Introduction ‘What is General Linguistics?’ The first full professor of General Linguistics at the University of Amsterdam, Anton Reichling (1898-1986), asked this question in 1947 in the title of his inaugural lecture. Reichling presented his audience with a bird’s-eye view of eight centuries of answers to his question, which he all re garded as wrong, mainly because of the attempt to find the ‘generality’ of general linguistics in the wrong place: either in aprioristic ideas on ‘general grammar’ (the earlier answers) or in reductionist appeals to non-linguistic principles (the later answers). And yet, according to Reichling, one man had already been on the right track, that of ‘autonomous generality’, years ago. This man was Georg von der Gabelentz (1840-1893), and his answer can be found in his book Die Sprachwissenschaft, Ihre Aufgaben, Methoden und bisherigen Ergebnisse, first published in 1891. Reichling quoted a long passage from this book, in which Gabelentz envisages a new pro gramme for language typology and which begins as follows:1 (i) Every language is a system, of which all parts organically relate to and cooperate with each other. One has to suppose that none of these parts may be lacking, or diff erent, without the whole being changed. Reichling concluded that Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913), the founder of mod ern general linguistics, had an almost visionary predecessor. Reichling’s comments form a good starting point for the subject I want to explore, the rise of general linguistics, with a focus on Gabelentz. They are linked to the following facts and issues, all of which are relevant to this theme: This content downloaded from 193.194.76.5 on Sat, 22 May 2021 07:13:11 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms  Els Elffers a) A European university established its fi rst chair in General Linguistics as late as 1947. b) Nevertheless, early varieties of general linguistics existed at least eight centuries before that. c) Th e ‘generality’ of general linguistics has been conceived in very diff erent manners. d) Saussure is regarded as the founder of modern general linguistics. e) Gabelentz anticipated at least some of Saussure’s ideas. I begin by providing a brief elaboration of (a)- (d), which will involve a more precise demarcation of ‘general linguistics’ and an overview of the development of general linguistics thus defined. Then I turn to Gabelentz’s role in this process. Basic data on Gabelentz are presented in a separate section. The next two sec tions focus on Gabelentz’s modernity. The anticipation of Saussure mentioned in (e) above will be discussed, together with some other modern aspects of Gabe lentz’s work. The next section is entirely devoted to one very prominent aspect of Gabelentz’s modernity: his programme for language typology. In the last part of the article, I will put a different face on this programme. Despite its advanced aspects, Gabelentz’s work fell into oblivion rather early. Re ichling’s remark on its ‘visionary’ character does not stand entirely alone, but it is outweighed by opinions on its outdatedness and by a general neglect.2 I will argue that the main source of this neglect can, rather paradoxically, be found in the very element of Gabelentz’s general linguistics programme that reveals his most advanced ideas: the typology programme. The last section summarizes the conclusions reached throughout the paper. General Linguistics: What, when, where? Disregarding, in this article, the above-mentioned long and largely philosophi cal tradition of scholarly involvement in general aspects of language (actually from Antiquity onwards),3 I will focus on the nineteenth-century development of general linguistics as a more or less well-defined empirically- oriented field of study. A plausible demarcation of general linguistics in this sense is suggested by his tory itself. From the beginning of the nineteenth century onwards, a new and suc cessful linguistic

Summarized by © lakhasly.com approach was developed and introduced at universities, at first in Germany: historical-comparative linguistics. One of the central aims of this approach was a general descriptive coverage of and comparison between languag es in their various stages of development, through a uniform and emphatically This content downloaded from 193.194.76.5 on Sat, 22 May 2021 07:13:11 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms  The Rise of General Linguistics empirical-scientific method. In this context, the term ‘general linguistics’ (in Ger man Allgemeine Sprachkunde or Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft) was introduced, indicating the study of general aspects of languages, which was distinguished from the study of particular languages. The very first linguistics professor, Franz Bopp (1791-1867), was