n. 49) is clearly based on Brinton’s (1885)Brinton, Daniel G. 1885 “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”. Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society XXII.306–354.Brinton, Daniel G. 1885 “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”. Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society XXII1.306–354. Humboldt interpretation and the tradition of that interpretation. The German wars on America and Mankind in the 20th century did not help creating a more positive picture of the author, nor did the absence of knowledge of the German language yield the chance of reading Humboldt directly.

Drechsel not only has a perfect overview of Humboldt studies in the Anglosphere but also a profound knowledge of the Humboldt research in German. He starts by giving a critical overview of recent Humboldt studies in the US on the basis of a thorough reading of the original German texts (chapter 1 and 2). Humboldt is not an easy author, therefore reading Humboldt requires an excellent knowledge of German in order to follow his somewhat difficult argumentation. Drechsel has seized the new approaches to Humboldt in linguistic theory and the philosophy of language, as well as — and this is the main objective of his book — in new insights in Humboldtian linguistics. On this basis, he seizes the occasion to present Humboldt as a linguist to the American and also to the general linguistic public who have not yet drawn the conclusions from recent research.

In five chapters (5 to 9), nearly half of the book, Drechsel gives an impressive overview of Humboldt’s linguistic work. He starts with Humboldt’s encounter with Basque (chapter 5), he then delineates Humboldt’s study of American languages in three chapters (chapters 6 to 8) and ends with Humboldt’s work on Austronesian languages (chapter 9). Basque, the American languages and the Austronesian languages focusing on Kavi, Old Javanese, are Humboldt’s main linguistic projects. He intended to write books on these three languages or language groups. He (almost) succeeded only in finishing the book on Kavi and the Austronesian languages. Drechsel’s chapters on Humboldt’s linguistic research are, as far as I can see, the first complete presentation of Humboldt’s linguistic work in Humboldt scholarship. My own comprehensive presentation of Humboldt’s work on language (Trabant 2022Trabant, Jürgen 2022 “Sprachphilosophie und Linguistik”. Wilhelm von Humboldt-Handbuch, ed. by Cord-Friedrich Berghahn, 198–230. Berlin: Metzler. Trabant, Jürgen 2022 “Sprachphilosophie und Linguistik”. Wilhelm von Humboldt-Handbuch, ed. by Cord-Friedrich Berghahn, 198–230. Berlin: Metzler. ) is focused on general linguistic theory or philosophy and does not deal with the details of Humboldt’s work on concrete languages. One might also say that Drechsel is the first to present Humboldt as a linguist. Wilhelm von Humboldt’s linguistic research on the American languages is the very center of that story. Thus, Drechsel is able to present Wilhelm von Humboldt as a major Americanist linguist who had an important impact on American Americanist linguistics.

And since America is the focus of this book, Drechsel has the very good idea of including Wilhelm’s famous brother Alexander in the enterprise (chapter 4). Following the narrative of Manfred Geier of the brothers’ lives (Geier 2009Geier, Manfred 2009 Die Brüder Humboldt. Eine Biographie. Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt.Geier, Manfred 2009 Die Brüder Humboldt. Eine Biographie. Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt.), he shows how the Americanist project developed out of a common education in Prussia. The Humboldt brothers’ scientific interests grew apart, Alexander dealing with the kosmos, Nature, and Wilhelm dealing with Man, anthropos, and human cultural creations. But the brothers were in close emotional and intellectual contact with each other during their lives. When Alexander travelled to America to study the foreign natural world, Wilhelm travelled to Spain to study a foreign linguistic world, the language of the Basques. The encounter with the strange Basque language is Wilhelm’s initiation into linguistic studies. Through the experience of that language, Wilhelm came to consider language as the center of the human being. He starts to work on a book on the Basques and their language and imagines the project of an encyclopedia of all the languages of the world. The Basque Country is Wilhelm’s America.

Alexander, on the other side of the world, not only studies nature but also observes the economy and the political situation in the Spanish colonies as well as the cultures and languages of the American nations. Alexander collects grammars and dictionaries of American languages and he gathers information on the languages of the peoples he encounters. Alexander learns Quechua and Nahuatl. When Alexander returns to Europe, he asks Wilhelm to write the part on the American languages for his monumental Voyage to the equinoctial regions of the New Continent. The books Alexander has brought from America are, together with material on American languages collected by Hervás in Rome (by the way: the Jesuit Hervás himself was never in America, he only collected linguistic material from his Jesuit brothers who had been expelled from America), the basis of Wilhelm’s analyses of American languages.

