Schleicher August. Comparative historical linguistics and August Schleicher Studies in Slavic languages

10.01.2024

August Schleicher(German: August Schleicher; February 19, 1821 - December 6, 1868) - German linguist.

Biography

Son of a doctor in Meiningen. At the age of 16, he entered the gymnasium in Coburg, where, in addition to Latin, Greek and Hebrew, he began to study botany. At that time, Schleicher was already interested in the Chinese language and Sanskrit. After spending 6 years in the gymnasium, where, despite his private studies, and perhaps thanks to them, he was far from the first student, Schleicher left it and prepared at home for the matriculation exam, having passed which, he entered the theological faculty of the University of Leipzig. Here, in addition to theological sciences, he listened to Arabic (from G. L. Fleischer). After the first semester, he moved to Tübingen, where he listened to the famous Baur and the orientalist Ewald.

In 1843, he moved to the Faculty of Philosophy in Bonn, where Fr. Welker and Friedrich Ritschl. In the seminars of both scholars, Schleicher received a thorough training in classical philology, while studying Germanic philology from F. K. Dietz and Sanskrit and Arabic from Lassen and Gildemeister. Lassen, Dietz and Ritschl had the greatest influence on him: the first two in terms of special interests, the last in terms of method. After staying here for 6 semesters, Schleicher received a doctorate in 1846 for his work on the works of the Roman grammarian Varro. Only in the theses of the dissertation did the future comparative linguist show his influence. In the same year, Schleicher acted in Bonn as an assistant professor of comparative linguistics, but soon left on a trip (to Belgium, Paris, etc.). To earn a living, Schleicher corresponded with German newspapers.

In the winter of 1848-1849 he went to Prague to study Czech, under the influence of Lassen, who advised him to pay attention to Slavic languages. In a short time he learned Czech, but had to soon leave Prague, arousing the suspicions of the Austrian police, and resumed his readings in Bonn.

First major works

In 1848 he completed his first larger work, Zur vergleichenden Sprachengeschichte, the first part of his Sprachvergleichende Untersuchungen. It is interesting in its design - to present an overview of one phonetic phenomenon (the so-called “zetacism”, that is, one of the types of palatalization of consonants) in different not only related, but also unrelated languages (in Greek, Sanskrit, Avestan, Old Persian, Latin, Gothic , Lithuanian, Prakrit, Pali, Romance and Germanic languages, Celtic, Latvian, Slavic, Semitic, Manchu, Magyar, Mongolian, Tibetan and Chinese). It was followed (1850) by the second part: “Die Sprachen Europas im systematischer bersicht”, an experience in reviewing the languages of Europe (including non-Indo-European ones) with a description of their morphological and semasiological features. The general historical ideas that Schleicher based his work on were borrowed by him from Hegel.

Slavic language classes

Meanwhile, Schleicher did not abandon his studies of Slavic languages, especially Church Slavonic, which soon brought him fame as their best expert among German scientists. In the spring of 1850, he was invited to the German University of Prague, temporarily to the department of classical philology, together with G. Curtius, with whom he established the best relationship. Since 1852, Schleicher moved to the department of Sanskrit and comparative linguistics, announcing purely linguistic courses (ancient and middle high German, Lithuanian-Slavic languages). His stay in Prague allowed him to improve his knowledge of Czech and other Slavic languages. He owned the first one completely freely.

From this time on, Schleicher’s works on Slavic linguistics began to appear more and more often:

in 1850 - an article on Czech grammar (in “Zeitschrift fr die sterreich. Gymnasien”),
in 1852, an article on some Slavic case forms (“Sitzungsberichte” of the Vienna Academy, February 1852),
separate work “Formenlehre der kirchenslaw. Sprache, erklrend und vergleichend dargestellt” (Bonn), which contained a comparative grammatical representation of Old Church Slavonic morphology that stood at the level of modern knowledge.

Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………. 3

History of the life and work of A. Schleicher……………………………….. 5

Schleicher’s naturalistic concept …………………………………..11

Morphological classification of languages…………………………………..14

The "family tree" theory. Proto-language and its reconstruction……………17

Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………………21

References…………………………………………………………….23

INTRODUCTION

By the middle of the 19th century. comparative historical linguistics was actively developing. First of all, there has been a significant accumulation of factual material. Linguists were no longer limited to the material of Germanic, Romance languages, ancient Greek and Sanskrit. For the first time, languages such as Iranian, Baltic, and Armenian became the object of study, and Slavic and Celtic studies developed. Comparisons in the works of comparativists have become much more reliable. In parallel with the expansion of the material, the grinding method was carried out.

At the same time, the scientific and social climate of the era changed noticeably. The history of classical German philosophy, with which the theoretical constructs of such scientists as W. von Humboldt were closely connected, came to an end. Philosophical theories were replaced by an interest in concrete facts. At the same time, the natural sciences, especially biology, developed rapidly. Charles Darwin's theory, which appeared in the 50s, had a huge influence on the development of many sciences. XIX century

Naturalistic direction in linguistics arose within the framework of comparative historical linguistics in the first half of the 19th century and extended the principles of natural sciences to the study of language and speech activity.

Representatives of the naturalistic movement viewed language as a natural phenomenon, based on the fact that it exists materially in sounds and signs, exists in reality, and its development is evolutionary, like the growth of a crystal, plant or animal. Accordingly, linguistics belonged to the natural sciences and was opposed to philology, which dealt with the study of text (i.e., what was created by man).

The founder of the naturalistic movement, which is also called linguistic naturalism, was a German linguist August Schleicher (1821-1868).

The scientific activity of Schleyer, a professor first at Bonn, then at Prague and from 1852 at the University of Jena, is characterized by the breadth and diversity of interests. Schleicher, in addition to linguistics, studied botany and philosophy, which left a certain imprint on his views. The main feature of Schleicher's scientific thinking was the desire to bring linguistics closer to the natural sciences in terms of accuracy and rigor of method.

