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Philology and Racism: On Historicity in the Sciences of Language and Text

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Markus Messling
Markus Messling*
Affiliation:
Research Group “Philology and Racism in the Nineteenth Century”, German Research Foundation, University of Potsdam
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Abstract

The philological turn in textual scholarship is rooted in the critique of literary theory and the search for objectivity in the understanding of texts. But if the idea of focusing on the immanent structures of texts has been at the origins of modern philology, problems of meaning and translation produced a surplus during the course of the nineteenth century that can be described in terms of cultural hermeneutics. Thus historical philology emphatically widened its praxis toward cultural understanding. Edward W. Said and followers have explored the implications of this in relation to the constituting of European discursive hegemony. If the return to philology is not to be the nostalgic expression of regret at the ongoing decline of classical scholarship, it must take this past into account. Analyses that have focused on the problem have been driven primarily by the experience of civilizational failure and have elaborated a model of the discursive production of power. But how can philology possibly develop perspectives about its status and praxis within contemporary debates if it continues to neglect the heterogeneity within its own historical discourse? The article sets out to identify and analyze traces of resistance against the imperial cultural model of historical philology.

Type
Histories of Knowledge
Information
Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales - English Edition , Volume 67 , Issue 1 , March 2012 , pp. 151 - 180
Copyright
Copyright © Les Éditions de l’EHESS 2012

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References

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5. The debate that is alluded to here relates to a German tradition in the history of philology that had major significance for the organization of the textual sciences in American universities. Because of the strongly normative orientation of the notion of “Belles-Lettres”, philology has no comparable status in France. See, on this subject, Werner, Michael, “Le moment philologique des sciences historiques allemandes,” in Qu’est-ce qu’une discipline?, eds. Boutier, J., Passeron, J.-C. and Revel, J. (Paris: Éd. de l’EHESS, 2006), 171–92 Google Scholar. In the sense of a praxis of knowledge as a “theory of textuality as well as the history of textualized meaning” according to Pollock, Sheldon, “Future Philology? The Fate of a Soft Science in a Hard World,” Critical Inquiry 35 (2009): 931–61 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, here 934, philology has naturally had, including in France, a methodological meaning, even if this pertains more outside of fields considered “central” such as the so-called “minor philologies” such as Occitan and Breton, and in Orientalism. These are particularly distinguishable from the classical model of French literary criticism because they combine research on language and texts with a cultural hermeneutic dimension.

6. See Harpham, “Roots, races,” 34–41.

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11. The ethical dimension of philology, understood as working on the textual archives of human knowledge,is the point of departure of my thinking: Messling, Markus, “Disziplinäres (Über-) Lebenswissen. Zum Sinn einer kritischen Geschichte der Philologie,” Lendemains. Études comparées sur la France 129 (2008): 102–10 Google Scholar; Id., “Zum Lebenswissen der Textwissenschaften. Für eine kritische Geschichte der Philologie,” in Literaturwissenschaft als Lebenswissenschaft. Programm – Projekte – Perspektiven, eds. W. Asholt and O. Ette (Tübingen: Narr, 2010), 127–36.

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37. Trabant, Jürgen, Humboldt ou le sens du langage (1986; Liège: Mardaga, 1992)Google Scholar; Id., Traditions de Humboldt (1990; Paris: Éd. de la MSH, 1999).

38. Trabant, Traditions de Humboldt, 57-63; Id.,Mithridates im Paradies, 260-69; Messling, Pariser Orientlektüren, 48–58. As opposed to practically the entire tradition of recension that foregrounds the moment of historicity, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Wahrheit und Methode. Grundzüge einer philosophischen Hermeneutik (1960; Tübingen: Mohr, 1972), 380, stressed the importance of synchroneity and the relation to the mind as pointed out by Johann Gottfried von Herder and Wilhelm von Humboldt for the scientification of linguistic research.

