The Brothers Grimm

Not only Märchen: The
Brothers’ Work in Linguistics
KHM 108. Hans My Hedgehog
• What unpleasant detail is left out of the
beginning of the story?
• How does Hans spend his early childhood?
• What is Hans unable to do? How does this affect
the plot?
• What do you think of Hans? Is he a sympathetic
character? Why or why not?
KHM 113. The Two Kings‘ Children
• How is the prince supposed to die?
• What details sound suspicious to you? (i.e.
which details sound “sanitized”)
• Did elements of this story frustrate you? Why
or why not?
• Which other Grimm tales are similar?
KHM 111. The Expert Huntsman
• How does the huntsman become a huntsman?
Why might this strike one as noteworthy?
• Which other narratives are echoed in the
huntsman’s actions in the castle?
• Which of the “functions” did you notice in this
story?
“My inner inclinations, i.e. the studies
which I could embrace with passion and
love, stand somewhat in contradiction
to my exterior associations, family and
other relationships […] My chief
intention is to be useful to my dear
mother and my siblings, and I hope that
God will assist me in this.”
Kassel 1. Nov. 1806
– Jacob to Tante Lotte, June 1805
3 Phases of Work in Linguistics
1807-1816
•
•
•
•
Altdeutsche Wälder
(periodical, 18131816)
Kinder- und
Hausmärchen (1812)
Kassel
“[Grimm ist] noch in den
ersten Grundsätzen der
Sprachforschung ein
Fremdling […]” (Schlegel)
1816-1837
• Deutsche Sagen
(1816-1818)
• Deutsche
Grammatik (18191837)
• Kassel > Göttingen
(1830)
1837-1863
• Deutsches
Wörterbuch (18381863)
• Berlin
Kassel: living on Johannisstraße
• 1806 Jacob comes back from Paris > moves into
house in Kassel
– Takes a position in the Kriegskollegium (War Commission)
and in the Library
• 100 Thaler salary
– Published essays and a book about old German literature
– Mother died May, 1808
• 1808-1814 Jacob is King Jeromé’s personal
Librarian
Vienna, Paris again, then back to Kassel
• 1814/1815 Jacob attends
Vienna Congress (end of the
Napoleonic Wars)
– Jacob begins to study Slavic
languages: Czech and Serbian
• 1816 Jacob is the Elector’s
Librarian / Wilhelm
Assistant Librarian +
Secretary (for the next 14
years)
– Research grammar and Slavic
languages
Second Phase: Grammar
• Deutsche Sagen 1816/1818
• Deutsche Grammatik 1819
– Concerns itself primarily with a comparative study
of Germanic languages
– Deutsche Grammatik vol. II appears 1822:
Grimm’s Law explained
Are languages logical?
• Ja, natürlich! (rationalistic Linguistics: „old“)
– Antoine Arnauld / Claude Lancelot: grammaire
générale et raisonnée (1660)
– The words in a language represent something
• Jacob Grimm was skeptical:
“Ever since people began handling the German language grammatically, a good number of
books until Adelung* and from Adelung to today an almost larger number have been
published. Because I do not want to step in, but rather out of line with these, I must at the
outset explain why I hold the manner and conception of German grammars, especially
those that have been published and endorsed in the last half century, to be abject, indeed
asinine.” (Deutsche Grammatik Vol. 1, 1818 translation and emphasis mine)
*a famous Germanist 1732-1806
„…wie es eigentlich
gewesen ist“
• Linguistics is supposed to be
“a true history and not a
novel […], thus is must bring
forth languages not as they
could or should be, but
rather as they really are”
– Adelung, Umständliches
Lehrgebäude (1782)
Are languages logical?
• Ähm...maybe? (Romantic Linguistics: „new“)
– Origins + Comparisons (scientific)
• Johann Gottfried Herder, Über den Ursprung der Sprache
(1770)
• Friedrich Schlegel, Über die Sprache und Weisheit der Indier
(1808)
• Wilhelm von Humboldt, Über die Verschiedenheit des
menschlichen Sprachbaues und ihren Einfluss auf die geistige
Entwicklung des Menschengeschlechts (1836)
– Words are almost like biological beings: they develop
Indo-European?
• 1786 Sir William Jones (in India)
– Noticed similarity between Sanskrit, Greek and Latin
• 1816 Franz Bopp → „indogermanische Sprache“
– Rasmus Rask (Dänemark) → expanded the idea
• The idea of an Indo-European language comes
from the romantic aesthetic
The First Consonant Shift (Lautverschiebung)
Over time, the consonants (p, b, d, etc.) have changed. The change was not random. It was similar in all IndoEuropean languages.
Grimm’s Law
Example: “p” > “f” and “g” > “k”
Sanskrit
Latin
Greek
German
English
pad-
ped-
pod-
fuß
foot
ajras
ager
agros
Acker
acre
Jacob Grimm developed this idea from the work of Schlegel and Rask, but was the first
to systematically describe it.
(later) Historicism
• (History) Leopold von Ranke (1795-1886)
– German historian, founder of modern Historiography
– Tell history “wie es eigentlich gewesen [ist]”
• (Linguistics) August Schleicher
– Connects linguistics to the human (biological) development
– Alusion to Darwin: Stammbaumtheorie
Final Phase: the
Wörterbuch
• 1838 the brothers begin working
on a German dictionary
– „Belegwörterbuch“ (historical,
etymological)
• Both brothers worked on the
project, Jacob intensively
– Vol. 1 appeared 1854
– Vol. 2 in 1860
– Vol. 3 posthumously
• The project was finished in 1961
(32 Vols.)
Significance
• We seek to measure the magnitude of the loss
that has been visited upon us and we find: it is
immeasurable.”
– Wilhelm Scherer on the death of Jacob Grimm, 1863
• Jacob is “to thank for the constitution of German
philology as a science.”
– Ulrich Wyss, 1979
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