The Language Impact - Evolution -- System -- Discourse - Alwin Frank Fill
4. Language as energeia: Wilhelm von Humboldt
The Language Impact - Evolution -- System -- Discourse - Alwin Frank Fill
Alwin Frank Fill [+]
University of Graz
Description
A close connection between language and thought (or, to be more precise, language and the conceptualization of the world) was discovered by scholars before Humboldt, such as the authors of the Port Royal Grammar, the French philosopher Condillac (see Harris and Taylor 1997: 139–154), and the eighteenth-century German philosopher Hamann, who called language the ‘womb of the concepts’ (1967: 143; cf. Trabant 1994: 233). However, it was Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767–1835) who in his voluminous work on language (and languages) gave expression to this idea most clearly and most intensely. In the nineteenth century, Humboldt was one of the most widely quoted authors, whose influence still resonated well into the middle of the twentieth century.