Formulating the laws of the development of language as a natural organism, Schleicher relied on the objective-idealistic philosophy of Hegel and Darwin’s evolutionary theory. The influence of the ideas of Darwinism explains both his imitation of natural scientific research methods and the tendency to transfer the terms of this scientific field into linguistics: the “organism” of language, language “families” and “branches”, family tree, etc. Schleicher called the study of language types morphology, borrowing this term from natural science, where it denoted the science of the structure of plants. Schleicher believed that the history and development of specific languages can be studied as objectively as the laws of life of living organisms.

In 1852, he published “Morphology of the Church Slavonic Language”, then, after six months of studying the Lithuanian language, “Guide to the Study of the Lithuanian Language” (1855-1857). In 1859, his book “On the Morphology of Language” was published, dedicated to the morphological classification of languages. In 1861-1862 Schleicher's main work, Compendium of Comparative Grammar of Indo-European Languages, was published, summing up the comparative study of Indo-European languages over the past half century. This book went through four editions over fifteen years. Schleicher’s general linguistic views were reflected primarily in his “Comparative Linguistic Studies” (two parts, 1848 – 1850), the book “The German Language” (1860) and the brochures “Darwin’s Theory as Applied to the Science of Language” (1863, Russian translation. 1864), “Anthology of Indo-European languages” (1868) and “On the significance of language for the natural history of man” (1865). Like Humboldt, Schleicher believed that the study of linguistic form and the typological and genealogical taxonomy of languages constitute the main content of linguistics, which studies the origin and further development of these forms of language.

The history of the life and work of A. Schleicher

Coming from a family of doctors in Meiningen, August Schleicher at the age of 16 entered the gymnasium in Coburg, where, in addition to Latin, Greek and Hebrew, he began to study botany. At that time, Schleicher was already interested in the Chinese language and Sanskrit. After 6 years of gymnasium, he entered the theological faculty of the University of Leipzig. Here, in addition to theological sciences, he listened to Arabic (from Fleischer). After the first semester, he moved to Tübingen, where he listened to the famous Baur and the orientalist Ewald. In 1843, he moved to the Faculty of Philosophy in Bonn, where Fr. Welker and Friedrich Ritschl. In the seminars of both scholars, Schleicher received a thorough training in classical philology, while studying Germanic philology from Dietz and Sanskrit and Arabic from Lassen and Gildemeister. Lassen, Dietz and Ritschl had the greatest influence on him: the first two in terms of special interests, the last in terms of method. After staying here for 6 semesters, Schleicher received a doctorate in 1846 for his work on the works of the Roman grammarian Varro. Only in the theses of the dissertation did the future comparative linguist show his influence. In the same year, Schleicher acted in Bonn as an assistant professor of comparative linguistics, but soon left on a trip (to Belgium, Paris, etc.). To earn a living, Schleicher corresponded with German newspapers.

In 1848, he completed his first larger work, “Zur vergleichenden Sprachengeschichte,” the first part of his “Sprachvergleichende Untersuchungen” (“Comparative Linguistic Studies”), devoted to a review of one phonetic phenomenon (the so-called “zetacism,” that is, one of the types palatalization of consonants) in various not only related, but also unrelated languages (in Greek, Sanskrit, Avestan, Old Persian, Latin, Gothic, Lithuanian, Prakrit, Pali, Romance and Germanic languages, Celtic, Latvian, Slavic, Semitic, Manchu, Magyar , Mongolian, Tibetan and Chinese). It was followed (1850) by the second part: “Die Sprachen Europas im systematischer Übersicht”, an experience in reviewing the languages of Europe (including non-Indo-European ones) with a description of their morphological and semasiological features. The general historical ideas that Schleicher based his work on were borrowed by him from Hegel.

At the same time, Schleicher did not abandon his studies of Slavic languages, especially Church Slavonic. In the spring of 1850, he was invited to the German University of Prague, temporarily to the department of classical philology, together with G. Curtius. Since 1852, Schleicher moved to the department of Sanskrit and comparative linguistics, announcing purely linguistic courses (ancient and middle high German, Lithuanian-Slavic languages). His stay in Prague allowed him to improve his knowledge of Czech and other Slavic languages. From this time on, Schleicher’s works on Slavic linguistics began to appear more and more often:

in 1850 - an article on Czech grammar (in “Zeitschrift für die österreich. Gymnasien”),

in 1852, an article on some Slavic case forms (“Sitzungsberichte” of the Vienna Academy, February 1852),

separate work “Formenlehre der kirchenslaw. Sprache, erklärend und vergleichend dargestellt” (“Morphology of the Church Slavonic language”), which contained a comparative grammatical representation of Old Church Slavonic morphology that stood at the level of modern knowledge.

These works led him to the need to study the Lithuanian language, as Schleicher decided back in 1848. Having received an allowance from the Vienna Academy, after the publication of his “Formenlehre...”, Schleicher went to Lithuania in June 1852. Arriving at the place, he began to practically study the Lithuanian language, and soon he could already speak it. Having mastered the language, he began to write down Lithuanian songs, fairy tales, riddles and other works of folk literature. In mid-October, with a rich supply of new materials and knowledge, he returned to Prague and began processing what he had collected. Already in June 1853, Schleicher’s first work dedicated to the Lithuanian language appeared: “Lituanica” (“Sitzungsberichte” of the Vienna Academy) - a series of essays on the bibliography and grammar of the Lithuanian language, Lithuanian folklore, etc. But the main fruit of Schleicher’s linguistic journey was his the famous “Handbuch der litauischen Sprache” (“Guide to the study of the Lithuanian language”), the first part of which (grammar) was published in the summer of 1855. It was followed by the second part (reader and dictionary, 1857). The scientific and accurate grammatical presentation of the features of the Lithuanian language and the abundance of new and fresh material from Lithuanian folk literature made Schleicher’s manual the primary and for a long time the only guide to the study of the said language, which did not lose its value for a long time.