39. Messling, Pariser Orientlektüren, 238-40.

40. von Schlegel, Friedrich, Über die Sprache und Weisheit der Indier. Ein Beitrag zur Begründung der Alterthumskunde (1808; Amsterdam: Benjamins, 1977), 44-66.Google Scholar

41. Messling, Pariser Orientlektüren, 243–50.

42. Regarding Humboldt, it seems that National-Socialist thought despaired of being able to include him within a tradition of racial thought without the risk of changing his words, as is seen for example in the publications, which borrowed heavily from völkisch reasoning, of Wilhelm Grau and Karl Ludwig Schemann. See, in this regard, Messling, Markus, “L’Homme ? Destruktion des Menschen in der Humboldt-Rezeption bei Gobineau,” in Individualität und Universalität bei Wilhelm von Humboldt, eds. Tintemann, U. and Trabant, J. (Munich: Fink, 2012)Google Scholar.

43. Trabant, Mithridates im Paradies, 251–52, also emphasized the fact that “Foucault [exaggerated] the sonorous nature of the language in historical linguistics (with regard to the cognitive-representative character [Wesen] in classical linguistic philosophy), in order to dramatically stage the supposed epistemic break” [transl. John Angell].

44. The structure of the thought of the Enlightenment as super-historical thinking was described by White, Hayden, Tropics of Discourse: Essays in Cultural Criticism (1978; Baltimore/London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985), 161 Google Scholar ff.

45. See, in particular, Foucault, Les mots et les choses; Id., L’archéologie du savoir (Paris: Gallimard, 1969); Id., L’ordre du discours. Leçon inaugurale au Collège de France prononcée le 2 décembre 1970 (Paris: Gallimard, 1971).

46. Michel Foucault, “Folie et déraison. Histoire de la folie à l’âge classique,” doctoral thesis defended in 1961 at the Sorbonne and published under the title Histoire de la folie à l’âge classique, followed by Mon corps, ce papier, ce feu ; La folie, l’absence d’œuvre (Paris: Gallimard, 1972).

47. Boyne, Roy, Foucault and Derrida: The Other Side of Reason (London: Unwin Hyman, 1990), 53 ff.Google Scholar

48. Foucault, Michel, Surveiller et punir. Naissance de la prison (Paris: Gallimard, 1975)Google Scholar; Id., Histoire de la sexualité, t. I, La volonté de savoir (Paris: Gallimard, 1976). Although Foucault also presented the counter-discourses that oppose the interests of power, for example with the reference to the text on the “discourse of the struggle between the races” (see n. 21), the question remains whether his interest did not also derive from the force of their imposition, made possible by mutation. This is true in any case for the discourse on races.

49. On the subject of Foucault’s conception of power in the tension between evolutionist logic within the social realm and the individual’s historical deviance, see the brilliant analysis of the study of power struggles that determine change and evolution in the work of Foucault and Darwin by Sarasin, Philipp, Darwin und Foucault. Genealogie und Geschichte im Zeitalter der Biologie (Francfort/Main: Suhrkamp, 2009), 211–21.Google Scholar

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51. See, in particular, Foucault, Michel, L’herméneutique du sujet. Cours au Collège de France (1981-1982), ed. Gros, F., gen. eds. Ewald, F. and Fontana, A. (Paris: Gallimard/Le Seuil, 2001)Google Scholar; Id., Le gouvernement de soi et des autres. Cours au Collège de France (1982-1983), Series editor F. Ewald and A. Fontana, ed. F. Gros (Paris: Gallimard/Le Seuil, 2008); Id., Le courage de la vérité. Cours au Collège de France (1983-1984), Series editor F. Ewald and A. Fontana, ed. F. Gros (Paris: Gallimard/Le Seuil, 2009).

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54. Michel Foucault, “Réponse à une question,” Dits et écrits 1954-1988, t. I, 1954-1975, 701–23; here 723.

55. Oesterreicher, Wulf, “Die Entstehung des Neuen – Differenzerfahrung und Wissenstransformation: Projektions- und Retrospektionshorizonte frühneuzeitlicher Sprachreflexion,” Mitteilungen des SFB 573 Pluralisierung und Autorität in der Frühen Neuzeit (15.-17. Jahrhundert) 1 (2005): 26–37 Google Scholar; here 33–34.