appointed in 1821 to teach the subjects of Orientalische Lit eratur und allgemeine Sprachkunde at the University of Berlin.4 During the last part of the nineteenth century, the area of linguistics became broader and more diversified. Besides the emphatically diachronic historical comparative approach, other, synchronic, approaches underwent new impulses. For example, significant innovations were made in methods for the classifica tion of languages. This development was closely related to another one: the enormous growth of empirical knowledge regarding large numbers of languag es. Apart from the Indo-European languages, which used to be the main object of historical- comparative research, there was a new focus on other language families. The work of Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767-1835) was crucial for these innovations. New sub-disciplines were developed, such as phonetics, language psychology and dialectology. Also methodologically, there was a broadening and diversifica tion of approaches. The natural sciences were no longer the only model to follow; there was also a rapprochement with, for example, biology and psychology (all of course in their nineteenth- century shape). For general linguistics as a discipline, this diversification was of crucial im portance. It started as the science of the general principles of historical-com parative linguistics, firmly interwoven with historical-comparative linguistics itself. So the term ‘general linguistics’ was almost superfluous and was not often used. It was exceptional for a chair, as in Bopp’s case, to bear this name explic itly. Due to the growing diversity of language studies (which also implied a growing variation in specialization among linguists), general linguistics became a much more encyclopaedic and independent umbrella discipline. Techmer’s Internationale Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft (1884-1891) was the first journal explicitly devoted to this area. Related to this increased promi nence, the importance of general linguistics as a separate subject in university curricula was growing. During the first decades of the twentieth century general linguistics became an obligatory part of language programmes at European universities, with the francophone world rather than Germany taking the lead, mainly due to Saus sure’s forceful and comprehensive conception of general linguistics explained in his Cours de linguistique générale (1916)5 . He defined a set of abstract basic con cepts for all language research (e.g. linguistique synchronique/linguistique diachro nique, langue/parole/langage) and promoted a view of languages as self-contained This content downloaded from 193.194.76.5 on Sat, 22 May 2021 07:13:11 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms  Els Elffers systems in which all parts relate to each other – exactly the idea of Gabelentz’s presented in quotation (i) above.6 This new programme enhanced the idea of general linguistics as an autono mous discipline. The institutional corollary was the rise of independent general linguistics departments and the establishment of full general linguistics

Summarized by © lakhasly.com profes sorships at all language faculties, albeit in a sometimes slow and gradual process. In the Netherlands, for example, general linguistics was introduced as a subject for academic teaching only in 1921. Initially, courses in general linguistics were as signed as additional tasks to language professors of all categories. Special chairs in general linguistics, such as Reichling’s, were created at all Dutch faculties of letters during the 1940s and 1950s.7 An important milestone in this extended ‘making of a discipline’ process was the appearance of general linguistics textbooks. The first examples of this new category appeared at the end of the nineteenth century, mainly in Germany. They were written for university students and professional linguists. Gabelentz’s Die Sprachwissenschaft (1891, 19012 ) belongs to this first generation of textbooks,8 as do, for example, Paul’s Prinzipien der Sprachgeschichte (1880) and Delbrück’s Einleitung in das Sprachstudium (1880).9 Gabelentz and ‘Die Sprachwissenschaft’ Hans Georg Conon von der Gabelentz was originally a sinologist and polyglot re searcher of many non-Indo-European languages. In this respect he was following in the footsteps of his father, Hans Conon von der Gabelentz (1807-1874), who, while pursuing a career as a professional politician, also investigated many exotic languages. Initially, Georg was also a dilettante linguist: he taught himself Dutch, Italian and Chinese during his gymnasium years. After studying law, administra tion and linguistics in Jena, he worked in the civil service of Saxony for fourteen years. During this period, he wrote a thesis at Dresden University on the transla