In 1857, Schleicher left Prague and moved to Jena. Since 1858, together with Kuhn, he published the journal “Beiträge zur vergleichenden Sprachforschung auf dem Gebiete der arischen, celtischen und slawischen Sprachen” (“Comparative linguistic studies in the field of Aryan, Celtic and Slavic languages”). A number of valuable articles by Schleicher himself and the best modern scientists appeared on the pages of this publication. Schleicher believed that the further the speakers of Indo-European dialects moved away from the original Indo-European ancestral home, which he saw in Central Asia, the more the linguistic organism itself underwent decay.

Schleicher rejected the offer of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences to become its member, but agreed to work for the academy and was elected as its foreign corresponding member. By this time, he completed the work he had begun two years ago on German dialectology and partly folklore: “Volkstümliches aus Sonneberg im Meininger Oberlande” (a grammar of the local dialect, a collection of local regional words, stories, legends, songs, riddles and proverbs). In 1859, Schleicher’s first work appeared in the “Memoirs” of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences: “Zur Morphologie der Sprache” (“On the Morphology of Language”), which contained a number of thoughts on the morphological classification of languages, and in 1860 the famous book “Die deutsche Sprache” appeared ” (“German Language”), which had the goal of acquainting a wider circle of readers from an educated society with the results of the general science of language and the main features of the native German language. The book, however, for all its scientific merits, was not successful in society, and its second edition, revised by Schleicher, was published after his death under the editorship of one of his most prominent students, I. Schmidt. Schleicher's fame, however, continued to grow, and his lectures were among the most attended at the University of Jena. German language and literature, general linguistics, history and comparative grammar of Indo-European languages (he stopped reading Sanskrit) constituted their content. From these lectures grew his famous “Compendium der vergleich. Grammatik der indogermanischen Sprachen” (“Compendium of comparative grammar of Indo-European languages”), the first edition of which appeared in 1861, making Schleicher’s name famous everywhere. In 1865, “Comparative Grammar” was published in the magazine A.A. Khovansky “Philological Notes” translated into Russian. The conciseness and clarity of presentation, the systematicity and clarity in the distribution of material, a number of new views and explanations that reflected the results of the lively scientific work of the 40s and 50s of the 19th century, fully justified the outstanding success of Schleicher’s new work, which was published 5 years later in its second edition (1866), followed by the third (1871) and fourth (posthumous, 1876).

In between, Schleicher gave a number of small articles, such as “Die Darwinsche Theorie und die Sprachwissenschaft” (“Darwin’s Theory and Linguistics,” 1863), which contained an interesting (though unsuccessful) application of Darwin’s theory of the origin of species to explain the diversity of languages; “Ueber die Bedeutung der Sprache für die Naturgeschichte des Menschen” (“On the significance of language for the natural history of man,” 1865), which served as a supplement to the previous one; “Die Unterscheidung von Nomen und Verbum in der lautlichen Form” (“The difference between a noun and a verb in phonetic form,” 1865), etc. In 1865, his publication of the works of the Lithuanian poet Donelaitis appeared (St. Petersburg ed. Imp. Academy of Sciences) with a dictionary appendix.

In the last years of his life, Schleicher published a number of small articles on the comparative grammar of Slavic languages in publications of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences: “A brief outline of the prehistoric life of the northeastern department of the Indo-Germanic languages” (“Notes of the Imperial Academy of Sciences”, vol. VIII, book 1, 1865 ); “All-Slavic Dictionary” (vol. IX, book 2, 1866); “Themes of numeral names (cardinal and ordinal) in Lithuanian-Slavic and German languages” (vol. X, book 1, 1866); “The declension of stems in -u- in Slavic languages” (vol. XI, book 1, 1867). His last major work was “Indogermanische Chrestomathie” (“Chrestomathy of Indo-European languages”, 1869), which contained a number of texts in the main Indo-European languages and glossaries for them. It was compiled by Schleicher with the participation of his students A. Leskin, I. Schmidt and the famous celtologist Ebel, and was supposed to serve as a guide for beginning linguists practically studying Indo-European languages. After Schleicher’s death, a grammar of the extinct Polabian language, compiled by him on behalf of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences, was published: “Laut- und Formenlehre der Polabischen Sprache” (St. Petersburg, 1871). It was followed by a comparative grammar of Slavic languages, which remained unfinished.

Some of A. Schleicher’s works were published in Russian during his lifetime, but in the 20th century. were not published in full. Well-selected and quite representative excerpts from his works are presented in V. A. Zvegintsev’s anthology, part 1.

Schleicher's naturalistic concept

A. Schleicher wrote: “All languages that we have been tracking for a long time give grounds for the conclusion that they are in constant and continuous change. Languages, these natural organisms formed from sound matter, and the highest of all, manifest their properties of a natural organism not only in the fact that they are all classified into genera, species, subspecies, etc., but also in the fact that their growth occurs according to certain laws."

After the publication of Charles Darwin’s work “The Origin of Species and Natural Selection” (1859), A. Schleicher affirms the understanding of language as a living organism, not metaphorically, but literally (note that for W. von Humboldt, an organism is a system). On this basis, A. Schleicher transfers the idea of \u200b\u200bthe life of a living organism to the life of language: like a separate animal or plant, the tongue is born, reaches maturity, gives birth and dies.

The term "organism" in the 19th century. was used very widely - as a designation of the integrity of the object of study. In the linguistics of this time, the organic nature of language was interpreted differently; most often as a unity of meaning and relationship expressed in the form of language, its categories and units. Schleicher is usually considered as the creator of the naturalistic concept of language, for he classified language as a living organism. This can be judged by his statements: “The life of language does not differ significantly from the life of all other living organisms - plants and animals. Like these latter, it has a period of growth from the simplest structures to more complex forms and a period of aging in which languages move further and further away from the highest degree of development achieved and their forms suffer deterioration.”