America is certainly the common focus of the brothers’ work. Wilhelm starts working on the American languages when he is a Prussian ambassador in Vienna, in 1811–13, but his political duties did not allow him to study the languages continuously. And he did not deliver the language chapter for Alexander’s Voyage. Therefore, Alexander himself writes on the American languages, especially a chapter on the language of the Chaymas, in the Relation historique of the American travel (1814–25Humboldt, Alexander von 1814–25 Relation historique du voyage aux régions équinoxiales du Nouveau Continent. 3 vols. Paris: Dufour.Humboldt, Alexander von 1814–25 Relation historique du voyage aux régions équinoxiales du Nouveau Continent. 31 vols. Paris: Dufour., I: 474–491). Here Alexander uses the material he had himself collected in the encounter with that nation. The chapter shows that Alexander was completely à la hauteur of the linguistic research of his time.

Wilhelm is able to resume his study of the American languages only after giving up his political task as a Prussian minister, in 1820, and, doing so, he gets into contact with the fathers of American linguistics, Peter Stephen Duponceau and John Pickering. Wilhelm asks for information and materials, which are generously yielded by the two Americans. But he never makes it to America to study American languages in the field as he had done for the Basque language when he travelled to the Basque Country. However, the learned exchange with the Americans establishes a deep connection between America and Humboldt. The American Americanists wait for the book on the American languages Humboldt is planning and drafting from 1811 on. This book was never completed, but it exercises the imagination of Humboldt scholars who try to reconstruct the book (cf. especially p. 161/162). Drechsel also outlines an imagined book that Wilhelm might have written, which he calls “Les langues du Nouveau Continent”. Within the presentation of Humboldt’s complete linguistic work (in chapters 5 to 9), chapters 7 and 8, dealing with Humboldt’s Americanist research, are the heart of Drechsel’s book. They show in detail Humboldt’s work on the American languages: the collection of linguistic materials and how Humboldt dealt with the information he was able to assemble in Europe.

The fourth part of the book (chapters 10 to 12) deals with Humboldt’s impact on American Americanist linguistics from Duponceau and Pickering to Boas and Sapir. This is the second “heart” of the work. Drechsel distinguishes four generations of Humboldtians in American linguistics and anthropology, starting from the discovery of American languages as a scholarly object by Peter Duponceau at the beginning of the 19th century and ending one hundred years later with the blossoming of American anthropological linguistics in Boas’ Handbook (1914) and Sapir’s Language (1921).

The first generation of American Humboldtians are Peter Duponceau, John Pickering and Albert Gallatin. Duponceau and Pickering are Humboldt’s most important correspondents from the 1820s onwards. They work on American languages, they read Humboldt’s articles (mainly on grammatical form) and they discuss Humboldt’s interpretations of American linguistic facts. Thus, Duponceau introduces the term “polysynthesis” for the structural characteristics of American languages and he criticizes Humboldt’s ranking of grammatical procedures — the main reason for still accusing Humboldt of “racism” today. Humboldt defends himself quite convincingly. The correspondence with Pickering consists of thirty-five letters. Pickering owned all of Humboldt’s publications. That Humboldt never delivered the book on the American languages was a great disappointment for his American friends.

