Humboldt edition project

This project is part of an international cooperation aiming at the complete historical-critical edition of Wilhelm von Humboldt`s linguistic writings. Both, the edition, funded by the Austrian FWF and the German DFG, and the accompanying volumes of the series "Humboldt-Studien" will be published at Schöningh`s. The applicant is part of the main editors` board, co-editor of the American languages section (vols. III/1 and III/4) and editor of the Basque section (vol. II), which has been funded by the Austrian FWF (P-11254-SPR (1996-1998) and P-13281-SPR (1999-2001)). The following projected tasks are to be accomplished: a) finalizing the edition of the Basque section (final editing of texts, finishing introductions and comments) b) continued preparation of the Amerindian manuscripts ("Vergleichende Tabelle der Buchstabenlaute", "Allgemeine Amerikanische Arbeiten") for publication c) continued preparation of the Cora-materials d) preparing the Totonac-materials e) fulfilling a consultative function for the Spanish/Basque edition of Wilhelm von Humboldt`s writings and the volume containing Basque materials used by Humboldt (cf. Hurch (ed.) 2001), proposed by the Cultural Ministry of the Basque Government g) preparing the edition of the volume "Kleinere mittelamerikanische Grammatiken" (grammars of Mesoamerican languages), section III of the edition (editing of texts and introduction) g) additional research and publishing on the relevance of the Humboldtian work to modern linguistics (Humboldt`s methodology, his theory of morphological operations, ergativity, intonational phonology, etc.) h) continued correction and completion of the great Bibliography on Wilhelm von Humboldt In addition to the paper edition, we are liaising with Schöningh to prepare the electronic publication of the writings, both on CD and the Internet. For this purpose a web server with partially restricted access has been installed at our department which will finally host the complete Humboldt edition.

Despite Wilhelm von Humboldt`s celebrity, most of his writings have never been published up to the present day. This is especially true for his purely linguistic opus. Even though this was not completely unknown to the linguistic circles over more than 150 years, there was virtually nobody who would know Humboldt`s linguistic heritage in detail. Moreover, most of this heritage was removed from its original location during World War II and brought to places that remained unknown for a long time. Now, an international team of researchers have made it their business to study and edit the manuscripts of Humboldt`s linguistic heritage. Based on this research, Humboldt as a scientist will eventually be seen in new light - as the mentor of modern General Linguistics, as the founder of grammaticalization research, as someone who already had a clear view of what systematic linguistic research should be and as one of the most prominent contributors to the investigation of linguistic categories. Still, all of the projects Humboldt addressed himself to, were far too big and too ambitious to be carried out by a single person in only one lifetime. His heritage comprises nearly 30 treaties on the grammars of indigenous American languages composed by himself. The Basque studies occupy a prominent position in his linguistic opus. Basque is the one language he studied most diligently and over a very long period, which also was the time in his life when he started to think about linguistics as an independent research field and when he started to develop investigation devices that he would refine in his later days and that would be constitutive of modern linguistics in general. There is no doubt any more that a great number of linguistic insights and findings can be attributed to Wilhelm von Humboldt. Especially during the Basque period, he developed his ideas about case systems, grammatical formation, verbal categories, prepositional constructions and many more and laid the foundations for language typology and research in linguistic universals. Not only did Humboldt contribute a lot to the study of Basque, he also was one of the first Europeans to study the Basque language and culture and bring it closer to Europe. One of the byproducts of this project was the fact that some manuscripts of Basque origin, which had been unknown to present or thought to have been lost, were discovered among Humboldt`s papers. These manuscripts, which are of great importance to the historiography of Basque and to Basque Studies in general, have finally been edited and thus can easily be consulted by the interested scholar today.