The natural scientific principle on which linguistics should be based presupposes, according to Schleicher, the recognition of the following postulates:

1) language as a natural organism exists outside of human will, it cannot be changed (“Languages are natural organisms that arose without the participation of human will, grew and developed according to certain laws and, in turn, age and die”);

2) the “life of language,” like the life of nature, is development, not history; therefore, there was growth only in the prehistoric period, and the true life of a language is manifested in dialects, while the historical period is characterized by the decay of forms, aging and death of forms of language and the languages themselves (just as rocks weather and organisms decompose in nature), and literary and written forms are artificial formations;

3) linguistics must be based on accurate observation of organisms and the laws of their existence, on the complete subordination of the researcher to the object of study. At the same time, Schleicher also understood the significant differences between language and a natural organism when he wrote: “It is clear that only the main features of Darwin’s views have application to languages. The field of languages is too different from the vegetable and animal kingdoms for the totality of Darwin’s reasoning down to the smallest detail to be of any significance for it.”

The comparison of language with the body existed even before Schleicher. Wilhelm Humboldt, in contrast to metaphysical views of language as an unchanging mechanism, emphasized with this comparison that language is a purposeful system in constant motion. Schleicher began to use the word “organism” in connection with language in its literal, biological sense.

In the works of A. Schleicher, the previously expressed opinion of V. von Humboldt was developed that there are two periods in the life of a language: the period of flowering of language forms (progress) and the period of their decline, weakening and disappearance (regression). A. Schleicher argued that society is continuously progressing, there is a continuous regression in the history of language: “It can even be objectively proven that the history and development of language are in inverse relationships to each other. The richer and more complex the history, the sooner the language disintegrates, and the poorer, slower and more stable the first, the more true the language remains to itself.” This opinion was subsequently criticized.

The most important motivating reason for Schleicher's naturalism was the desire to overcome the subjective idealistic views on language and thinking that prevailed in his time and to emphasize the material side of language - that spirit is in itself the highest product of matter. This is clear from his characterization of language: “Language is a symptom perceived by the ear of the activity of a whole complex of material relations in the construction of the brain and speech organs with their nerves, bones, muscles, etc.” True, in an effort to show the material conditionality of the spirit and consciousness, Schleicher paid insufficient attention to the social role of language, which ultimately led him to careless, sometimes metaphorical comparisons of language and a living organism.

Language is a social phenomenon, not a natural organism. A language arises and develops together with the social group, the people who use this language. A language can die along with the people, it can fall out of use if the people switch to another language, but it develops endlessly if society uses it. Schleicher sought to establish objective laws of the development of languages, to show the independence of the latter from the will of speaking people. Wed. his thesis: “Languages are natural organisms that arose without the participation of human will, grew and developed according to certain laws, and in turn grow old and die.”

Morphological classification of languages

A. Schleicher, like other representatives of naturalism, emphasized that language is an exclusive property, a privilege of man, since animals do not have a language, they only have “antics.” Changes in language are different in three eras of its existence - “initial creation, development, life.”

Since the material basis of language is the brain, organs of speech and senses, according to A. Schleicher, the creation of language is the humanization of nature, that is, the formation of the material substrate of thinking and the mechanism of speaking. The development of reflexes of speech activity is facilitated by onomatopoeia and involuntary cries, but this is not yet a language, the purpose of which is to be an organ (apparatus) of thought, thinking in sound matter.

The embodiment of an idea into sound is the development of language as a properly human property; in the prehistoric era, the spirit found its embodiment in articulate sounds and formed many proto-linguistic forms.

Language as a form (organism) arises only when concepts and ideas, materializing in sounds (roots), become meanings, and their relationships are expressed by suffixes or inflections. This is how the root, agglutinative and inflectional classes of linguistic organisms arise.

A. Schleicher wrote: “If in the first grade we encountered the undifferentiated identity of meaning and relation, the pure being of vision in itself, if in the second class the sounds denoting meaning and relation are differentiated, the relation appears in a separate sound being for itself, then in the third class this difference is included in unity, but in a unity that is infinitely higher, because it grew out of difference, has it as its prerequisite and includes it as sublated by it...” Thus, three different classes of ancestral forms were considered not only from the point of view of morphological classification (we will talk about this a little later), but also from the point of view of their development and perfection. It was argued that in the historical era there was a disintegration of ancestral forms under the influence of phonetic processes and analogy; The historical era gave rise to the differentiation of linguistic areas and led to the formation of related languages and dialects.

A. Schleicher argued that all languages of the world, regardless of their origin and belonging to a particular family, follow the same path of development. He builds a typological (morphological) classification based on the way words are combined in a sentence.

Schleicher called the study of language types morphology, borrowing this term from natural science, where it denoted the science of the structure and formation of plants. The morphology of languages should, according to Schleicher, study the morphological types of languages, their origin and mutual relations. The morphological type (class) of a language is determined by the structure of the word, which can express meaning (“root”) and relationship (“suffix”). Three types of combinations of meaning and relation are allowed: isolating languages have only meanings (roots); agglutinating languages express meaning and relation (roots and prefixes); inflected languages form a unit in a word that expresses meaning and attitude. Schleicher considered the polysynthetic languages identified by Humboldt as a variant of the agglutinating form of language.

Morphological types of language, according to Schleicher, are a manifestation of three stages (stages) of development: the monosyllabic class represents the oldest form, the beginning of development; agglutinating - this is the middle stage of development; inflected languages, as the last stage, contain in a compressed form the elements of the two previous stages of development.

Characterizing languages by their expression of meaning and relationships, Schleicher identifies three possible types of languages:

1. Only the meaning is expressed in language: the word here represents an indivisible stable unity, reminiscent of a crystal. Schleicher included Chinese and Burmese among such monosyllabic (root, isolating) languages.

2. In language, sounds express not only meaning, but also attitude: the word here breaks up into parts, but they do not form a closely connected unity. This type of language includes agglutinating languages (for example, Turkic, Finno-Ugric), in which the word resembles a plant.