tion of a Chinese philosophical text. From 1878 onwards, Gabelentz held professorships, first in Far Eastern Lan guages at the University of Leipzig, and from 1890 until his death (in 1893) in East Asiatic Languages and General Linguistics at the University of Berlin. From 1884 to 1889 he was co-editor of Techmer’s Internationale Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft. Die Sprachwissenschaft is the result of Gabelentz’s increasing involvement in general linguistics courses for students. Earlier, in 1881, Gabelentz had published his other magnum opus, Chinesische Grammatik (Grammar of Chinese). The fame of the latter book, which was reprinted several times until as late as 1960, This content downloaded from 193.194.76.5 on Sat, 22 May 2021 07:13:11 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms  The Rise of General Linguistics lasted much longer than the fame of Die Sprachwissenschaft, which was regarded as outdated rather soon after its publication.10 The opening sentence of Sütter lin’s review of the book’s 1901 reprint characterized the book as ‘a remnant from earlier times’.11 Sütterlin was not alone in his verdict. Ten years later, the famous American linguist Bloomfield spoke of a ‘lively, if not always fully modern book’. In contrast, he recommended Paul’s Prinzipien der Sprachgeschichte as presenting ‘the principles and methods of modern linguistics’.12 These words were prophetic, because Gabelentz was soon forgotten, whereas Paul’s book retained its textbook status over some decades. Yet, Reichling was by far not the only one to emphasize Gabelentz’s moder nity and anticipation of later ideas. For example, in Morpurgo Davies’s detailed overview of nineteenth-century linguistics, an ‘inescapable air of modernity’ is observed in Gabelentz’s book, in comparison to other textbooks.13 In the next sections we will see how it can be explained that Gabelentz evoked such contradictory judgements. Gabelentz as a pioneer of general linguistics Morpurgo Davies motivates her remark on the air of modernity present in Die Sprachwissenschaft in terms of the total ‘arrangement’ of the book: (ii) Gabelentz’s fi rst section ... started with generalities about language and a brief history of linguistics but then turned to a discussion

Summarized by © lakhasly.com of various ap proaches with which the linguist must be familiar: phonetics, psychology, logic. Th e other three sections of the book deal with einzelsprachliche For schung (the analysis of individual languages), ‘genealogical-historical’ lin guistics, and fi nally General Linguistics (allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft). Here the subjects discussed are the human capacity for language, the lan guage of animals, etc., the analysis of discourse, the organization of mor phological material, word order, intonation, grammatical categories, etc. – all this with reference to a number of non-Indo-European languages. In the arrangement there is an inescapable air of modernity ...14 Morpurgo Davies rightly observes that Gabelentz was innovative in many re spects, and that the total design of the book reflects this. In the following subsec tion, I discuss this aspect of Gabelentz’s modernity in more detail. Other aspects are dealt with in two additional subsections. This content downloaded from 193.194.76.5 on Sat, 22 May 2021 07:13:11 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms  Els Elffers General linguistics as a multiform science More than other late-nineteenth-century general linguistics textbooks, Die Sprachwissenschaft bears witness to the author’s intention, not only to present a broad body of linguistic knowledge, but also to offer students of linguistics a number of basic conceptual tools and methods for research. Due to this broad approach, the book’s underlying framework is very similar to the framework of recent introductions to general linguistics: a combination of ‘encyclopaedia of linguistics’ (overview of approaches and sub-disciplines), ‘foundations of linguis tics’ (basic linguistic concepts) and ‘general linguistics’ in the narrower sense of ‘research that generalizes over all languages’. This combination reflects a still existing duality of general linguistics as an auxiliary discipline for all language investigators and general linguistics as a separate area of research. Gabelentz’s advanced approach is reflected in the arrangement of his book, as was observed by Morpurgo Davies in quotation (ii). After a general section on the scientific study of language, sections on the synchronic analysis of a single lan guage and on historical linguistics provide the basic knowledge and methods for research in these respective areas. The final section deals with general linguistic phenomena (e.g. word order, intonation) and especially with the language typol ogy programme.15 