William Dwight Whitney and the Science of Language Stephen G. Alter Published by Johns Hopkins University Press Alter, Stephen G. William Dwight Whitney and the Science of Language. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005. Project MUSE. doi:10.1353/book.60328. https://muse.jhu.edu/. For additional information about this book https://muse.jhu.edu/book/60328 [ Access provided at 1 Oct 2021 23:18 GMT with no institutional affiliation ] This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science 123rd Series (2005) 1. Stephen G. Alter, William Dwight Whitney and the Science of Language 2. Bethany Aram, Juana the Mad: Sovereignty and Dynasty in Renaissance Europe 7222 Alter / WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY AND THE SCIENCE OF LANGUAGE / sheet 3 of 355 Tseng 2005.1.6 07:25 Tseng 2005.1.6 07:25 7222 Alter / WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY AND THE SCIENCE OF LANGUAGE / sheet 4 of 355 William Dwight Whitney and the Science of Language Stephen G. Alter 7222 Alter / WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY AND THE SCIENCE OF LANGUAGE / sheet 5 of 355 TheJohnsHopkinsUniversityPress Baltimore and London Tseng 2005.1.6 07:25 © 2005 The Johns Hopkins University Press All rights reserved. Published 2005 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper 987654321 TheJohnsHopkinsUniversityPress 2715 North Charles Street Baltimore, Maryland 21218-4363 www.press.jhu.edu Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Alter, Stephen G. William Dwight Whitney and the science of language / Stephen G. Alter. p. cm. ‘‘W.D. Whitney’s main works in general linguistics’’: p. Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn 0-8018-8020-3 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Whitney, William Dwight, 1827–1894. I. Title. 7222 Alter / WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY AND THE SCIENCE OF LANGUAGE / sheet 6 of 355 p85.w478a78 2005 410'.9—dc22 2004012070 A catalog record for this book is available from the British Library. Frontispiece: W. D. Whitney portrait photo. Charles R. Lanman, ed., The Whitney Memorial Meeting (Boston: Ginn and Co., 1897). Tseng 2005.1.6 07:25 ToAnnL.Alter And to the memory of Fred C. Alter 7222 Alter / WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY AND THE SCIENCE OF LANGUAGE / sheet 7 of 355 Tseng 2005.1.6 07:25 Tseng 2005.1.6 07:25 7222 Alter / WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY AND THE SCIENCE OF LANGUAGE / sheet 8 of 355 Contents Preface xi Introduction: A Pathclearer in Linguistic Science 1 1 An American Orientalist 6 2 Indological Foreshadowings 39 3 Victorian Language Debates 53 4 Building a System of General Linguistics 66 5 Organizing a New Science 94 6 Creating a Science of Language 123 7 Forging an Alliance with Anthropology 146 7222 Alter / WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY AND THE SCIENCE OF LANGUAGE / sheet 9 of 355 8 The Battle with Max Müller 174 9 The Elder Statesman and the Junggrammatiker 207 10 Enduring Legacies 236 W. D. Whitney Chronology 271 Notes 275 W. D. Whitney’s Main Works in General Linguistics 321 Essay on Sources 325 Index 333 Tseng 2005.1.6 07:25 Tseng 2005.1.6 07:25 7222 Alter / WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY AND THE SCIENCE OF LANGUAGE / sheet 10 of 355 Preface Some years ago, I considered it a mark of intellectual maturity not to aspire to writeabiography.I’membarrassedtoadmitthisnow,soIblameitonhaving attended graduate school. Cutting-edge historians, we were led to believe, did not go in for historical biography. This was fine with me because my own am- bition (I thought) pointed in a different direction. I wanted to write a book about the rise of the ‘‘cultural’’ sciences in America. It seemed simple enough: I just needed to make my topic a bit more specific. I was rescued from my subsequent wanderings when I learned of an impor- tant omission in the literature on my subject—an omission, it turned out, that involved biography. No full-length study had been done of William Dwight Whitney (1827–94), a renowned Orientalist as well as nineteenth-century 7222 Alter / WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY AND THE SCIENCE OF LANGUAGE / sheet 11 of 355 America’s leading writer on general linguistic theory—what was known at the time as ‘‘the science of language.’’ That field, I soon discovered, was con- nected with nearly everything in the surrounding intellectual landscape. In this context, therefore, the story of a particular career could nicely serve my original purpose; it could open a wide window on the human sciences of that era. Viewed from this perspective, W. D. Whitney’s life and legacy were not the main point. I wanted to use Whitney only as a lens through which to view the environment in which he worked. In addition, I grew skeptical of the notion that Whitney had exerted significant influence on recent linguistics. Histori- ans had made a number of claims to that effect, but most of these struck me as either vague or lacking in proportion. Accordingly, in an encyclopedia article about Whitney that I wrote several years ago, I soft-pedaled the idea of his ongoing relevance. Then I changed my mind. Increasingly, the evidence formed a pattern I had not fully grasped at first, and I became convinced that Whitney, in addition Tseng 2005.1.6 07:25 xii Preface to achieving a towering reputation in his own day, had made permanent con- tributions to Western language study. Still, setting forth that case has proved a complicated proposition. The first two chapters in this work recount Whitney’s early life and the be- ginnings of his career as an Orientalist—focusing on things that foreshadowed his approach to general linguistics. Chapter 3 surveys Victorian-era debates about language in relation to science and religion, which formed an impor- tant ideological context for Whitney’s theorizing. Chapter 4 presents the basic features of Whitney’s linguistic system and describes the dismayed response his views provoked among America’s religious intellectuals. Chapter 5 looks at Whitney’s efforts to organize his field professionally. Chapters 6 and 7 take up the central problem of language study as one of the human or social sciences, while exploring Whitney’s views on ethnology, anthropology, and Darwinian evolution. Then comes an account of Whit- ney’s sensational public quarrel with the Oxford-based linguist F. Max Müller, the single most dramatic episode in Whitney’s career. More significant in the long run, however, was his complex relationship with the German ‘‘Neogram- marian’’ movement, which is the subject of Chapter 9. Chapter 10 brings Whit- ney’s story to a close and considers the other main components of his legacy: 7222 Alter / WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY AND THE SCIENCE OF LANGUAGE / sheet 12 of 355 his ironic influence on Ferdinand de Saussure’s linguistic theory, and the way in which Whitney’s ideas have been vindicated by modern sociolinguistics. I add here a note on terminology. Throughout the nineteenth century, English-language writers used the older term philology and the newer term linguistics virtually interchangeably: either could denote language study as a whole. I continue this practice for the sake of stylistic variety, except where I indicate that one or the other term is being preferred for a specific purpose. Many have given of their time and expertise throughout this book’s prepa- ration. I am grateful first to those who read all or part of the manuscript in its various stages: Richard W. Bailey, Graeme Bird, Kenneth Cmiel, Paul Conkin, Madhav Deshpande, Damon DiMauro, Thomas L. Haskell, David A. Hollinger, Stanley Insler, Stephanie Jamieson, Konrad Koerner, Ronald Num- bers, Ross Paulson, Elaine Phillips, Rosane Rocher, Michael Silverstein, Talbot Taylor, Thomas R. Trautmann, and James Turner. Michael Silverstein and James Turner, who read the entire work more than once, gave invaluable guid- ance. I also owe an extraordinary debt to Craig Christy and John E. Joseph, major interpreters of the Whitneyan legacy. Each read multiple revisions of Tseng 2005.1.6 07:25 Preface xiii key chapters, led me to make innumerable improvements, and encouraged me to sharpen the message. Patricia Casey Sutcliffe helped as well by correcting some of my facts based on her own Whitney research. The deficiencies that inevitably remain are my own responsibility. An Andrew W. Mellon Foundation dissertation fellowship at the University of Michigan helped me launch this project; a year at Harvard’s Charles War- ren Center for the Study of American History allowed me to develop it. I am grateful to the Warren Center’s directors, staff, and fellows for providing such an ideal setting in which to work. Donald Fleming deserves particular credit. The staffs of libraries in the United States, Britain, and Germany have made this research possible. My thanks go especially to William Massa, Judith Schiff, and others working with the Manuscripts and Archives Department at Yale University’s Sterling Memorial Library. Ron Ritgers, William Vance, and Richard Whitekettle furthered the cause by retrieving additional materials from Sterling Library. Barbara Burg of Harvard’s Widener Library graciously and professionally traced stray bits of bibliographic information, thus saving me a number of headaches. For help in finding information on the Century Dictionary, I thank Cathy Clark and the other staff of the Charles Sanders Peirce Edition Project, India- 7222 Alter / WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY AND THE SCIENCE OF LANGUAGE / sheet 13 of 355 napolis, Indiana, as well as Margaret R. Leavy of New Haven, Connecticut. Kenneth Minkema of Yale,and Elise Feeley and Kathryn Gabriel, both of Nort- hampton, Massachusetts, helped me sort out Whitney family genealogy and church affiliation. Professor Frederick Rudolph of Williams College supplied me with a copy of the Williams Catalogue of 1845. For their assistance with lan- guage translations, I thank my colleagues Damon DiMauro and Lenore Weiss.