3. In this type of language, the word, conveying both meaning and attitude, is a unity in the diversity of its constituent elements and is likened to an animal organism. This is typical for inflected languages. In Schleicher's concept, inflection is the highest level of language structure.

Schleicher's morphological classification had a great influence on linguistics - in the direction of developing the doctrine of types of language. But his attempts to consider the morphological classes of a language as successive stages of its development were not recognized as artificial and far-fetched, contradicting the facts of history.

The "family tree" theory. Proto-language and its reconstruction.

In the image and likeness of the classification of animals and plants (remember his education as a botanist), A. Schleicher creates a genealogical classification of Indo-European languages: the family of animals or plants in biology corresponds to the family of languages in linguistics; the genera into which families are divided in biology correspond to groups and subgroups of languages in linguistics; In linguistics, the types into which genera are divided correspond to individual languages, and the subspecies - adverbs and dialects. A separate animal or plant corresponds to the language of a separate individual.

Thus, for the first time in the history of linguistics, A. Schleicher presented the history of Indo-European languages in the form of a family tree in the form of splitting and further development, starting with the proto-language, and each time such splitting was a division into two branches, which was also inspired by biological concepts. He believed that it was impossible to establish a common proto-language for all the languages of the globe; Most likely, there were many proto-languages, but related languages always come from the same parent language. Languages descending from the same parent language form a language genus, or language tree, which is then divided into language families, or language branches. The task of a linguist, according to Schleicher, is “to restore, on the basis of later forms available to us, the forms that existed in the past as the basis of a family or the proto-language of an entire genus.” This hypothetical restoration of the sounds, forms, and words of the proto-language is called the reconstruction of the proto-language.

According to Schleicher's theory, the Indo-European proto-language (Ursprache) in the prehistoric period split into two groups of proto-languages (Grund-sprachen, intermediate proto-languages, foundation languages) - North European (Slavic-Germanic) and Southern European (Ario-Greek-Italo-Celtic). During the historical period, the ancient Indian language retained the greatest proximity to the Indo-European language, while the Germanic and Balto-Slavic proto-languages turned out to be the most distant. The theory of the family tree of Indo-European languages has survived largely to this day. There is no convincing evidence to refute the proposition that in the prehistoric period the divergences and contacts of related dialects were greater than the convergence of heterogeneous linguistic groups.

Plan:

1 Biography
- 1.1 First major works
- 1.2 Slavic language classes
- 1.3 Lithuanian studies
- 1.4 Comparative linguistics
- 1.5 Recent years
2 Meaning

Introduction

August Schleicher(German) August Schleicher; February 19, 1821 - December 6, 1868) - German linguist.

1. Biography

Son of a doctor in Meiningen. At the age of 16, he entered the gymnasium in Coburg, where, in addition to Latin, Greek and Hebrew, he began to study botany. At that time, Schleicher was already interested in the Chinese language and Sanskrit. After spending 6 years in the gymnasium, where, despite his private studies, and perhaps thanks to them, he was far from the first student, Schleicher left it and prepared at home for the matriculation exam, having passed which, he entered the theological faculty of the University of Leipzig. Here, in addition to theological sciences, he listened to Arabic (from Fleischer). After the first semester, he moved to Tübingen, where he listened to the famous Baur and the orientalist Ewald.

In 1843, he moved to the Faculty of Philosophy in Bonn, where Fr. Welker and Fr. Richl. In the seminars of both scholars, Schleicher received a thorough training in classical philology, while studying Germanic philology from Dietz and Sanskrit and Arabic from Lassen and Gildemeister. Lassen, Dietz and Ritschl had the greatest influence on him: the first two in terms of special interests, the last in terms of method. After staying here for 6 semesters, Schleicher received a doctorate in 1846 for his work on the works of the Roman grammarian Varro. Only in the theses of the dissertation did the future comparative linguist show his influence. In the same year, Schleicher acted in Bonn as an assistant professor of comparative linguistics, but soon left on a trip (to Belgium, Paris, etc.). To earn a living, Schleicher corresponded with German newspapers.

1.1. First major works

In 1848 he completed his first larger work, Zur vergleichenden Sprachengeschichte, the first part of his Sprachvergleichende Untersuchungen. It is interesting in its design - to present an overview of one phonetic phenomenon (the so-called “zetacism”, that is, one of the types of palatalization of consonants) in different not only related, but also unrelated languages (in Greek, Sanskrit, Avestan, Old Persian, Latin, Gothic , Lithuanian, Prakrit, Pali, Romance and Germanic languages, Celtic, Latvian, Slavic, Semitic, Manchu, Magyar, Mongolian, Tibetan and Chinese). It was followed (1850) by the second part: “Die Sprachen Europas im systematischer Uebersicht”, an experience in reviewing the languages of Europe (including non-Indo-European ones) with a description of their morphological and semasiological features. The general historical ideas that Schleicher based his work on were borrowed by him from Hegel.

1.2. Slavic language classes

From this time on, Sh.’s works on Slavic linguistics began to appear more and more often:

in 1850 - an article on Czech grammar (in “Zeitschrift für die österreich. Gymnasien”),
in 1852, an article on some Slavic case forms (“Sitzungsberichte” of the Vienna Academy, February 1852),
separate work “Formenlehre der kirchenslaw. Sprache, erklärend und vergleichend dargestellt” (Bonn), which contained a comparative grammatical presentation of Old Church Slavonic morphology that stood at the level of modern knowledge.