The third member of the group of Americans with “direct” contact to Humboldt is the Swiss born A. Albert Gallatin, who was a friend of Alexander’s (whether he ever met Wilhelm is not clear). Gallatin is the author of the first maps of the American tribes and languages (1826). According to Drechsel, Gallatin may have discussed linguistic geography with Wilhelm (p. 218). However, this is very unlikely. Linguistic geography was not an important issue of Humboldt’s linguistic studies. He said so himself in a letter to Goethe (September 7, 1812), who had asked Humboldt, after a long conversation in Karlsbad in the summer of 1812 on Humboldt’s project of a linguistic encyclopedia, to give an overview of the geographical distribution of languages. Humboldt answered this request by sending an Anleitung zu Entwerfung einer allgemeinen Sprach Karte, an “instruction for drawing a general linguistic map”, to Goethe in the same year. Goethe planned to let his printer Bertuch realize the map of the European languages. But the map was never realized, and neither was Humboldt’s Anleitung ever printed. The Anleitung remained unpublished in the Goethe- und Schiller-Archiv. The map was realized for the first time by Julien Cavero in 2014 for the Humboldt exhibition in Paris (in Savoy and Blankenstein, eds. 2014Savoy, Bénédicte and Blankenstein, David eds. 2014 Les frères Humboldt, l’Europe de l’Esprit. Paris: PSL / Jean-Pierre de Monza.Savoy, Bénédicte and Blankenstein, David eds. 2014 Les frères Humboldt, l’Europe de l’Esprit. Paris: PSL / Jean-Pierre de Monza.: 126–127). The text of the Anleitung was published for the first time in 2020Humboldt, Wilhelm von 2020 (printed 2022) “Anleitung zu Entwerfung einer allgemeinen Sprach Karte”. Goethe-Jahrbuch 137 (2020).155–167.Humboldt, Wilhelm von 2020 (printed 2022) “Anleitung zu Entwerfung einer allgemeinen Sprach Karte”. Goethe-Jahrbuch 1371 (2020).155–167., in French (in Blankenstein et al. 2020Blankenstein, David, Julien Cavero, Mandana Covindassamy and Sandrine Maufroy eds. 2020 Wilhelm von Humboldt, d’après une idée de Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: Instructions pour la réalisation d’une carte générale des langues. Paris: Rue d’Ulm.Blankenstein, David, Julien Cavero, Mandana Covindassamy and Sandrine Maufroy eds. 2020 Wilhelm von Humboldt, d’après une idée de Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: Instructions pour la réalisation d’une carte générale des langues. Paris: Rue d’Ulm.) and in German in 2022 (cf. Trabant 2020Trabant, Jürgen 2020 (printed 2022) “Wilhelm von Humboldts ’Anleitung zu Entwerfung einer allgemeinen Sprach Karte’ von 1812”. Goethe-Jahrbuch 137 (2020).149–167.Trabant, Jürgen 2020 (printed 2022) “Wilhelm von Humboldts ’Anleitung zu Entwerfung einer allgemeinen Sprach Karte’ von 1812”. Goethe-Jahrbuch 1371 (2020).149–167. [2022]). Even if Gallatin ever met Wilhelm in the 20s of the 19th century, it is extremely unlikely that Humboldt discussed his rather untypical and unpublished text of 1812 with young Gallatin. Gallatin’s map of the American tribes is more probably connected with the first linguistic maps printed at the beginning of the 19th century, like the famous map of Asian languages, published in 1823 in the Sprachatlas of Julius Klaproth’s Asia polyglotta (Klaproth 1823Klaproth, Julius 1823 Asia polyglotta. Paris: Eberhart.Klaproth, Julius 1823 Asia polyglotta. Paris: Eberhart.). The printer Johann Carl Ausfeld published a map of European languages in Europa nach den lebenden Sprachen as early as 1810 with Cotta in Tübingen.

The second generation of American Humboldtians were Francis Lieber, Albert Gatschet and Daniel Garrison Brinton. Lieber, born in Berlin, knew Humboldt personally and emigrated to America in 1827, but he travelled a lot to Europe and kept in contact with Humboldt via correspondence. Lieber published on American languages and other linguistic questions like creolization. The Swiss-born American Gatschet studied linguistics with Franz Bopp and with Humboldt’s secretary Eduard Buschmann. He emigrated in 1868 to America and became known as the author of Zwölf Sprachen aus dem Südwesten Nordamerikas (published in Weimar in 1876) and contributed continuously to Americanist studies as a member of the Smithsonian Institution. The most important member of the second generation of Humboldtians was Daniel Garrison Brinton. I have mentioned him as the first translator of a linguistic article by Humboldt into English, “On the Verb in American Languages”, which he published together with an Introduction “The Philosophic Grammar of American Indian Languages” in the proceedings of the American Philosophical Society in 1885. This was certainly the most influential publication on Humboldt in the US. Brinton interpreted Humboldt’s hierarchy of grammatical procedures as corresponding to his evolutionary schema and hence to his racist hierarchy of human beings. Duponceau had already drawn Humboldt’s attention to the dangers of such a hierarchical understanding of the differentiation of isolating, inflecting and agglutinating grammatical procedures. Humboldt answered that the negative evaluation of human languages and human beings was certainly not his intention. But through Brinton’s influential publication Humboldt was now firmly integrated into a racist ideological frame. Drechsel summarizes the consequence of this misinterpretation: “After Brinton’s death, Humboldtian ideas then appeared altogether doomed in North America” (p. 251).