56. Said, Orientalism.

57. Ibid., 96 ff. Said concurred with Anwar Abdel Malik’s assessment on this point.

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59. In his final, only recently published, lectures in Japan, Claude Lévi-Strauss concluded that cultural forms of difference have enduringly marked what we hold to be corporal difference, by selecting and reinforcing certain genetic aptitudes that act only retropectively. As a consequence, he posits a relationship between social and genetic anthropology. But since cultural forms are submitted to staggering transformations, or at least could be, any notion of causal fixation between the genetic marker and living forms is untenable. Lévi-Strauss, Claude, L’anthropologie face aux problèmes du monde moderne, ed. Olender, M. (Paris: Le Seuil, 2011), 115–22.Google Scholar

60. Bourdieu, Pierre, “Tout racisme est un essentialisme,” Interventions (1961-2001) (Marseille: Agone, 2002), 177.Google Scholar

61. Schlegel, Über die Sprache und Weisheit der Indier, 63–66.

62. Critics’ reactions on this point have not been indulgent towards Said; for an overall summary, see Macfie, Alexander L., ed., Orientalism: A Reader (Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press, 2000)Google Scholar, and Maria do Mar Castro Varela et Dhawan, Nikita, Postkoloniale Theorie. Eine kritische Einführung (Bielefeld: Transcript, 2005), 37–49.Google Scholar

63. Concerning the edification of “Western” cultural hegemony, specifically produced by enlightened academic circles, Said attributed considerable importance to Germanophone thinkers who—initally—were not directly implicated in colonialism: “Yet what German Orientalism had in common with Anglo-French and later American Orientalism was a kind of intellectual authority over the Orient within Western culture. This authority must in large part be the subject of any description of Orientalism [...]” (Said, Orientalism, 19). It is all the more astonishing that Said later largely spared German thinkers from his analysis.

64. Regarding the question of the multiplicity of materials and objects discussed by Antonio Gramsci, see Bochmann, Klaus, “Sprache als Kultur und Weltanschauung. Zur Sprachauffassung Antonio Gramscis,” in Gramsci, A., Notizen zur Sprache und Kultur, ed. Bochmann, K. (Leipzig/Weimar: Kiepenheuer, 1984), 5–39 Google Scholar; here 22 ff.

65. Said, Orientalism, 23: “Yet unlike Michel Foucault, to whose work I am deeply indebted, I do believe in the determining imprint of individual writers upon the otherwise anonymous collective body of texts constituting a discursive formation like Orientalism. The unity of the large ensemble of texts I analyze is due in part to the fact that they frequently refer to each other: Orientalism is after all a system for citing works and authors.” See also Said, Edward W., “Crossing the Line,” Asien-Afrika-Lateinamerika 25 (1997): 405–16 Google Scholar; here 412 ff., in which Said also takes a position regarding the importance of Gramsci to his thinking.

66. Jürgen Trabant has repeatedly argued against these undifferentiated modes of interpretation of European thinkers, particularly Herder and Humboldt; see Trabant, J., Traditionen Humboldts, 235–41 and Id., Mithridates im Paradies, 162–65 Google Scholar. See also the fundamental criticism of Said’s approach in Varisco, Daniel Martin, Reading Orientalism: Said and the Unsaid (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2007), 40–62.Google Scholar

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69. Ibid.

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72. Said, Humanism and Democratic Criticism, 8–10.

73. Ibid., 10–11.

74. Marchand, Suzanne L., German Orientalism in the Age of Empire: Religion, Race and Scholarship (Washington/Cambridge: German Historical Institute/Cambridge University Press, 2009), XXII ff.Google Scholar, comes to a comparable conclusion.

75. Arendt, Hannah, The Origins of Totalitarianism (New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1951)Google Scholar.

76. Mosse, George L., Towards the Final Solution: A History of European Racism (New York: Howard Fertig, 1978).Google Scholar

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81. Marchand, German Orientalism.

82. Messling, Markus, “France-Allemagne : philologie hégémonique vs. philologie érudite?” in France-Allemagne, regards et objets croisés. La littérature allemande vue de France – La littérature française vue d’Allemagne, eds. Alexandre, D. and Asholt, W. (Tübingen: Narr, forthcoming), 93–110.Google Scholar

83. Olender, Les langues du Paradis.

84. Foucault, Michel, “Le discours ne doit pas être pris comme...,” Dits et écrits 1954-1988, vol. II, 123–24 Google Scholar; here 123.