In order to elaborate such a broad design, Gabelentz had to acquire new knowledge. Whereas earlier textbooks mainly reflect the specializations of their authors, Gabelentz explicitly mentions his efforts to extend his original, mainly polyglot expertise into less exotic areas such as historical linguistics (traditionally focused on Indo-European languages) and his native tongue, the latter because he felt the necessity to illustrate his theoretical expositions for his German audience through maximally clear and accessible examples.16 With respect to the book’s general design, Gabelentz’s first section Allgemeiner Theil (General Part) is remarkable for various reasons. Firstly, its overview of the history of linguistics is by no means confined to Western scholarship as is usual in such overviews – the fruit of Gabelentz’s wide knowledge of exotic languages and cultures.17 Secondly, the subsection Schulung des Sprachforschers (Education of the Lan guage Researcher) heralds a new involvement in the didactic aim of general lin guistics. It is divided into four parts, devoted to education in phonetics, psychol ogy, logic and general linguistics itself respectively.18 It is unfortunate, from a present-day perspective, that there is an implicit restriction in this subsection to language research in the sense most familiar to Gabelentz: the empirical analy sis of new and mainly orally available languages. What is being presented as auxiliary sciences is actually a range of auxiliary

Summarized by © lakhasly.com practical skills, useful for such This content downloaded from 193.194.76.5 on Sat, 22 May 2021 07:13:11 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms  The Rise of General Linguistics an enterprise. Phonetics is discussed as a training in listening, articulation and transcription; psychological training comes down to a general alertness to subtle semantic phenomena; logic is discussed as a skill in practical reasoning, and gen eral linguistics training mainly consists of practical exercises in the acquisition of maximally different languages. It seems that Gabelentz considered these four areas irrelevant as theoretical disciplines. However, it would be self-contradictory to maintain this: the whole book is a theoretical introduction to general linguis tics, thought to be relevant to all language students. An important issue in such a theoretical introduction is the position of linguistics among other sciences. Gabelentz does not fail to include in his first section a subsection devoted to this subject (Stellung der Sprachwissenschaft), which discusses theoretical connections of linguistics with anthropology, history, natural science, psychology, logic and metaphysics. But this discussion does not reveal any implications for the training of language students in these related disciplines.19 In sum, Gabelentz presented an advanced and broad conception of general linguistics, although the new educational involvement borne out by Gabelentz’s Schulung subsection remained confined to a limited area within the entire field of language research. Saussure and Gabelentz Gabelentz owes most of his ‘modernist’ reputation to his being a forerunner of Saussure. Reichling was far from the only observer to pinpoint similarities between these scholars. I will not go into the still unresolved controversy as to whether Saussure actually derived his ideas from Gabelentz.20 The similarities are striking, although one may be tempted to overemphasize them.21 The most important similarities concern the above-mentioned concep tion of languages as self-contained systems, the sharp distinction between syn chrony and diachrony, the prominence of synchrony over diachrony, defended by Gabelentz as vehemently as by Saussure, and the conceptual distinction langue/ parole/langage, which is similar to Gabelentz’s distinction Einzelsprache/Rede/ Sprachvermögen). These are fundamental principles of general linguistics, but there are also equally fundamental principles on which Saussure and Gabelentz differ vastly. For example, Gabelentz’s above-mentioned advanced programme for language ty pology is absent from and even contradicts Saussure’s Cours, despite its starting point (presented in quotation (i)) in the very Saussurean idea of languages as self-contained systems. This programme, including its non- Saussurean aspects, will be elaborated on in the next two sections. This content downloaded from 193.194.76.5 on Sat, 22 May 2021 07:13:11 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms  Els Elffers Other early insights There are other, more isolated elements in Die Sprachwissenschaft that have prompted the conclusion that Gabelentz was well ahead of his time. In his spe cialty, polyglot knowledge, he was unequalled. But also his achievements in what may be called ‘pragmatics-avant-la- lettre’, are remarkable. In this respect, his sole basis is his ingenuity in observing subtle phenomena of language use, mainly in his native language. For example, his analysis of sentences in terms of a ‘grammati cal’ and a ‘psychological’ subject and predicate foreshadows the research area now called ‘information structure’. Also his semantic/pragmatic analysis of modal par ticles and interjections and his ideas on German word order anticipate insights developed further only in the second half of the twentieth century.22 Th e ‘hypology/typology’ programme Gabelentz’s ideas on language typology can be found in