Finally, Drechsel unites Franz Boas, Alfred Kroeber and Edward Sapir into a third and fourth generation of American Humboldtians at the beginning of the 20th century. These anthropologists and linguists distanced themselves from the evolutionary perspective of Brinton and conceived languages as cultural creations, not as evolving natural objects. The German-born Franz Boas, who had studied physics in Germany, engaged in geographic investigations on the Inuit and other American nations, and then emigrated to the US where he held a position in anthropology at Columbia. He was not a disciple of outspoken German Humboldtians like Steinthal but his research was inspired by Alexander and Wilhelm von Humboldt. Linguistics was a part of anthropology, his famous Handbook of American Indian Languages (1911) was the Humboldtian founding document of American anthropology, even if there were no explicit references to Humboldt. The focus was on structural descriptions of languages, not on historical reconstruction. The decisive motive for linguistic variation was culture, not race. Boas thus comes back to Humboldt himself instead of relying on problematic naturalistic interpretations. Fighting linguistic racism was the central concern of his theoretical reflections. His most important book, The Mind of Primitive Man (1911), was translated into German as Kultur und Rasse (1914/1922Boas, Franz 1922 (2nd ed.). Kultur und Rasse. Berlin & Leipzig: de Gruyter (1st ed. 1914 German translation of The Mind of Primitive Man 1911) Boas, Franz 1922 (2nd ed.). Kultur und Rasse. Berlin & Leipzig: de Gruyter (1st ed. 1914 German translation of The Mind of Primitive Man 1911) ), which also became a manifesto against the Nazi racism that would take over in Germany. In the short period of the Weimar republic, Boas was conferred an honorary degree from the University of Kiel. He is the American scholar who firmly belongs to both academic cultures.

Alfred Kroeber and Edward Sapir were students of Boas. The influential Kroeber discussed incorporation and studied Californian languages, he was the “all-around American anthropologist after Boas” (p. 270). But, of course, Sapir was the real successor to Boas. “Sapir became the prime anthropological linguist of the period […]. Sapir came to be the outright American Humboldtian” (p. 270). His structural approach to languages was always connected to historical cultural facts.

The Humboldtians of the last generation returned to Humboldt in their linguistic work on American languages. However, they were the last ones to speak or read German, hence to have direct access to Humboldt’s publications. Their Americanist followers in the US had to specialize in such a way that the cosmopolitan character of Humboldtian linguistics necessarily disappeared in their narrow linguistic descriptive work. And the political stress in German-American relations did not enhance the willingness to learn German. This seemed to be the end of Humboldtianism in American linguistics. But now, Drechsel’s book, as a major contribution to Humboldt studies in the Anglosphere, may change the attitude of American linguistics towards Humboldt. It is very well documented, the bibliography is gigantic, Drechsel’s knowledge of Humboldt’s writings and of the international research on Humboldt as well as of the writings of the American Humboldtians is impressive and convincing. This book deserves many readers.

I nevertheless have to add some critical reflections in order to further characterize the book. My first remarks concern the fact that Drechsel paints a very linguistic Humboldt, and does not give enough weight to the philosopher. Coseriu rightly said that Humboldt was a linguist and a philosopher at the same time. I would add that this is so because Humboldt’s philosophy of language is a product of the need to justify the foundation of a science of languages. Humboldt’s question was — and this is very clear in Humboldt’s first appearance as a linguist in public, in his first Academy discourse “On the comparative study of languages” (1820) — why it is necessary to study languages, why it is not only erudite curiosity (as were historical language studies before) or, in Schiller’s words: why and to what end do we study languages? The succinct answer is: because language is the formative organ of thought and because languages demonstrate the richness and the variety of the human mind. A philosophy of language did not yet exist, therefore Humboldt had to develop such a philosophy in order to justify linguistic research. Drechsel, as a real linguist, is not so much interested in Humboldt’s philosophy because — as most linguists — he does not see the necessity for a philosophical justification of that science. As a consequence, the philosophical part of “Diversity”, which is the most complete presentation of Humboldt’s philosophy of language, is only very briefly summarized on one page (p. 178). But even for a linguist, it is not enough to sum up Humboldt’s philosophy rather scantily by writing that