1.3. Lithuanian studies

These works led him to the need to study the Lithuanian language, as Schleicher decided back in 1848. Having received an allowance from the Vienna Academy, after the publication of his “Formenlehre...”, Schleicher went to Lithuania in June 1852. Arriving at the place, he began to practically study the Lithuanian language, and soon he could already speak it. Having mastered the language, he began to write down Lithuanian songs, fairy tales, riddles and other works of folk literature. In mid-October, with a rich supply of new materials and knowledge, he returned to Prague and began processing what he had collected. Already in June 1853, Schleicher’s first work dedicated to the Lithuanian language appeared: “Lituanica” (“Sitzungsberichte” of the Vienna Academy) - a series of essays on the bibliography and grammar of the Lithuanian language, Lithuanian folklore, etc. But the main fruit of Schleicher’s linguistic journey was his famous “Handbuch der litauischen Sprache”, the first part of which (grammar) was published in the summer of 1855. It was followed by the second part (reader and dictionary, 1857). The scientific and accurate grammatical presentation of the features of the Lithuanian language and the abundance of new and fresh material from Lithuanian folk literature made Schleicher’s manual the primary and for a long time the only guide to the study of the said language, which did not lose its value for a long time.

1.4. Comparative linguistics

In 1857, Schleicher left Prague and moved to Jena. The despotism of the Austrian government regime, the suspicion of the police, who saw a dangerous conspirator in the open and partly free-thinking Schleicher, strained relations with the local Czech society, which still saw a German in Schleicher, made his stay in Prague painful and forced him to leave Austria forever. At this time, a certain revival was observed in comparative linguistics: the completion of the first edition of Bopp’s comparative grammar, the appearance of the first editions of the Sanskrit dictionary by Betling and Roth (from 1853), the founding by Kuhn of the “Zeitschrift für vergleichende Sprachforschung” (from 1852) - were symptoms of this revival, in which Schleicher also took an active part with his (and Kuhn’s) journal “Beiträge zur vergleichenden Sprachforschung auf dem Gebiete der arischen, celtischen und slawischen Sprachen” (since 1858). A number of valuable articles by Schleicher himself and the best modern scientists appeared on the pages of this publication.

1.5. Last years

Happy with his return to Germany, Schleicher rejected the offer of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences, which invited him, as an already famous Slavist, to become its member. Refusing to move to Russia, Schleicher, however, agreed to work for the academy and was elected its foreign corresponding member. By this time, he completed the work he had begun two years ago on German dialectology and partly folklore: “Volkstümliches aus Sonneberg im Meininger Oberlande” (a grammar of the local dialect, a collection of local regional words, stories, legends, songs, riddles and proverbs). In 1859, Schleicher's first work appeared in the "Memoirs" of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences: "Zur Morphologie der Sprache", which contained a number of thoughts on the morphological classification of languages, and in 1860 - the famous book "Die deutsche Sprache", which aimed to introduce a wider a circle of readers from an educated society with the results of the general science of language and the main features of the native German language. The book, however, for all its scientific merits, was not successful in society, and its second edition, revised by Schleicher, was published after his death under the editorship of one of his most prominent students, I. Schmidt. Schleicher's fame, however, continued to grow, and his lectures were among the most attended at the University of Jena. German language and literature, general linguistics, history and comparative grammar of Indo-European languages (he stopped reading Sanskrit) constituted their content. From these lectures grew his famous “Compendium der vergleich. Grammatik der indogermanischen Sprachen,” the first edition of which appeared in 1861, glorifying the name of Schleicher everywhere. The conciseness and clarity of presentation, the systematicity and clarity in the distribution of material, a number of new views and explanations that reflected the results of the lively scientific work of the 40s and 50s of the 19th century, fully justified the outstanding success of Schleicher’s new work, which was published 5 years later in its second edition (1866), followed by the third (1871) and fourth (posthumous, 1876).

In between, Schleicher gave a number of small articles, such as “Die Darwinsche Theorie und die Sprachwissenschaft” (1863), which contained an interesting (albeit unsuccessful) application of Darwin’s theory of the origin of species to explain the diversity of languages; “Ueber die Bedeutung der Sprache für die Naturgeschichte des Menschen” (1865), which served as a supplement to the previous one; “Die Unterscheidung von Nomen und Verbum in der lautlichen Form” (1865), etc. In 1865, his publication of the works of the Lithuanian poet Donelaitis appeared (St. Petersburg publishing house of the Imperial Academy of Sciences) with a dictionary attached.

In the last years of his life, Schleicher published a number of small articles on the comparative grammar of Slavic languages in publications of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences: “A brief outline of the prehistoric life of the northeastern department of the Indo-Germanic languages” (“Notes of the Imperial Academy of Sciences”, vol. VIII, book 1, 1865 ); “All-Slavic Dictionary” (vol. IX, book 2, 1866); “Themes of numeral names (cardinal and ordinal) in Lithuanian-Slavic and German languages” (vol. X, book 1, 1866); “The declension of stems in Slavic languages” (vol. XI, book 1, 1867). His last major work was “Indogermanische Chrestomathie” (Weimar, 1869), which contained a number of texts in the main Indo-European languages and glossaries for them. It was compiled by Schleicher with the participation of his students A. Leskin, I. Schmidt and the famous celtologist Ebel, and was supposed to serve as a guide for beginning linguists practically studying Indo-European languages. After Schleicher’s death, a grammar of the extinct Polabian language, compiled by him on behalf of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences, was published: “Laut- und Formenlehre der Polabischen Sprache” (St. Petersburg, 1871). It was followed by a comparative grammar of Slavic languages, which remained unfinished.

2. Meaning

The short life of Schleicher, who died at the age of 48 (December 6, 1868), was obviously rich in results. An excellent gymnast who cultivated his health and possessed iron endurance and energy, he worked tirelessly and left behind a number of first-class works, despite cramped material conditions (in Jena, until his death, Schleicher did not receive a real professor’s salary, being considered the so-called “ Honorarprofessor", although he has already gained fame as a famous scientist). The main feature of Schleicher's scientific thinking was the desire to bring linguistics closer to the natural sciences in terms of accuracy and rigor of method.