Summarized by © lakhasly.com the last part of section 4 of Die Sprachwissenschaft: Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft (General Linguistics). It is contained in its sixth chapter titled Die allgemeine Grammatik (General Gram mar), which is preceded by chapters on general issues such as the human capacity for language, general linguistic phenomena (e.g. intonation, word order) and the evaluation of languages (Sprachwürderung). Chapter 7, on general aspects of the lexicon (Die allgemeine Wortschatzkunde), is the book’s penultimate one, only fol lowed by a very brief concluding chapter. Additional details of the typology programme are presented in Gabelentz’s very last article, published posthumously in 1894.23 Publishers’ initial unfamiliar ity with the term ‘typology’ (cf. note 1) becomes very apparent from an error in the title of the published article: Hypologie der Sprachen. Eine neue Aufgabe der Linguistik (Hypology of languages: A new task for linguistics). Due to his sudden death, Gabelentz was unable to correct the proofs. The central tenets of the programme are laid down in the passage from Die Sprachwissenschaft partially quoted by Reichling. Its first sentences were present ed in quotation (i); the rest of the passage runs as follows: (iii) But it also seems that, in the physiognomy of languages, certain fea tures are more distinctive than others. We must trace these features, and investigate which other features regularly co- occur with the former ones. I am thinking of morphological and syntactic particularities, and of prefer ences with respect to grammatical categories. I also feel that these phenom ena interact with phonetic phenomena. Th e induction that I require may be This content downloaded from 193.194.76.5 on Sat, 22 May 2021 07:13:11 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms  The Rise of General Linguistics extremely diffi cult, and if and as far as it will succeed, sharp philosophical thought will be required to recognize, behind the regularities, the laws, the active forces. But how gainful it would be if we could straightforwardly say to a language: you have this characteristic, consequently, you have those further characteristics, and that general character! – if, like the bold bota nists have tried to do, we could construct the lime tree from the lime leaf. If I were allowed to baptize an unborn child, I would choose the name ty pology. I observe here a task for General Linguistics, which can be fulfi lled already with the means now available. It will earn fruits that do not yield to those of historical linguistics in maturity and will be superior in scientifi c signifi cance. What was thus far said about spiritual relationship and simi lar features of non-related languages, will acquire a concrete form, and be presented in exact formulas; and subsequently, speculative thought should be added to these formulas, in order to interpret something observable as something necessary.24 This programme has been praised by later generations of linguists, who recog nized in it the idea of ‘implicational universals’, which was only reintroduced in the 1940s: if a language has feature B, it must also have feature A. After the nine teenth-century decline of earlier types of universal grammar, which proved to be biased in favour of European grammatical categories, this idea opened a new way to language universals: powerful restrictive generalizations became available, not through claims that all languages share specific substantial features (which had proved unsuccessful), but through claims that some features imply other fea tures. This approach allowed for a strong delimitation of possible combinations of properties and for a new way of classifying languages, apart from the familiar genetic classification. In the 1894 article, Gabelentz gives away a few more details regarding the ‘exact formulas’ that could present the type of generalizations he envisaged. Here the ty pological programme reappears in a more elaborated form, in which several stages are