Humboldt was interested in the relationships between language, thought, and cultural development — with language as the primary forming medium of thought and ideas, but with an ongoing, dynamic interplay between both (“Verstehen durch Mitdenken” or “understanding by engaged participation”). Humboldt moreover addressed the relationship between spoken and written language.(p. 178)

Humboldt was not only “interested” in those “relationships” but they were at the very center of his philosophical insights and the basis for his linguistic investigations. His entire philosophical energy was concentrated on the process of “thought formation” (“Bildung des Gedanken”, GS VII: 53) through language. Language does so by “articulating” the world and the sound of the voice. Articulation is the very essence of language: “Die Gliederung ist aber gerade das Wesen der Sprache” (GS V: 122). This articulating activity is necessarily a process of common thought formation by I and Thou and hence constitutive of human society. And Humboldt did not only “address” the relationship between spoken and written language but he integrated the writing activity into his theory of articulation: Writing is not simply the fixation of speech — and hence secondary and detrimental to language as Saussure (1916/22Saussure, Ferdinand de 1916/1922 Cours de linguistique générale. Critical edition by Tullio De Mauro. Paris: Payot (1975).Saussure, Ferdinand de 1916/1922 Cours de linguistique générale. Critical edition by Tullio De Mauro. Paris: Payot (1975).: 45) thought and with him most modern linguists — but the final accomplishment of the articulation process. Hence his analyses of writing systems, his presentation of Champollion’s great discovery, the decipherment of the Egyptian hieroglyphics, and Humboldt’s own attempts to read hieroglyphs — which Drechsel does not even mention — are constitutive parts of Humboldt’s linguistic studies and belong to a complete presentation of Humboldt’s linguistic work (cf. Messling 2008Messling, Markus 2008 Pariser Orientlektüren. Zu Wilhelm von Humboldts Theorie der Schrift. Paderborn: Schöningh.Messling, Markus 2008 Pariser Orientlektüren. Zu Wilhelm von Humboldts Theorie der Schrift. Paderborn: Schöningh.).

And the philosophical part of “Diversity” does not only contain the justification for the analysis of the linguistic structures in the second part of the book but the justification for the ultimate purpose of linguistics: namely grasping the “character” of a language in its poetic and literary usage. This purpose of Humboldt’s whole linguistic project is absent in Drechsel’s book on the American languages and it seems to be absent in the work of the American Humboldtians altogether. According to Humboldt, only in texts, in literature and eloquence, i.e. in concrete speech of individual users of the language, do languages reach their final goal and develop what he calls their “world view”.44.Therefore, the most Humboldtian contribution to linguistics in the Anglosphere remains Underhill (2009)Underhill, James 2009 Humboldt, Worldview and Language. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Underhill, James 2009 Humboldt, Worldview and Language. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.. Humboldt’s strongest and first affirmation on the essence of language is that it is energeia, activity, productivity, and not ergon, product. Unfortunately, linguists did not have elaborate literary and other text documents of American languages, they only had what Humboldt calls their “skeletons”. That absence of the “keystone” (Schlussstein, GS IV: 13) of Humboldt’s “study of language” would have merited some reflections, also because this “philological” heart of Humboldt’s Sprachstudium is certainly the profound reason for the estrangement of the Humboldtian approach from modern linguistics. Such critical observations, of course, can only be made on the basis of a more thorough presentation of the philosophical part of Humboldt’s “Sprachdenken”.