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86. This can be explained in particular by the fact that since its emergence in the early nineteenth century, modern philology—at least in Germany—has been linked with the philosophical question of understanding, i.e., with a general hermeneutics; the understanding of a text and of the world derive from the same gnoseological conditions. See in this regard Werner, Michael, “À propos de la notion de philologie moderne. Problèmes de définition dans l’espace franco-allemand,” in Contribution à l’histoire des disciplines littéraires en France et en Allemagne au XIXe siècle, eds. Espagne, M. and Werner, M. (Paris: Éd. de la MSH, 1990), 11–21 Google Scholar; here 16–17.

87. This continued until well beyond the second half of the century. Nevertheless, the implications and the tenor were not the same in Germany and other European nations as they were in France, Italy or Scandinavia. During the second half of the century, the role of the natural sciences grew continually, and with it the differentiation of the modern sciences of civilization (including history, ethnology, law, geography, the social sciences, etc.), which was resolutely counter to the globalizing intention of philology to become the “science of texts” and “the science of culture” at a time. See Werner, “Philologie moderne,” 19.

88. See Mangold, Eine “weltbürgerliche Wissenschaft,” 78–91.

89. This is demonstrated in W. von Humboldt’s Beschaffungsprogramm of the philological material; see Mueller-Vollmer, Kurt, Wilhelm von Humboldts Sprachwissenschaft. Ein kommentiertes Verzeichnis des sprachwissenschaftlichen Nachlasses (Paderborn/Munich/Vienne/ Zurich: Schöningh, 1993), 60–63 Google Scholar; Id., “Humboldts linguistisches Beschaffungsprogramm: Logistik und Theorie,” in Wilhelm von Humboldt und die amerikanischen Sprachen, eds. K. Zimmermannet al. (Paderborn/Munich/Vienne/Zurich: Schöningh, 1994), 27–42.

90. The integration of cultures and cultural techniques that are perceived as retrograde into the “supra-historical thought” of the Enlightenment nevertheless stems more from theory than from politics, the philosophical respect for the under-developed human brother (sisters as yet playing no role) being rapidly accompanied by totalitarian universalism, which took the form of a nationalistic missionary consciousness. Before Napoleonic imperialism, the best example of this is the totalitarian repression under a universalist pretext of the prevailing cultural and linguistic multiplicity of France during the Revolution of 1989. On this subject, see Jürgen Trabant, “Die Sprache der Freiheit und ihrer Feinde,” Zeitschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Linguistik 41 (1981): 70-89.

91. Abel-Rémusat, Jean-Pierre, “Discours sur le génie et les mœurs des peuples orien-taux,” in Mélanges posthumes d’histoire et de littérature orientales, ed. Lajard, F. (Paris, 1843), 221–51 Google Scholar. This text raises numerous questions regarding its dating and classification. Curiously, the excerpts published during Abel-Rémusat’s lifetime were done so anonymously in the Nouveau Journal Asiatique 1, no. 6 (1828): 27–48, under the title “Frag-mens d’un ouvrage intitulé Considérations sur les Peuples et les Gouvernemens de l’Asie,” with the mention “translated from the Danish.” The sources for the texts commented on in the Nouveau Journal Asiatique having usually been meticulously provided, one is left to suppose that the suggested (Danish) “source” did not exist, but that the text was considered so explosive that it was preferable to conceal the actual source. As the title of the 1843 edition indicates, the entire original text was only published in a collection after Abel-Rémusat’s death. No reference to a translation was made at the time, nor was there any indication that the text was authored by a third party. The text is attributed to Abel-Rémusat. The pages of the anthology show furthermore that he was very careful to separate his texts under the rubrics “Letter,” “Essay,” “Observations,” etc., and the reference “Discours on Genius and Morals” supports the conclusion that it was initially a lecture. This is confirmed by a division included in the table of contents under the title “Discourse on Oriental Literature,” followed by “First Discourse,” “Second Discourse,” and “Third Discourse,” which is typical of the cycle of a lecture series (p. 471). Each of the “Discourses” listed are furthermore 20 to 30 pages in length, which corresponds to a collection of lectures. These meticulous philological commentaries are not without utility, because they emphasize the political relevance of these writings in its broadest sense, if we presume that Abel-Rémusat publicly discussed these facts as a member of the Royal Academy of Inscriptions and Letters, or as the Secretary of the Asian Society. Due to the impossibility of locating the original manuscript of the treatise in the respective archives of these learned societies, no more exact information is available.