A great lover of the latter and especially botany, which he studied not only as an excellent practical gardener, but also scientifically (his microscopic preparations could do honor to a professional botanist), Schleicher also classified linguistics as a natural science, considering language the same organism as, for example, is a plant or an animal, and under the influence of Haeckel he transferred Darwin’s then just emerging theory of the origin of species into the science of language in its entirety. Schleicher's botanical tastes were also reflected in his desire to systematize, to put the living diversity of language into a few and, we must admit, rather wooden headings. Dogmatism, a certain mechanicalness and pedantry were undoubtedly inherent in Schleicher's mind and left their mark on his natural-historical way of understanding language, partly paralyzing the positive advantages of this latter.

Nevertheless, Schleicher had a major influence on the methodology of linguistics in the late 19th century. Schleicher's merits were also great in the development of the Baltic and Slavic languages. Having delivered completely new scientific material with his trip to Lithuania and giving for the first time a reliable guide to the study of such an important language in comparative linguistics as Lithuanian, Schleicher also contributed more than any of his contemporaries to the illumination of Slavic languages using the comparative grammatical method. With his “Compendium...” he completed an entire period in the history of comparative linguistics, summing up with it the final result of everything that was done then in science after F. Bopp. Lacking the genius of the latter, Schleicher surpassed him in systematicity and precision of mind, especially reflected in his development of the comparative phonetics of Indo-European languages, and can rightfully be ranked among the main creators of new linguistics.

Literature

S. Lefmann, "August Schleicher" (Leipzig, 1870);
“Erinnerungen an Prof. Dr. August Schleicher in Prag” (“Bohemia”, 1869, No. 16 et seq.);
J. Schmidt, "Nachruf" ("Beiträge zur vergleich. Sprachforschung", vol. VI);
an assessment of Schleicher's scientific significance was made by Delbrück in his “Einleitung in das Sprachstudium” (3rd ed., Leipzig, 1893, chapter III, 41-56);
D. N. Ovsyaniko-Kulikovsky, “Bopp and Schleicher, an episode from the history of the science of language” (“Life”, 1900, No. XI).

(47 years old)

Biography

Slavic language classes

Meanwhile, Schleicher did not abandon his studies of Slavic languages, especially Church Slavonic, which soon brought him fame as their best expert among German scientists. In the spring of the year, he was invited to the German University of Prague, temporarily to the department of classical philology, together with G. Curtius, with whom he established the best relationship. From Mr. Schleicher he moved to the department of Sanskrit and comparative linguistics, announcing purely linguistic courses (Old and Middle High German, Lithuanian-Slavic languages). His stay in Prague allowed him to improve his knowledge of Czech and other Slavic languages. He owned the first one completely freely.

From this time on, Schleicher’s works on Slavic linguistics began to appear more and more often:

in the city - an article on Czech grammar (in “Zeitschrift für die österreich. Gymnasien”),
in the city an article on some Slavic case forms (“Sitzungsberichte” of the Vienna Academy, February 1852),
separate work “Formenlehre der kirchenslaw. Sprache, erklärend und vergleichend dargestellt” (Bonn), which contained a comparative grammatical presentation of Old Church Slavonic morphology that stood at the level of modern knowledge.

Lithuanian studies

These works led him to the need to study the Lithuanian language, as Schleicher decided back in 1848. Having received an allowance from the Vienna Academy, after the publication of his “Formenlehre...”, Schleicher went to Lithuania in June. Arriving at the place, he began to practically study the Lithuanian language, and soon he could already speak it. Having mastered the language, he began to write down Lithuanian songs, fairy tales, riddles and other works of folk literature. In mid-October, with a rich supply of new materials and knowledge, he returned to Prague and began processing what he had collected. Already in June, Schleicher’s first work dedicated to the Lithuanian language appeared: “Lituanica” (“Sitzungsberichte” of the Vienna Academy) - a series of essays on the bibliography and grammar of the Lithuanian language, Lithuanian folklore, etc. But the main fruit of Schleicher’s linguistic journey was his famous “Handbuch der litauischen Sprache”, the first part of which (grammar) was published in the summer of 1855. It was followed by the second part (reader and dictionary, 1857). The scientific and accurate grammatical presentation of the features of the Lithuanian language and the abundance of new and fresh material from Lithuanian folk literature made Schleicher’s manual the primary and for a long time the only guide to the study of the said language, which did not lose its value for a long time.

Comparative linguistics

In between, Schleicher wrote a number of small articles, such as “Die Darwinsche Theorie und die Sprachwissenschaft” (), which contained an interesting (albeit unsuccessful) application of Darwin’s doctrine of the origin of species to explain the diversity of languages; “Über die Bedeutung der Sprache für die Naturgeschichte des Menschen” (), which served as a complement to the previous one; “Die Unterscheidung von Nomen und Verbum in der lautlichen Form” (), etc. In 1865, his publication of the works of the Lithuanian poet Donelaitis appeared (St. Petersburg publishing house of the Imperial Academy of Sciences) with the addition of a dictionary.

In the last years of his life, Schleicher published a number of small articles on the comparative grammar of Slavic languages in publications of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences: “A brief outline of the prehistoric life of the northeastern department of the Indo-Germanic languages” (“Notes of the Imperial Academy of Sciences”, vol. VIII, book 1,) ; “All-Slavic Dictionary” (vol. IX, book 2, ); “Themes of numeral names (cardinal and ordinal) in Lithuanian-Slavic and German languages” (vol. X, book 1, ); "Declination of stems into - at- in Slavic languages" (vol. XI, book 1,). His last major work was “Indogermanische Chrestomathie” (Weimar, 1869), which contained a number of texts in the main Indo-European languages and glossaries for them. It was compiled by Schleicher with the participation of his students A. Leskin, I. Schmidt and the famous celtologist G.V. Ebel, and was supposed to serve as a guide for beginning linguists practically studying Indo-European languages. After Schleicher’s death, a grammar of the extinct Polabian language, compiled by him on behalf of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences, was published: “Laut- und Formenlehre der Polabischen Sprache” (St. Petersburg, 1871). It was followed by a comparative grammar of Slavic languages, which remained unfinished.