Summarized by © lakhasly.com distinguished. The first stage aims at drawing up a complete inventory of fea tures of as many languages as possible.25 The second stage is ‘purely mechanical’: a statistical analysis, resulting in exact correlations between features (example: A coincides with B in ¾ of all cases) and knowledge about features with a great pre dictive power. The result is that ‘from a dozen of well-known features, a hundred other features can be extrapolated.’ Gabelentz explicitly refers to the great palaeontologist George Cuvier (1769- 1832). Cuvier applied a comparable programme, which enabled him to ‘build an entire animal from one bone’ (see also the comparison in the above quotation (iii) with the ‘bold botanist’ who constructs the lime tree from a leaf ).26 This content downloaded from 193.194.76.5 on Sat, 22 May 2021 07:13:11 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms  Els Elffers It is not surprising that later language typologists have recognized the progres sive thrust of this programme. Nor is it surprising that typology in this form was welcomed by Reichling and others as a central research area of general linguistics, which it has remained until now. ‘Th e last gasp of Humboldtian tradition’ Given this very exact and remarkably advanced programme, it is hard to imagine that Gabelentz’s work was condemned as ‘outdated’. This criticism was entirely due to the third and final stage of the programme, not discussed thus far: in the words of quotation (iii), the stage in which the ‘active forces’ behind the regu larities are recognized through philosophical thought, and in which ‘speculative thought should be added to these formulas, in order to interpret something ob servable as something necessary’. What are these ‘active forces’? Gabelentz’s general view, emanating from throughout Die Sprachwissenschaft, is that all languages have organic characteristics that embody the collective men tality of their speakers. This Sprachgeist (spirit of the language) is mainly mani fest in overall structural characteristics, and directly reflects the language users’ Volksgeist (spirit of the people). Structural variation between languages and language types is thus causally connected to variation between mentalities and thought patterns. In Gabelentz’s words: ‘Every language embodies a world view, the world view of a nation’.27 In the third stage of the typology programme, the structural patterns discov ered in the former stages are explained in terms of these national mentalities. In his ‘Hypology’ article, Gabelentz emphasizes that observation, induction and sta tistical procedures yield impressive results, but these results only consist of what is called correlations of features. Correlations become real relations when they are interpreted in terms of national mentalities of the language users. These mentali ties cannot be observed directly: they are objects of speculation. The procedure necessarily appeals to what Gabelentz calls ‘the investigator’s subjectivity’, but he claims that this subjectivity is minimal, given the objectivity of the rest of the pro cedure. His conclusion is that, along these lines, the twentieth century will realize what the nineteenth century aspired to in vain: ‘a truly general grammar, entirely philosophical and yet entirely inductive’. This ‘philosophical’ aspect of Gabelentz’s programme is a direct continuation of a typical nineteenth-century (mainly German) tradition of linking languages to national mentalities. Wilhelm von Humboldt was the most important rep resentative of this tradition. Main features of the tradition are its speculative character (there was a simple extrapolation from language features to thought This content downloaded from 193.194.76.5 on Sat, 22 May 2021 07:13:11 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms  The Rise of General Linguistics features) and its evaluative corollaries (for example the idea that ‘irregular’ lan guages embody muddled thought). Gabelentz’s huge chapter Sprachwürderung (almost 100 pages,

Summarized by © lakhasly.com one-fifth of the volume) contains many examples of this line of thought.28 This programme was soon declining after the turn of the century. The very idea of collective national mentalities was already severely criticized by Paul in his Prinzipien der Sprachgeschichte. Humboldtian claims about language- thought relationships were rejected, for example by Saussure, as entirely unwarranted.29 Actually, the issue disappeared as a kernel subject of linguistics and returned later in a separate subdiscipline: linguistic anthropology.30 Sütterlin, the reviewer of Die Sprachwissenschaft, speaks of Gabelentz as the very last follower of Humboldt’s approach to General Linguistics.31 He claims that this approach died with Gabelentz. Ninety years later, Hutton, in the preface to his new edition of Die Sprachwissenschaft, used almost the same words, when he described Gabelentz as ‘the last gasp of Humboldtian tradition’.32 Hutton also mentions an additional