92. It is furthermore unsurprising to note that the sole copy of this collection of texts, conserved by the Bibliothèque nationale de France, bears the mention “Non-circulating. Do not communicate,” due to a tear in the cover, and that it was practically withdrawn from public consultation for this reason. In addition, regarding the original place of publication of the texts, the committee of the Royal Academy of Inscriptions and Letters responsible for publishing (of which Eugène Burnouf was a member) had noted previously: “The volume [...], by M. Abel Rémusat, includes diverse writings which, for the most part, had already appeared during the author’s lifetime but were dispersed among several literary anthologies among which several are very difficult to find.” See Félix Lajard, “Avertissement,” in Mélanges posthumes, ed. F. Lajard, II.

93. Cited in Abel-Rémusat, “Discours sur le génie,” 228–29.

94. Calvet, Louis-Jean, Linguistique et colonialisme. Petit traité de glottophagie (Paris: Payot, 1974)Google Scholar.

95. Cited in Abel-Rémusat, “Discours sur le génie,” 251–52 (emphasis by the author).

96. See on this subject my studies on the politics of translation in Contes Chinois, edited by Abel-Rémusat (Paris, 1827): Messling, Markus, “Representation and Power: Jean-Pierre Abel-Rémusat’s Critical Philology,” The Journal of Oriental Studies (Stanford/ Hong Kong: forthcoming)Google Scholar; Id., “Text, Darstellung und Ethik: Jean-Pierre Abel-Rémusats kritische Philologie,” Romanistische Zeitschrift für Literaturgeschichte/Cahiers d’Histoire des Littératures Romanes 35, nos. 3/4 (2011): 359–77.

97. Abel-Rémusat, Jean-Pierre, Essai sur la langue et la littérature chinoises, avec cinq Planches contenant des Textes Chinois, accompagnés de traductions, de remarques et d’un commentaire litté-raire et grammatical, suivi de Notes et d’une Table alphabétique des mots chinois (Paris, 1811)Google Scholar.

98. Ibid., III–IV.

99. Lajard, ed., Mélanges posthumes, 65.

100. Abel-Rémusat, Mélanges asiatiques, ou Choix de morceaux critiques et de mémoires relatifs aux religions, aux sciences, aux coutumes, à l’histoire et à la géographie des nations orientales (Paris, 1825-1826), I: 153.

101. Ibid., 310–26.

102. Ibid., 311.

103. Ibid., 321.

104. Ibid., 318–19.

105. From the point of viewof linguistic theory, Abel-Rémusat and Humboldt nevertheless defended contrary arguments: See Rousseau, Jean and Thouard, Denis, eds., Lettres édifiantes et curieuses sur la langue chinoise. Un débat philosophico-grammatical entre Wilhelm von Humboldt et Jean-Pierre Abel-Rémusat, 1821-1831 (Villeneuve-d’Ascq: Presses universitaires du Septentrion, 1999), 41–71 Google Scholar, as well as Messling, Pariser Orientlektüren, 190– 201 and 258–59.

106. Humboldt accomplished here a small philological sensation. On the subject of this debate, see Messling, Pariser Orientlektüren, 202–25.

107. Eugène Vincent Stanislas Jacquet, “Notice sur l’alphabet Yloc ou Ylog,” Nouveau Journal Asiatique 8 (1831): 3–19 and 20–45.

108. Ibid., 4.

109. Ibid., 4 n. 3.

110. Jacquet, “L’alphabet Yloc ou Ylog,” 7: “The joining of these seventeen letters is named in the Tagalog dictionaries, baybayin (El A.B.C. Tagalo). It is easy to observe that this word is newly formed and was imagined by the Spanish when they turned to assigning regular forms to this language’s grammar and lexicography.”

111. Ibid., 8–9: “The grammars written by the Spanish [meaning Spanish missionaries], omitting the alphabet of these languages, must have, for that very reason, neglected the orthographic rules observed by the natives when they used their original characters.”