A stronger presence of philosophy would have allowed a clear discussion of a deep German-American difference in understanding Humboldt. This leads us back to John Joseph’s hint at the “complex situation” in the reception of Humboldt’s writings in the Anglosphere — and eventually to Brinton’s racist interpretation. I am referring to a discussion, which started nearly fifty years ago (in 1977), on the philosophical sources of Humboldt. Drechsel mentions the controversy in passing on half a page (p. 81). But it is a very serious problem which he should have treated more thoroughly. On the American side, Hans Aarsleff (1977)Aarsleff, Hans 1977 “Guillaume de Humboldt et la pensée linguistique des Idéologues”. La grammaire générale. Des modistes aux idéologues, ed. by André Joly and Jean Stéfanini, 217–241. Villeneuve-d’Ascq: P.U.L.Aarsleff, Hans 1977 “Guillaume de Humboldt et la pensée linguistique des Idéologues”. La grammaire générale. Des modistes aux idéologues, ed. by André Joly and Jean Stéfanini, 217–241. Villeneuve-d’Ascq: P.U.L. argued that Humboldt’s philosophy was a version of French Enlightenment thought, Humboldt hence a Prussian idéologue based on Condillac’s philosophy, like his Parisian friends Degérando and Garat. On the other hand, most scholars (and most German scholars) were convinced that Humboldt’s philosophical basis is Kant. This American-German controversy, which seemed to be resolved and pacified for many years now (cf. Trabant 1990Trabant, Jürgen 1990 Traditionen Humboldts. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.Trabant, Jürgen 1990 Traditionen Humboldts. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.: Ch. 10), has recently been renewed by Aarsleff (and Logan 2016)Aarsleff, Hans (with the assistance of John L. Logan) 2016 “An Essay on the Context and Formation of Wilhelm von Humboldt’s Linguistic Thought”. History of European Ideas 42:6.729–807. Aarsleff, Hans (with the assistance of John L. Logan) 2016 “An Essay on the Context and Formation of Wilhelm von Humboldt’s Linguistic Thought”. History of European Ideas 42:6.729–807. . There is no solution to that never ending — unhappy — story.

Other critical remarks concern some minor historiographical points. Thus, this book is perhaps too enthusiastic about Humboldt’s influence on American linguistics. Of course, the major part of the Humboldtian linguists Drechsel presents are of German descent with a very good knowledge of German and connections to the Berlin or German linguistic scene. But it is not easy to document what they really knew, which Humboldtian works they read and into what scientific activities such a knowledge developed. It is moreover important to consider the fact that Humboldt’s scientific outreach during his lifetime was rather weak, that he published very little, that he had no disciples since he was not a professor at a university and that, therefore, he actually had no real followers, no “school” in Berlin. Even his academic colleague Franz Bopp, who attended all of his speeches at the Academy (Humboldt’s only public), was not a Humboldtian.

In addition, as far as the general positioning of Humboldt in the history of linguistics is concerned, Drechsel integrates Humboldt too smoothly into the historical-comparative paradigm. There is a profound difference between Humboldt’s vergleichendes Sprachstudium and the Grimm-Bopp comparative paradigm. Both comparativisms are based on grammar. Since Friedrich Schlegel (1808)Schlegel, Friedrich 1808 Über die Sprache und Weisheit der Indier. Ein Beitrag zur Begründung der Alterthumskunde. Heidelberg: Mohr & Zimmer.Schlegel, Friedrich 1808 Über die Sprache und Weisheit der Indier. Ein Beitrag zur Begründung der Alterthumskunde. Heidelberg: Mohr & Zimmer., grammar is the center of language comparison, because grammar is the structural heart of languages. Humboldt’s comparative focus is on grammar, just like Grimm’s and Bopp’s. But the aims of the comparison are completely opposed. Grimm and Bopp compare languages in order to prove the unity of languages in the depth of time. And they do so where it is most likely to find unity, viz. in cognate languages. Grimm compares Germanic languages to show that they are deeply the same. By contrast, Humboldt compares languages to show the differences, the diversity of languages, as “Verschiedenheit” in the title of his main work indicates. Thus, Basque was interesting for Humboldt because it differed radically from the Indo-European languages. Humboldt’s comparative linguistics is anthropological, not historical. “Anthropology” in the European sense of the 18th century means an investigation of the diversity in human culture, and the dimension of diversity is space, not time. But I have to admit that, at the end of his life, in the third book of his Kawi-Werk, the comparative grammar of the Austronesian languages, Humboldt seems to join the Grimm-Boppian kind of comparative grammar of one language family.