negative aspect of Gabelentz’s pro gramme, namely theoretical incoherence. His claim is that Gabelentz was a thoroughgoing Humboldtian and thus belonged to the humanistic tradition. Gabelentz rejected the mechanical world view implicit in the views of linguists such as Bopp and Paul. But, incoherently, he also wanted to include the natural science point of view. However, this incoherence is only apparent. It is an artefact of the current assumption of an unbridgeable gap between the nineteenth-century natural sci ences and humanities. True, this distinction was widely accepted. For several nineteenth-century linguists, it caused a bipartition of their discipline, be it in rather different ways. For example, Schleicher distinguished Glottik, the natural science of sounds and words, from Philologie, which was classed among the hu manities and covered syntax and stylistics.33 The criterion was (in)dependence on the free will. For Paul, the criterion was the ontological nature of the object of research: the study of sounds was regarded as a natural science (acoustics or physiology), the study of meaning was seen as belonging to the humanities, namely to psychology, which Paul considered to be the only ‘pure’ member of this category. But such examples do not imply that unitary enterprises that combine ele ments of both areas are incoherent. Recent investigations show that there are, on the contrary, many examples of a coherent ‘mixed’ research style. In this case, methodological aspects of both approaches are applied, but at different levels: on the one hand painstaking empirical observation and inductive generalization, on the other hand explanation in terms of non-mechanical ‘forces’. Especially the life sciences and history exhibit this style. Prominent examples are Cuvier This content downloaded from 193.194.76.5 on Sat, 22 May 2021 07:13:11 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms  Els Elffers and Humboldt himself (especially in his historical work). The approach now la beled ‘enlightenment vitalism’, prominent in the nineteenth- century life sciences (physiology and paleontology), is a case in point. History largely followed this example. It appealed to historical forces, which were thought to be on a par with natural forces. At the same time, there was a strong orientation towards objec tive data. The historical writings of Humboldt himself are examples of this ap proach. Rather than create a ‘counter-science’ apart from the natural sciences (as he is often believed to have done), he tried to translate data-gathering principles of the natural sciences into history and linguistics. The historian Droysen even described Humboldt as ‘the Francis Bacon of historical science’.34 Gabelentz, who admired both Cuvier and Humboldt, followed this ‘mixed’ approach. His appeal to induction and statistics as the only method to attain regularities and, at the same time, his ideas on world views as forces behind them fit in with a general pattern that can be

Summarized by © lakhasly.com observed in other nineteenth-century disciplines as well.35 There can be no doubt that, despite all modern elements scattered throughout the book, it was Gabelentz’s continuation of the Humboldtian programme, es pecially in his typology project, that doomed the book to oblivion soon after its appearance. On the other hand, Gabelentz’s way of applying the program contains several germs of innovation. For example, two passages of the 1894 article hint at the requirement of empirical support for claims about national mentalities. The idea of pure ‘speculation’ is thus mitigated. Although Gabelentz does not elaborate the idea, he stresses the necessity of testing such claims against anthropological and historical data. Moreover, the Sprachwürderung chapter contains many critical remarks about language evaluation as practised by colleague-linguists.36 In the first place, as a polyglot lover of all language types, Gabelentz sharply criticized unsound and biased ways of dealing with exotic languages. A striking example of this bias is the double-standard evaluation of languages with respect to abstract nouns: in ‘civilized’ languages, a large number of abstract nouns is regarded as a signal of a capacity for abstract thought, in ‘primitive’ languages as a signal of vague and imprecise thought. Similarly, a small number is regarded as a signal of a capac ity for subtle distinctions and as a signal of an incapacity for abstract thought, respectively. In the second place, Gabelentz’s sharp distinction between synchrony and diachrony kept him from resorting to unjustified appeals to etymology in ex trapolations from words to concepts. For example, when a language applies the expression ‘seeing hunger, fear, etc.’, this does not imply anything, according to

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