112. Ibid., 9.

113. Ibid., 8.

114. Leitzmann, Albert et al., eds., Wilhelm von Humboldts Gesammelte Schriften (Berlin: Behr & Feddersen, 1903-1936), IV: 27.Google Scholar

115. Ibid., VII: 42.

116. On the relationship between the language and the nation in scholarly thought that grew out of Romanticism and on emergent neo-historical thought in general, see Berlin, Isaiah, The Roots of Romanticism, ed. Hardy, H. (1965; Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001), 60–61 Google Scholar; Gardt, Andreas, “Nation und Sprache in der Zeit der Aufklärung,” in Nation und Sprache. Die Diskussion ihres Verhältnisses in Geschichte und Gegenwart, ed. Gardt, A. (Berlin/New York: De Gruyter, 2000), 169–98 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; here 192–94; Bär, Jochen A., “Nation und Sprache in der Sicht romantischer Schriftsteller und Sprachtheoretiker,” in Nation und Sprache, ed. Gardt, A., 199–228 Google Scholar; here 209–16; and more specifically on Humbolt’s linguistic considerations: Messling, Pariser Orientlektüren, 238–50.

117. Jacquet, “L’alphabet Yloc ou Ylog,” 13–14: “We can very well believe that at the time, when philological criticism had not yet arrived, there was more an emphasis on illusory resemblances than real differences. I do not see any other possible explanation for this error by Spanish monks...”

118. Ibid., 19.

119. Ibid.

120. von Humboldt, Wilhelm, “Extrait d’une lettre de M. le baron G. de Humboldt à M. E. Jacquet sur les alphabets de la Polynésie asiatique,” Nouveau Journal Asiatique 9 (1832): 484–511.Google Scholar

121. Leitzmann et al., eds., Wilhelm von Humboldts Gesammelte Schriften, vol. IV: 237.

122. Ibid., 238.

123. Mueller-Vollmer, Voir, Wilhelm von Humboldts Sprachwissenschaft, 68 Google Scholar.

124. von Humboldt, Wilhelm, Briefe an Friedrich August Wolf, ed. by Mattson, P. (Berlin/New York: De Gruyter, 1990), 170.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

125. See Humboldt, “Extrait d’une lettre,” 484.

126. See Jacquet, “L’alphabet Yloc ou Ylog,” 7–8.

127. This is why Humboldt, despite his criticism, systematically collected and studied, as did no other colleague of the period, encyclopedias and grammars from the colonies, a body of material that he saw as indispensible to his linguistic research: see K. Mueller-Vollmer, Wilhelm von Humboldts Sprachwissenschaft, 60–63, and Oesterreicher, “Die Ent-stehung des Neuen,” 31. Humboldt’s collection of missionaries’ writings was so celebrated and remarkable that E. V. S. Jacquet, “Avertissement,” Nouveau Journal Asiatique 9 (1832): 481–84, wrote: “The collection that he has assembled of grammatical and lexicographical treatises published in Manila or Mexico City by Spanish missionaries is one of the richest and most precious in existence.”

128. I am indebted to Manfred Ringmacher for this information (Wilhelm von Humboldt-Edition, Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften).

129. Humboldt, “Extrait d’une lettre,” 489 ff. See, for example, the debate on the question of a possible Arabic influence on the Southeast Asian writing system, in the context of which Humboldt sought to understand the cause of Father Gaspar’s erroneous estimate.

130. Ibid., 486.

131. von Humboldt, Wilhelm, Über die Kawi-Sprache auf der Insel Java, nebst einer Einlei-tung über die Verschiedenheit des menschlichen Sprachbaues und ihren Einfluß auf die geistige Entwickelung des Menschengeschlechts (Berlin, 1836-1839).Google Scholar

132. See Mueller-Vollmer, Kurt and Heeschen, Volker, “Wilhelm von Humboldts Bedeutung für die Beschreibung der südostasiatisch-pazifischen Sprachen und die Anfänge der Südostasien-Forschung,” in Sprachtheorien der Neuzeit III/2, ed. Schmitter, P., ed. by Roussos, L. (Tübingen: Narr, 2007), 430–61 Google Scholar; here 438–441.

133. Humboldt, Über die Kawi-Sprache auf der Insel Java, XV.

134. Ibid., XVI–XX.

135. Ibid., XV.

136. For Humboldt’s advanced work on Chinese, see John E. Joseph, “A Matter of Consequenz. Humboldt, Race and the Genius of the Chinese Language,” Historiographia Linguistica 1, no. 2 (1999): 89–148; as well as M. Messling, “Wilhelm von Humboldt and the ‘Orient’. On Edward W. Said’s Remarks on Humboldt’s Orientalist Studies,” Language Sciences 30, no. 5 (2008): 482–98.