Even if Drechsel dedicates a whole chapter to Humboldt’s Basque studies (chapter 3), he does not consider Humboldt’s project for a complete study of that language as prefiguring the Amerika-Werk on which he writes the very sophisticated chapter 8: “Les langues du Nouveau Continent”. With regard to Basque, Drechsel relies on an anthology of Humboldt’s writings in English and does not take into consideration Hurch’s three volumes in the Schriften zur Sprachwissenschaft (Humboldt 2010Humboldt, Wilhelm von 2010 Schriften zur Anthropologie der Basken, ed. by Bernhard Hurch.Humboldt, Wilhelm von 2010 Schriften zur Anthropologie der Basken, ed. by Bernhard Hurch., 2012Humboldt, Wilhelm von 2012 Baskische Wortstudien und Grammatik, ed. by Bernhard Hurch. Humboldt, Wilhelm von 2012 Baskische Wortstudien und Grammatik, ed. by Bernhard Hurch. , 2022Humboldt, Wilhelm von 2022 Schriften zur Geschichte und Frühgeschichte der Basken und des Baskischen, ed. by Bernhard Hurch. Humboldt, Wilhelm von 2022 Schriften zur Geschichte und Frühgeschichte der Basken und des Baskischen, ed. by Bernhard Hurch. ). These volumes reflect Humboldt’s idea regarding the structure of the Basque book, which he so clearly delineated in his first printed linguistic article, the Ankündigung einer Schrift über die Vaskische Sprache und Nation (1812) (GS III: 289–299). The three parts of that book should consist of: 1. “einen anschaulichen Begriff des Ländchens und seiner Bewohner” (GS III: 294), i.e. a presentation of the culture of the nation, 2. “eine Analyse, oder Zergliederung der Vaskischen Sprache” (GS III: 294), i.e. an analysis of the language, and 3. “historische und philosophische Untersuchungen über die Vaskische Nation und Sprache” (GS III: 299), i.e. historical and philosophical investigations on the Basque nation and language. These first ideas with regard to the structure of a linguistic description, a clear and simple structural tripartition, seem to underlie the Kawi-Werk as well as his plans for a book on the American languages.

A final remark on a detail that is not as unimportant as it might appear. Drechsel repeatedly writes that Humboldt’s instruction for drawing a map of the European languages, the Ankündigung which he sent to Goethe in 1812, had a great impact on American linguistic cartography. But as I have said before, this is simply not possible, not only with regard to Gallatin. That “instruction” remained a manuscript in the Goethe- und Schiller-Archiv in Weimar until it was published for the first time in 2020 in a French translation and in 2022 in the German original. Moreover, Drechsel should not have reproduced the map (p. 120) that Julien Cavero designed in French after Humboldt’s Anleitung (in Blankenstein et al. 2020Blankenstein, David, Julien Cavero, Mandana Covindassamy and Sandrine Maufroy eds. 2020 Wilhelm von Humboldt, d’après une idée de Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: Instructions pour la réalisation d’une carte générale des langues. Paris: Rue d’Ulm.Blankenstein, David, Julien Cavero, Mandana Covindassamy and Sandrine Maufroy eds. 2020 Wilhelm von Humboldt, d’après une idée de Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: Instructions pour la réalisation d’une carte générale des langues. Paris: Rue d’Ulm.: 76–77), without a critical review, because that map misunderstands quite a lot of Humboldt’s instructions.

Notwithstanding these critical remarks, Drechsel’s book is a great book that fulfills perfectly its objective: it “introduces or reintroduces fundamental linguistic concepts by the Prussian savant to an anglophone audience unfamiliar with his Americanist linguistic writings, most of which have not been available in any depth in English translation” (p. 24). With this aim it succeeds at the same time in dissipating a thick layer of unjustified prejudices and ignorance. Drechsel’s book is an important and convincing new voice in Humboldt studies since it presents Humboldt as a linguist, with the American languages at the very center of his research. This comprehensive presentation of Humboldt’s linguistic work will change Humboldt’s scientific image in the general history of linguistic ideas. More specifically, the book is a great contribution to the history of Americanist linguistics which enriches the tradition of American linguistics considerably.