Meaning

A great lover of the latter and especially botany, which he studied not only as an excellent practical gardener, but also scientifically (his microscopic preparations could do honor to a professional botanist), Schleicher also classified linguistics as a natural science, considering language the same organism as, for example, is a plant or an animal, and under the influence of Haeckel transferred Darwin’s then just emerging theory of the origin of species into the science of language in its entirety. The influence of the ideas of Darwinism explains both his imitation of natural scientific research methods and his love for the terms of this scientific field, transferred to linguistics: the “organism” of language, linguistic “families” and “branches”, the family tree... Schleicher’s botanical tastes were also reflected in his desire systematize, put the living diversity of the language into a few and, I must admit, rather wooden headings. Dogmatism, a certain mechanicalness and pedantry were undoubtedly inherent in Schleicher's mind and left their mark on his natural-historical way of understanding language, partly paralyzing the positive advantages of this latter.

Nevertheless, Schleicher had a major influence on the methodology of linguistics in the late 19th century. Schleicher's merits were also great in the development of the Baltic and Slavic languages. Having delivered completely new scientific material with his trip to Lithuania and giving for the first time a reliable guide to the study of such an important language in comparative linguistics as Lithuanian, Schleicher also contributed more than any of his contemporaries to the illumination of Slavic languages using the comparative grammatical method. With his “Compendium...” he completed an entire period in the history of comparative linguistics, summing up with it the final result of everything that was done then in science after F. Bopp. Lacking the genius of the latter, Schleicher surpassed him in systematicity and precision of mind, especially reflected in his development of comparative phonetics of Indo-European languages, and can rightfully be ranked among the main creators of new linguistics. A. Schleicher left behind many students (G. Curtius, A. Leskin, I. Schmidt, G. Schuchardt), who created their scientific works, discarding elements of primitive biologism and developing the most valuable ideas of their teacher.

Literature

S. K. Bulich. //

SCHLEICHER, AUGUST(Schleicher, August) (1821–1868), German linguist, representative of comparative historical linguistics. Born on February 19, 1821 in Meiningen in the family of a doctor. In 1840 he entered the University of Leipzig, and in 1841 he moved to the University of Tübigen. Two years later, leaving his studies in theology and philosophy, Schleicher moved to the University of Bonn, where he studied classical languages, Middle Eastern languages and Germanic dialectology. After graduating from the university in 1846, he worked as a private assistant professor, gradually including Slavic languages in his area of interest. During the revolutionary events of 1848–1849 in Europe, he was engaged in journalistic activities in a number of European capitals, primarily in Prague. In 1850–1857 extraordinary, and from 1853 ordinary professor at the German University of Prague. Since 1857 professor at the University of Jena. Since 1858, foreign corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Despite the relatively short period of Schleicher’s teaching career, I.A. Baudouin de Courtenay, A. Leskin, J. Schmidt, H. Schuchardt managed to be his students. Schleicher died in Jena on December 6, 1868.

In his works devoted to both Indo-European studies and general linguistics, Schleicher continued the work of the first generation of Indo-Europeanists: F. Bopp, J. Grimm, etc.; in general theoretical issues he was influenced by V. von Humboldt. Schleicher was influenced by advanced natural scientific ideas of that time, especially Darwinism. This influence was manifested both in the idea of language as a living organism going through the same stages of development, and in the transfer of Darwinian ideas about natural selection, the struggle for existence, etc. to the development of languages, i.e. in everything that was later called organismic metaphor. In this regard, Schleicher is considered as the brightest representative of naturalism in linguistics.

Following Humboldt, Schleicher tried to identify general patterns of language development, distinguishing linguistic stages. He, like Humboldt, understood the “prehistoric” period of linguistic development as a movement from simple to complex. According to Schleicher, the ancient Greek, Latin and Sanskrit languages, which had maximum morphological complexity, reached the greatest “maturity”. Schleicher, unlike Humboldt, considered the later historical period as a “regression” by analogy with the aging process of living organisms; this “regression” is reflected in the simplification of the morphology of modern Indo-European languages compared to the ancient ones. Schleicher's stadial ideas were rejected by subsequent developments of science.

Much more important for linguistics was the development of the comparative historical method in Schleicher's works. Schleicher actually developed the reconstruction method on which all subsequent comparative studies are based, and also for the first time clearly formulated the concept of the family tree, borrowed from biological taxonomy. According to it, the development of languages proceeds in only one way: languages and language groups can fragment and diverge, but cannot interbreed; This approach is generally preserved in modern linguistics, despite repeated attempts to revise it. In accordance with this concept, all related languages, in particular Indo-European languages, go back to a single proto-language. Schleicher was the first to clearly formulate the concept of an Indo-European proto-language (previously, it was often believed that Indo-European languages go back to Sanskrit) and, on the basis of regular correspondences between the languages known to us, made the first attempts to reconstruct it (he even believed that this language had been completely restored by him, and wrote a fable in it ).

Schleicher's great merit is also in the study of individual branches of the Indo-European family, especially the Germanic, Slavic and Baltic languages. Schleicher was the first to systematically study the Lithuanian language, as well as Lithuanian folklore.

Among Schleicher's main works: Lithuanian Language Guide (Handbuch der lituanischen Sprache, 1855); German (Die deutsche Sprache, 1860); Compendium of Comparative Grammar of Indo-European Languages (Compendium der vergleichenden Grammatik der indogermanischen Sprachen, 1861); Darwin's Theory and the Science of Language (Die Darwinische Theorie und die Sprachwissenschaft, 1863); The importance of language for the natural history of man (Über die Bedeutung der Sprache für die Naturgeschichte des Menschen, 1865); Indo-European anthology (Indogermanische Chrestomatie, 1869). Premature death prevented Schleicher from completing a comparative grammar of Slavic languages.

Schleicher's ideas were developed by representatives of neogrammatism, who, however, abandoned his theoretical constructs, focusing on working with specific material.