Book contents
- Wilhelm von Humboldt and Early American Linguistics
- Wilhelm von Humboldt and Early American Linguistics
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures and Tables
- Maps
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Part I Wilhelm von Humboldt and the Americas
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Research on Wilhelm von Humboldt and His Brother Alexander as Americanist Linguists
- Part II The Early Lives of Wilhelm and Alexander von Humboldt
- Part III Wilhelm von Humboldt’s Americanist Linguistics
- Part IV Wilhelm von Humboldt’s Impact on Americanist Linguistics and Anthropology
- Part V Wilhelm von Humboldt as an Americanist Linguist and Anthropologist
- Book part
- References
- Index
2 - Research on Wilhelm von Humboldt and His Brother Alexander as Americanist Linguists
Biography, Ethnohistory, and Philology
from Part I - Wilhelm von Humboldt and the Americas
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 January 2024
- Wilhelm von Humboldt and Early American Linguistics
- Wilhelm von Humboldt and Early American Linguistics
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures and Tables
- Maps
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Part I Wilhelm von Humboldt and the Americas
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Research on Wilhelm von Humboldt and His Brother Alexander as Americanist Linguists
- Part II The Early Lives of Wilhelm and Alexander von Humboldt
- Part III Wilhelm von Humboldt’s Americanist Linguistics
- Part IV Wilhelm von Humboldt’s Impact on Americanist Linguistics and Anthropology
- Part V Wilhelm von Humboldt as an Americanist Linguist and Anthropologist
- Book part
- References
- Index
Summary
In response to frequent misconceptions about Humboldt as a linguist, Chapter 2 provides the reader with a review of historiographic research options on the lives of Wilhelm von Humboldt and his younger brother Alexander as Americanist scholars, drawing on three distinct but compatible methodological and conceptual resources: (1) biography as a form of history or the historical ethnography of individual lives; (2) ethnohistory or historical ethnography of a community as a comprehensive, anthropologically conceived social history; and (3) philology as a historical-linguistic method for the analysis of early linguistic attestations, including their systematic reconstruction by triangulation with contemporaneous or modern data for closely related dialects or languages (“reconstitution”).
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Wilhelm von Humboldt and Early American LinguisticsResources and Inspirations, pp. 26 - 44Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2024